New supplementary decree to the ESG Act

As of 20 June 2025, the Hungarian ESG Act was amended once again. By amending the transitional provisions of the ESG Act, the amendment provided further relief to enterprises in terms of their sustainability due diligence obligations for the 2024-2026 financial years, thereby reducing the burden on enterprises subject to the ESG Act.

The ESG Act is accompanied by several decrees containing detailed rules on the obligations set out in the ESG Act. The ESG Act already stipulated that breaches of certain obligations could be subject to fines imposed by the authority (Supervisory Authority for Regulatory Affairs (abbreviated in Hungarian: SZTFH)), but the amount of the fines that could be imposed, except for procedural fines, was not specified, even in the decrees containing the detailed rules. On 15 July 2025, the Ministry of National Economy published for public consultation a draft decree determining the amount of fines that may be imposed for breaches of the obligations set out in the ESG Act.

The aim of the draft is to provide clear rules and procedures for those affected by the ESG framework in order to encourage compliance and to contribute to the achievement of sustainability goals by regulating in detail the amount and determination of fines applicable in the event of non-compliance.

The minimum and maximum fines for breaches of individual obligations are specified in the annexe. The most significant fines can be HUF 50 million, which may be imposed, for example, in the case of data requests made without authorisation or with content that differs from the authorisation. In the event of multiple infringements, the maximum fine that may be imposed is the sum of the maximum fines for each individual infringement. The fine imposed shall be paid within 8 days of the Authority’s decision becoming final.

Most of the amendments would enter into force on the sixteenth day after publication of the final decree. From 1 January 2026, the decree will be supplemented with new breaches of obligations subject to fines. Such a breach of obligation includes, for example, a breach of the obligation to provide training programs for direct suppliers in accordance with the legislation. The content of the proposal may change as a result of the opinions received during the public consultation, which lasted until 23 July 2025.