Your first 90 days: Hungary

Temporary protection (menedékes) is for Ukrainian nationals who lived in Ukraine before 24 February 2022, for their family members, and for stateless people and foreign nationals who held international protection in Ukraine before that same date. The oblast you come from does not affect the status itself: Hungary’s list of “war-affected areas” restricts state-funded housing, not status, and Zakarpattia is not on that list. Hungarian citizens, including dual Ukrainian-Hungarian citizens, cannot apply for menedékes, because they already hold a citizen’s rights.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

Temporary protection is not granted automatically: you must lodge the application in person, and nobody can do it for you. Until you have, you are in Hungary as a tourist — with no right to work, no healthcare cover and no allowance. Children you are claiming for must come with you, fingerprints are taken from the age of 14, and the decision is due within 55 days.

There is no deadline for the status itself. But to keep a right to state-funded housing, apply within 30 days of entering Hungary.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

What to bring

Your passport, or if you have none, any other document that proves your identity: an internal ID, a driving licence, a birth certificate. For relatives, birth or marriage certificates proving the relationship.

This card (humanitárius tartózkodási engedély) is issued on the spot when you lodge the application, and it is what proves you are lawfully in Hungary while the case is decided. With it you may already work and be treated — you do not have to wait for the temporary protection card. Without it, an employer or a doctor has nothing to show that you are in the system.

The permit is valid for 60 days. If your temporary protection card has not arrived by then, ask for an extension at the nearest client service office.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

Ticking “no address” on the application is not enough: accommodation is requested separately and at a different office, and people have been turned away for not knowing that. For the first 30 days after your card arrives, a bed and meals are given to everyone. After that, housing stays only with people who are both from a region on the government list and in a vulnerable group: children, a parent living with a minor child, pregnant women, people with disabilities and their carers, people over 65.

A state-funded bed and meals last 30 days from the day you received your temporary protection card.

Where to go

Kormányhivatal

What to bring

An identity document and your humanitarian permit or temporary protection card. You will also need evidence of your Ukrainian address — it is checked against the government’s list of regions.

Your temporary protection card is posted to the address you gave, and if you cannot be found there it goes back to the office and you have to collect it in person. A stale address also breaks the monthly allowance — this happens to people every time they move. People with menedékes status normally do not get a Hungarian address card (lakcímkártya): instead you ask the authority for an accommodation certification, and that is what an employer asks for.

Immediately, as soon as the address changes.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

What to bring

Your temporary protection card (menedékes kártya) or your humanitarian residence permit.

The right to work begins on the day you lodge the application, not the day your card arrives, and it is not limited by sector. Many people wait months for the card before looking for work — they do not need to. There is no separate permit: the employer carries the paperwork, checks your document on or before your first day and notifies the authorities when the job starts and ends. Only public service is closed to you, because it requires Hungarian citizenship.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

What to bring

Your humanitarian residence permit or temporary protection card. The minimum age for this route is 16.

An unemployed person with menedékes status cannot obtain a social security number (TAJ szám) and does not need one: the number on your temporary protection card is enough for a doctor to treat you, and a TAJ is arranged only once you are employed. Ask your GP (háziorvos) to set up a technical identifier for you so that your patient record and electronic prescriptions work. In practice the rule is often unknown and care is refused, so carry a printout of it and ask for an interpreter or for help from an organisation that works with displaced people.

Where to go

Nemzeti Egészségbiztosítási Alapkezelő (NEAK)

What to bring

Your temporary protection card (menedékes kártya) or your humanitarian residence permit.

There is no separate written decision in this procedure: the plastic card (menedékes kártya) is the decision, and it is posted to your address or handed over at the office where you applied. It is the only document that unlocks the monthly cash allowance. The printed expiry may be an old date: validity was extended by law to 4 March 2027 and the cards themselves were never reissued.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

What to bring

An identity document, if you are collecting the card in person.

This is the only regular cash support the Hungarian state pays: HUF 22,800 a month per adult and HUF 13,700 per child. To receive it you must appear in person at the government office (Kormányhivatal) every single month — a missed month is not paid — and, before the first payment, register there as a person who can be employed and keep cooperating with the office. Delays and non-payment are constant, most often after a move, so keep your address current and keep every piece of paper.

Within 45 days of your first regular payment you must accept a suitable job offer, public employment included, or lose the allowance. Exceptions: you already have a Hungarian employer who can prove it, you care for a child under 3, or you are in full-time education and under 18.

Where to go

Kormányhivatal

What to bring

Your temporary protection card (menedékes kártya). Nothing here works without it.

