Hungary has 901,708 active enterprises. Foreign-controlled firms number 15,888 of them, which is 1.8%. Those 15,888 produce 40.3% of the country's value added.

I read that twice and then opened a different table to see whether it held. It did. Employment comes to 747,560 people, or 23.0%, and turnover to 48.0%.

Four tables

The Hungarian Central Statistical Office publishes each measure separately. Collected in one place:

Measure Foreign-controlled share Year Table
Enterprises 1.8% (15,888) 2023 9.1.1.21
Turnover 48.0% 2023 9.1.1.22
Value added 40.3% 2024 provisional 9.1.1.24
Employment 23.0% (747,560) 2024 provisional 9.1.1.25

The mixed reference years are not a typo. HCSO updates these at different speeds, so value added and employment already have provisional 2024 figures while turnover stops at 2023. Which means you cannot divide one of these numbers by another. They do not describe the same year.

One figure worth warning about. Secondary summaries circulate "production value 52.2%". Open the HCSO table and the measure sitting in that place is turnover, at 48.0%. Production value and turnover are different lines, so the label is worth checking before the number gets copied.

Manufacturing on its own

Foreign-controlled share of the Hungarian economy Foreign-controlled share of the Hungarian economy 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Enterprises 1.8% 3.8% Employment 23.0% 51.3% Value added 40.3% 63.7% Turnover 48.0% 72.0% Whole economy Manufacturing
HCSO (KSH). Enterprise count and turnover are 2023; value added and employment are 2024 preliminary. The reference years differ by measure, so these figures cannot be divided into one another.

The concentration gets sharper. Of 56,369 manufacturing firms, 2,127 are foreign-controlled, or 3.8%. That 3.8% accounts for 63.7% of value added, 51.3% of employment and 72.0% of turnover.

Roughly one in two people working in Hungarian manufacturing works for a foreign-owned company.

By country of origin, Germany dominates: 30.5% of foreign-controlled value added and 233,275 employees. The United States follows at 14.5%, South Korea at 7.0%. Company-level employment and investment figures could not be verified, so none appear here.

Where the exchange rate comes in

A foreign-owned plant manufactures in Hungary and sells into the eurozone. The receipts arrive in euros. That is most of the reason a net energy importer runs a current account surplus at all, and in 2024 that surplus was 2.2% of GDP.

How much of those exports is foreign-owned is not something I can state. The HCSO tables carry turnover and value added but no export-based share, at least none I could source. The manufacturing figures make it near certain the export share is higher still, and near certain is not a number.

The same companies move money the other way. Profits earned by a Hungarian subsidiary belong to the parent. Whether they leave as dividends or are booked as reinvested earnings, the balance of payments records them as income going out, which is why the primary income balance is persistently negative.

So the 2.2% surplus is not a measure of how much Hungary earned. It is what survives after a large inflow meets a large outflow. Residuals are thin by nature.

Direction, not size

The direction is as described. The size is not something I can give, and the reason matters.

Within the primary income deficit, dividends and reinvested earnings behave differently. A dividend is paid by actually selling forint and buying euro on the market. Reinvested earnings are an accounting entry and never touch the market. The balance of payments records both as outflows, but only the first is something the exchange rate feels.

That split is not in the MNB's published data, or at least I did not find it. So this piece describes the structure and stops short of putting a number on the effect.

It never makes the news

Everything in the July report had a date attached. The 12 April election, the EU funds announcement on 29 May, the 21 July rate cut. The market moves that day and moves on.

Income outflows do not arrive that way. Dividends are resolved in spring and remitted unevenly after that. There is no headline. You find out when the quarterly statistics appear, which is also why this factor is absent from the scenario table in that report, built as it is from milestones, rate decisions and oil.

What to watch

  1. Early September, when the MNB publishes the second-quarter balance of payments
  2. Whether the spring dividend season leaves a seasonal mark on the exchange rate
  3. The point at which HCSO turns the 2024 provisional figures into final ones, and how far they move

How to read the current account surplus

None of this is written as a complaint. Foreign capital built plants and generated exports, and taking the profits is the arrangement it came for.

For reading the exchange rate, though, treating the current account surplus as evidence that Hungary earned well gets it wrong. It is the residual of two large opposing flows, and residuals move easily.

The HUF Strength Index on this site records how that shows up in the rate. It does not look ahead. How the number is built is on the methodology page.

Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any currency or asset.

Sources

Company statistics were read directly from the HCSO STADAT tables. The table numbers are in the body so the same tables can be found again. Last updated 13 February 2026.