An English note on the Hungarian draft
The Finance Ministry published the text for public comment on 6 October 2026. The comment period ran until 14 October 2026. The draft’s own justification says the government has not discussed the text, so this is not the government’s adopted position. Hungary has no general net wealth tax in force. The 3.9 is a forecast from taxes that have already run elsewhere, on the same four questions used for those countries.
These points are the published consultation text of 6 October 2026. A later statute can still change them. The full Hungarian explainer, with the country record and the public reactions, is at vagyonado.hirtalalo.com.
A short sum. Net wealth of 3 billion forint leaves a base of 2 billion. The tax is 1% of 2 billion, which is 20 million forint. Net wealth of 201 billion leaves a base of 200 billion: 1% of the first 100 billion, plus 1.5% of the next 100 billion, which is 2.5 billion forint.
The Hungarian page scores each country’s wealth tax on four questions, each from 0 to 25. Add the four marks and divide by 10. A score of 7 or above is “It worked”. A score of 5 or above, and below 7, is “Mixed”. Below 5 is “Weak”. Hungary is scored with that same arithmetic. No Hungarian wealth-tax year has been collected, so the marks are a forecast, read off taxes that have already run.
Weak. The four marks are 8 + 12 + 12 + 7. The points leave the political aim out. They ask whether a tax built like this one has lasted and raised the money its authors expected.
The same scale gives Switzerland 8.8 and Norway 6.6, both taxes that are still collected. France, after it narrowed the tax to real estate, is 3.6. Spain is 4.0. Those country cards, and the charts behind them, stay on the Hungarian page.
The impact sheet says the tax would improve the budget by 800 billion forint, from about 15,000 individuals and 2,000 asset-holding vehicles. The statistical office’s second estimate puts 2025 GDP at 87,308 billion forint, so 800 billion is 0.9% of that GDP. That 0.9% is the ministry’s claim. It is not a collected result, and it is not drawn on the chart of taxes that were actually raised.
A take of 0.9% of GDP would be in Switzerland’s range. Switzerland raises 1.19% of GDP, the 2022 figure, with a low rate and a wide base. This draft asks 1% to 1.5% from a small number of people. France and Spain raised around 0.2% of GDP from that narrow, high-rate shape. Colombia, at a similar rate, raised about 0.3%, and about a fifth of the expected money was lost because taxpayers reacted. Real revenue can arrive. Eight hundred billion forint is far above what similar taxes have yielded.
The threshold is written for outstanding wealth, and the text tries to close a hole that Sweden opened: an unlisted company is not exempt, and the allowance for asset-holding vehicles cannot be multiplied. The open gap is valuation. Germany stopped collecting its wealth tax because real estate and financial wealth were not valued on the same footing. Here a building can be a registry value, a tax-office model or an expert’s figure, and a company is a formula from the accounts. The impact sheet says the tax office’s real-estate model is still being built.
On Scandinavian tax records, a top rate one percentage point higher comes with about 2% fewer wealthy taxpayers on the books. Employment is 0.02% lower, investment 0.07% lower, and value added 0.10% lower. That is Jakobsen, Kleven, Kolsrud, Landais and Munoz, American Economic Review, 2026. In Norway, after the charge on business wealth nearly doubled from 2021 to 2024, at most about a hundred people left, and the firms’ investment did not fall in the short run. Revenue rose 71.5% where a no-departure path would have risen 75%. Departure took about a twentieth of the expected extra. That is Marius Ring, 2026.
The country moves little. The owner moves a lot. A 1% wealth tax is a quarter of a 4% return, and Hungary also taxes capital income at 15% personal income tax. Switzerland’s wealth tax stands where a capital-gains tax would. The impact sheet itself says the Hungarian tax may push dividends up and may touch investment.
The European wealth taxes that are still collected use a low rate and a wide base. Rich countries narrowed or repealed the high-rate version paid by few people. This draft is in that second group. There is still no adopted Hungarian statute.