This is the personal tax number without which nobody can pay you a salary lawfully: the employer must be given it before the money is transferred. You apply on form T34 — by post, in person at a NAV customer service office, or electronically; the employer may also apply on your behalf, so ask them first. The first issue is free and the tax card is posted within 15 days.

Before your first income is paid out. The law sets no calendar date — the deadline is your first payday.

Where to go

Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal (NAV)

What to bring

An identity document: a passport, an identity card, or a card-format driving licence.

State housing runs out after 30 days, and after that there are three routes: private rental, a room arranged by your employer, or a place with a charity. The state housing allowance is claimed by the employer, not by you: you must work at least 20 hours a week on a contract, and the employer must sign an accommodation contract and pay the accommodation fee first. If you have a child under 16, the allowance depends on that child attending school and the school certifying it.

Where to go

Kormányhivatal

What to bring

An employment contract, your temporary protection card and an accommodation contract. The employer gathers these, but nothing works without your contract.

In Hungary this is not only the child’s right but the parent’s legal duty, and Ukrainian online schooling does not discharge it. Go first to the kindergarten or school for your catchment area, and if there is no capacity, to the educational district centre (tankerületi központ). For the first six months after enrolment school meals are free, as are textbooks and Hungarian-language materials, and Ukrainian and Hungarian studies are recognised in both directions.

Kindergarten is compulsory from the school year following the child turning 3 by 31 August, for at least 4 hours a day. School starts in the year the child turns 6 by 31 August and runs to the end of the school year in which they turn 16.

Where to go

Tankerületi központ

What to bring

The child’s birth certificate and identity document, your own document and temporary protection card, vaccination records, previous school certificates and proof of where you live.

Card validity was extended by law to 4 March 2027, but the cards themselves were never reissued, so they carry an old date. Hospitals, pharmacies, employers and offices read that date and refuse service, saying they have received no official notice of the extension. A certificate from the immigration authority ends the argument — get it before you need it, not after somebody has already turned you away.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

What to bring

Your temporary protection card (menedékes kártya). Nothing here works without it.

This is the hardest 90-day deadline in the Hungarian rules, and nothing will remind you of it. After the first 30 days, state housing stays only with people who are both from a region on the government list and in a vulnerable group, and it has to be asked for — it does not arrive on its own. There is no longer any discretionary route for people outside those conditions: if your region is not on the list, plan for private rental, an employer’s room or a charity.

Within 90 days of being granted temporary protection, or within 90 days of the onset of your vulnerability — from becoming pregnant, for example.

Where to go

Kormányhivatal

What to bring

Your temporary protection card, evidence of your Ukrainian address in a listed region, and evidence of vulnerability: pregnancy, disability, age, or care of a minor child.

The immigration authority states it in one sentence: a person with menedékes status cannot be a sole trader (egyéni vállalkozó) and cannot found a company. This is a bar attached to the status, not a paperwork problem, so no certificate and no online account gets around it. The sole trader act allows the form only to certain categories of foreigner, and menedékes is not among them: working for yourself becomes possible only after moving to a different residence permit, and what that takes is a question to put to the authority separately.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

The moment you have income in Hungary, tax deadlines start to apply, and a missed one costs a penalty. The dates for the current year are collected in our tax calendar, which also shows what has to be filed. The official source is the National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV), and in a dispute its answer is the right one, not ours.

Where to go

Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal (NAV)

Hungary’s social assistance and child protection acts do not apply to people with menedékes status: family benefits, including the allowance for a child with a disability, do not come with this status, and everything you are entitled to runs through the asylum system instead. There are two exceptions. The maternity allowance (anyasági támogatás), for any woman lawfully living in Hungary who attended antenatal care at least four times during the pregnancy. And the childcare allowance, for parents who work in Hungary if the child was born after 31 December 2023.

Where to go

Kormányhivatal

On paper, once your status is recognised you are entitled to 520 hours of free Hungarian lessons within 24 months, at an institution designated by the immigration authority. In practice the authority has designated no institution, and at the moment nobody can actually use the right. Language is the single biggest obstacle at the hospital, the school and the workplace, so look for courses run by NGOs and municipalities — and for a translator or a lawyer, use our catalogue.

Where to go

Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság (OIF)

For health professionals with a Ukrainian qualification there is a separate rule: you may work in your profession before the qualification is recognised, and this route does not depend on which residence permit you hold. But the recognition application must be made no later than the day you start working — that is not a formality, it is the condition the rule is built on. Other professions go through the general recognition procedure, and it is worth asking about it early, because a regulated profession is closed without it.

No later than the day you commence the health care activity.

Where to go

Oktatási Hivatal — Magyar Ekvivalencia és Információs Központ