EFO changes 2026: the 120-day ceiling could cause serious headaches for casual workers

Employment for a long time offered a flexible solution for casual and seasonal work, especially in retail, tourism and hospitality, construction, event planning, logistics and seasonally growing service areas. However, the rules in force from 2026 set stricter limits for this form of employment: daily public charges are increasing, and the annual upper limit for casual work has been set at 120 days, which must be calculated per employee. In practice, this means that a worker can reach the annual limit even if he or she takes on several smaller jobs for different companies. A new element is that the annual limit for seasonal agricultural work has been expanded to 210 days, but a higher public charge must be paid for periods exceeding 120 days. “It is important to know that if the employee also undertakes casual work for just a few days in addition to seasonal agricultural work – i.e. combines the two types – the combined 120-day limit will still apply. Due to the legal ceiling, work can easily be interrupted during the year, which can especially affect those who have supplemented their income from several different types of casual work”

– emphasizes Róbert Göbl, head of the Humán Centrum group of companies.

Casual work with EFO: strict time limits require serious planning

An employee can be employed for casual work for a maximum of 5 consecutive calendar days, a total of 15 days within a month, and a maximum of 120 days within a calendar year, even if he works for several different employers. Employers who plan to work with the same team for a longer period of time must pay special attention to compliance with the annual time limit during the post-season. An additional difficulty is that EFO entails a daily reporting obligation, so a missed or delayed administration can result in a serious labor fine. “This can often lead to employers signing contracts for shorter periods and more frequent turnover in EFO jobs, which increases recruitment and training costs. All of this can also mean uncertainty for employees,” adds the HR expert.

Alternative to EFO: student and pensioner cooperative employment in the spotlight

According to the expert, due to the changes affecting EFO, employing students and pensioners through cooperatives may increasingly be an alternative. “Employers are increasingly realizing that it is not worth ‘laying off’ employees if students or pensioners can also perform the given task. In the case of EFO, employers have to pay the public transport ticket even if the work is only for 4 or 6 hours, while students and pensioners employed through a cooperative only have to be paid for the hours worked,” emphasizes Róbert Göbl.

The peculiarity of the cooperative form is that – unlike a classic employment relationship – the 18.5 percent social security contribution is not deducted from the employee’s gross salary, and the employer is not charged the 13 percent social contribution tax. However, unlike the EFO, the cooperative form does not have a time limit of 5, 15 or 120 days, and there is no limit on the number of employees, while a significant part of the administration – including HR and payroll tasks – is typically undertaken by the cooperative.

In Hungary, more than 150 thousand students take up employment every year, of which more than 10 thousand students work through the Mind-Diák Szövetkezet alone. A similar increase can be observed in the employment of pensioners: data from the Central Statistical Office and pensioner cooperatives s