Meal vouchers in Europe SZEP card rules in Hungary in 2026
SZEP card rules in Hungary in 2026
Hungary does not have a meal voucher. It has a recreation card, and the food a SZEP card may buy has changed twice inside five months by government regulation. That makes Hungary the clearest argument on this site for acceptance rules that can be changed on a date rather than built into a product.
What the card is
The SZEP card is a tax advantaged fringe benefit covering accommodation, catering and leisure. It is not a food specific instrument, so an employer using it to support meals is spending a general recreation allowance on hospitality rather than running a meal benefit.
| 2026 limit | What it covers | |
|---|---|---|
| General | 450 000 HUF a year | Accommodation, catering, leisure |
| Active Hungarians | 120 000 HUF a year, max 10 000 a month | Sport and active recreation only |
| Total | 570 000 HUF a year |
Within the annual limit the employer pays a flat 28 percent, made up of 15 percent personal income tax and 13 percent social contribution tax, and the employee receives the full value with nothing deducted. Above the limit the rate rises to 33.04 percent under the other specific benefit category, so the ceiling is a real boundary rather than a guideline.
One further condition applies to the Active Hungarians pocket. In the second half of the year an employer may keep transferring to it only once the employee has declared that they used at least 80 percent of the benefits received in the previous six months.
The acceptance scope moved twice in five months
Hot food has always been in scope and has no time limit. Restaurants, canteens, workplace catering, fast food outlets and delivery services such as Wolt and Foodora all accept the card.
Cold food in supermarkets is a different story. A government regulation allowed it from 1 December 2025, and the option ended on 30 April 2026, restoring the original rules. During those five months the basket could include meat, dairy, vegetables, fruit, baked goods, coffee, tea and basic dry goods, and the card was accepted by Tesco, Spar, Interspar, Auchan, Lidl, Aldi and Penny, along with some CBA, Prima and Real stores.
From 1 May 2026 the balance cannot be used for cold food in shops at all. It works only at hot kitchen catering establishments.
Nothing about the card changed on either date. The same plastic, the same balance, the same merchants. What changed was the rule about which merchants were permitted, and it changed by regulation with a fixed start and a fixed end. A programme that encodes its acceptance scope into the product, rather than into a rule it can edit, would have needed two releases in five months and would have been wrong in the gap.
Why this matters beyond Hungary
The Hungarian episode is a compressed version of something happening slowly everywhere else. France lets any food product be bought with a titre-restaurant under a derogation that expires at the end of 2026. Luxembourg widened its scope from meals to foodstuffs in 2024. Italy is under a competition investigation that could change market terms.
Acceptance scope is not a fixed property of a benefit. It is a policy setting that moves, and the countries differ mainly in how fast. Hungary moved it inside a single winter.
Who issues the card
SZEP cards are issued by banks under a regulated scheme rather than by benefit companies competing on a register. That makes Hungary structurally different from Romania or Italy, where a specialist issuer holds the authorisation.
For a technology supplier the practical consequence is that the counterparty is a bank with its own card infrastructure, and the opening is narrower than in a market served by benefit specialists.
The currency question
Hungary is outside the euro area and every limit is expressed in forint. A euro denominated card converts on each purchase, which is visible to the employee and awkward against a benefit quoted in forint, exactly as in Czechia, Poland and Romania. A Hungarian programme wants a forint card, and that is a question about the issuing partner rather than about local law.
Hungary compared
| Hungary | Romania | Czechia | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is it a meal benefit | No, a recreation card | Yes | Yes |
| Limit | 570 000 HUF a year | 45 RON a day | Around 235 CZK a day |
| Who issues | Banks under a regulated scheme | Ministry of Finance authorisation | Anyone |
| Tax | 28 percent paid by the employer | 10 percent income tax plus 10 percent health | Exempt within the ceiling |
| Acceptance scope | Changed twice in five months | Stable | Stable |
Hungary is the least conventional market on this site. The benefit is not about meals, the issuers are banks, and the rules move faster than anywhere else. It belongs here because it is large, because employers use it for food, and because it demonstrates the product requirement better than any market with settled rules could.
Every dated change across Europe sits on the calendar. For the mechanics of restricted acceptance, see how a meal voucher card works.