The Increase of Fuel’ Excise Taxes May Be Postponed

The Minister of National Economy has recently announced that the increase in fuel excise taxes, originally planned for January 2026, will be postponed for six months.

The increase would have been introduced as part of the inflation-tracking tax increase mechanism introduced last year, according to which the excise tax rate increases at the beginning of each year by the inflation rate in July of the previous year. 

In July 2025, inflation was 4.3%, which would have meant an increase of nine forints per litre for petrol and eight forints per litre for gas oil. In other words, the price of petrol would have risen to 210 forints per litre and that of gas oil to 197 forints per litre.

However, the Hungarian petrol and gas oil prices are in line with the regional average, but the tax content of petrol is by far the lowest in Hungary, according to data released by the European Commission. The minister also mentioned that the budgetary impact of the measure could be 10-15 billion forints, meaning that by postponing the tax increase, the state will have to reckon with this amount less in revenue.