How do people in Hungary pay online?
Most Hungarians shop online. Eurostat puts the share of people who bought something online in the previous 12 months at 67.68% in 2025, against an EU average of 73.56%. PwC Hungary put e-commerce at HUF 2,092 billion in 2025 including purchases from foreign sellers, of which about HUF 1,717 billion went to merchants registered in Hungary. Nominal growth was 7.4%, or about 2.9% after inflation.
Cards are the base. The central bank, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), counted 588 million purchases worth HUF 6.8 trillion with cards issued by Hungarian providers in the second quarter of 2026, up 10.3% in number and 16.8% in value on a year earlier. At the end of June there were 89,000 online card acceptance points and 13.2 million payment cards; the MNB notes that a large new market entrant makes the acceptance figures only partly comparable with earlier quarters. Foreign card purchases, including top-ups of fintech accounts, made up almost a quarter of card purchase value. By the end of March 2026, 30.9% of cards were registered in a mobile wallet such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
qvik is the local account-to-account option. It is the MNB’s brand for payments over the Hungarian instant payment system, started by link, QR code, NFC or a payment request that the shopper approves in their banking app. In the second quarter of 2026, 4.6 million qvik payments worth HUF 1,144 billion were made. Payment requests carried 91.2% of the value, and link, QR and NFC payments made up 47.4% of the number.
What rules shape online payments in Hungary?
VAT is 27%, with reduced rates of 18% and 5% for listed goods and services. A seller established in another EU country whose cross-border sales to consumers across the EU pass EUR 10,000 a year charges Hungarian VAT on sales to Hungarian customers, and can declare it through the One Stop Shop. Hungarian taxpayers report invoices to the tax authority in real time, and since 4 January 2021 this has, with a few exceptions, included invoices to private individuals.
Payments are taxed. Hungary levies a financial transaction tax of 0.45% per transaction, capped at HUF 20,000, on payment service providers, and it covers card payments. Merchants should expect it to show up in provider pricing.
Shoppers have 14 days to withdraw. As across the EU, a consumer who buys online can cancel within 14 days of delivery without giving a reason. Since 19 June 2026, web shops selling to Hungarian consumers, Hungarian or foreign, must offer a clearly visible online withdrawal function and send an automatic confirmation when a withdrawal arrives, under the EU’s Directive 2023/2673.
Payments follow EU rules. Online card payments over EUR 30 generally need strong customer authentication with two separate factors, and traders cannot charge a fee for paying with a consumer debit or credit card issued in the EU. Under the EU Instant Payments Regulation, banks outside the euro area must be able to receive instant euro transfers by 9 January 2027 and send them, with verification of the payee, by 9 July 2027.
How would Omno route payments in Hungary?
A merchant would connect once and set routing rules per method, currency, amount and customer group. In Hungary:
- Card pay-ins would be routed by rules on card type, issuing country and amount, and if a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment would move to the next provider in the rule until one accepts.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay would sit on the hosted checkout next to the card form, following the same card routing rules.
- qvik pay-ins would go to a provider that offers qvik, with the hosted checkout showing a link or QR code and the order pending until the bank confirms.
Webhooks would report the final status of every payment, the record a back office should trust before shipping an order, and the routing-decision log would show which provider handled each payment and why.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for cards and phone wallets first. Cards are the base of Hungarian payments, and almost a third of Hungarian cards already sit in a mobile wallet.
Plan for qvik as a second method. It lets shoppers pay from their bank account in HUF without typing card details, and its volumes are growing quarter on quarter.
Plan for tax and reporting. Prices need the 27% VAT rate, Hungarian entities report invoices in real time, and provider fees may reflect the financial transaction tax.
Plan for the withdrawal button. Every checkout that sells under the 14-day withdrawal right needs a visible online withdrawal function and an automatic confirmation.