Hungarians are in debt

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 03. 25. 11:02

In January 2025, the domestic credit market reached a historic milestone: the average amount per contract of newly concluded personal loan contracts exceeded 3 million forints for the first time, according to the latest statistics from the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). The total value of the 23,800 contracts concluded in January was 74 billion forints, which means an average of 3.11 million forints – writes Index.

The average loan amount has been increasing continuously in recent years: in 2019 it was only 1.79 million forints, in 2023 it was 2.13 million, while in 2024 we were already at nearly 2.7 million forints. According to experts, the increase is the logical consequence of several mutually reinforcing factors:

Popular loan purposes such as buying a car or renovating a home have become significantly more expensive.

Real wages have been increasing for years, and the amount of credit available has also increased in parallel.

Banks are offering increasingly higher credit ceilings: 10–12 million forints is almost standard, but there are financial institutions where you can apply for up to 15 million.

“Hungarian households are becoming more and more courageous when taking out personal loans. The main drivers are price increases, higher incomes and simplified administration,”

Péter Gergely, financial expert at BiztosDöntés.hu, told Index.