The combination of the minimum wage increase and the health fund could cost hundreds of thousands of people with mortgages this year

The year 2026 brought significant changes to the lives of employees and mortgage holders: the gross minimum wage increased to 322,800 HUF. This increase automatically brought with it a little-known, but more effective form of state support: the loan repayment subsidy available through health funds. According to the current legislation, fund members can request up to 15 percent of the current minimum wage to be paid out of their fund account as a self-help service.

In practice, this means that in 2026 the monthly limit has increased to 48,420 forints.

“Many people still only use their health insurance funds for medicine or private medical examinations, even though home loan repayment is one of the most effective ways to maximize tax refunds,” points out Péter Gergely, financial expert at BiztosDöntés.hu. “In the case of a 20-year loan, this method can save a family several million forints overall.”

This affects more and more people, as in recent months a real rush has begun on the credit market: According to the latest data from the Hungarian National Bank, in November – surpassing the historical peak in October – another record was broken and the amount of new home loan contracts rose to 274 billion forints. This is clearly due to the explosion of the Otthon Start loan, which accounted for more than 70 percent of the total placement. One of the most important issues for borrowers now is the optimization of repayment installments, in which health funds provide the greatest help.

This option offers outstanding advantages, especially for married couples – emphasizes the expert. If both parties are listed as debtors or co-debtors in the housing loan, and both have their own health fund accounts, the limit can be doubled. Thus, the family can pay 96,840 forints monthly and more than 1.1 million forints annually from their cash payments to the bank.

In this case, the family’s total tax refund reaches 232,416 forints. The amount of help this provides is clearly shown by the example of an average loan amount: in the case of a Otthon Start hitet of 25-30 million forints, the monthly repayment is typically around 116-140 thousand forints. The tax refund received can therefore cover up to one and a half to two full monthly repayments.

The flexibility of the system is further increased by the fact that the