New “home office law package” in Hungary

After temporary solutions during the pandemic-related emergency situation the Parliament has finally settled the topic of working from home.

The Parliament has adopted a bill amending the Labor Code, the Labor Protection Act, and the Personal Income Tax Act.

The updated rules on teleworking in the Labor Code will cover both full-time and part-time work from home. According to the law, a regular home office will still require the parties to conclude a so-called “telework contract”. However, the law is more permissive on the content of this, as it only regulates this form of employment as a background law and allows derogations.

In the case of teleworking, the employee may – as a general rule – work only on one-third of working days in the office. The employee may only receive instructions from the employer about the tasks to be performed, but not on the way in which they need to be carried out. The employer may monitor work remotely, via digital tools. The parties may derogate from these rules by mutual agreement in the telework contract. It is important to highlight that the home office will still not automatically mean flexible working hours – but it is possible to stipulate this in the contract.

The Labor Protection Act will distinguish between telework carried out with a computer and telework carried out with other tools. In the case of the former, the employee may choose the workplace individually, taking into account the health and safety requirements set by the employer. The employee may also work with their own work equipment if it has been examined and deemed suitable by the employer via a prior risk assessment.

With regard to teleworking with their own working equipment, in their own home and using their own resources (heating, electricity, Internet etc.), the Personal Income Tax Act has been extended to include a new form of payment which is exempt from personal income tax: the so-called “lump sum cost reimbursement”. Employees, however, are not automatically entitled to receive this amount, as it is payable at the discretion of the employer, up to a maximum of HUF 20 000 (approx. EUR 55) gross monthly in 2022.

The date of entry into force of the changes is still unknown, as the legislator has linked this to the date of the end of the state of emergency.

In order to ensure the correct interpretation of the new rules and to establish clear, transparent company practice, it is advisable to prepare for the changes now – in the most obvious way by creating a company home office policy.

Source: Act CXXX of 2021, Act I of 2012, Act XCIII of 1993, Act CXVII of 1995

Subscribe to our newsletter

By pressing Subscribe you consent to our data processing terms