Hungarian postal workers can expected a larger wage hike - EcoMin

Magyar Posta, the Hungarian postal service, has amended its two-year agreement with the Postal Workers' Union.

Instead of the originally planned 7% increase for the whole year, there will now be a 7% increase from 1 January and a further 3% increase from 1 July,

the Economy Minister, Márton Nagy, announced on his Facebook page on Thursday.

In his post, Márton Nagy recalls that:

• In December 2025, a one-off gross payment of HUF 100,000 was made, and an additional gross payment of HUF 150,000 will be made to postal workers in March 2026 in recognition of their performance.
• Fringe benefits will also increase, with the cafeteria allowance rising from HUF 360,000 to HUF 420,000.
• Adjustments resulting from the increase in the minimum wage and the guaranteed wage minimum have already been made, and the retroactive portion of the 7% wage increase will be paid alongside the February wages.

In Hungary, fringe benefits or non-salary compensation are regularly referred to as 'cafeteria', which should not be mixed up with a self-service restaurant. The various fringe benefits or cafeteria elements, which often involve targeted spending, are taxed differently from regular salary, where the employer pays social contribution tax on the gross salary, while the employee pays personal income tax and social security contribution. Instead, the employee receives net benefits, while the employer pays more taxes. However, the tax content of the fringe benefits is lower than the tax content of regular employment costs. The most well-known cafeteria element in Hungary is the Széchenyi Card (SZÉP Card), which works very much like actual money, but sums sent there can normally be spent only on holiday accommodation, hot meals, and culture, managed in separate “pockets” of the card.

The number of postal workers dropped 27% between 2020 and 2025 to around 19,750.

In 2024, Magyar Posta's wage costs amounted to approximately HUF 135 billion, up from HUF 127.4 billion in 2023. Total personnel expenses were HUF 170.1 billio and HUF 162 bn, respectively. No data for 2025 is available yet, but previous quarterly reports show how much the company paid in remuneration (wages, fringe benefits and bonuses) to management and other employees. These reports are published irregularly, so we chose to compare Q4 data for the past six years, but these figures cannot be simply multiplied by four to get the full-year data, of course.

The breakdown shows largely the same growth between 2020 and 2025, 26.3% for management and 23.2% for other employees. When we compare the figures with staff numbers, we find that earnings per employee (including management) per month were HUF 573,247 for Q4 2025, up from HUF 339,820 in Q4 2020 (+68.7%). However, this is little more than playing with numbers.

Between 2020 and 2025, wages paid in Q4 went up by 18.2%, with a 29% increase recorded for management and 18.1% for other employees.

Between 2020 and 2025, bonuses / performance recognition payments distributed in Q4 jumped 49.3%, with a 49.5% growh recorded for other employees and a 76.7% decrease for management. If we 'play with the numbers' again, we get HUF 129,752 monthly bonuses per employee (including management), more than double the Q4 2020 figure of HUF 63,482.

Comparing fringe benefits (VBKJ - see box below) paid in Q4 2020 and Q4 2025, we find a moderate 2.2% overall growth, with a massive difference between management (+51.3%) and other employees (+2.1%). The [hypothetical] monthly fringe benefits figure of HUF 22,809 per employee (including management) shows a 40% growth over HUF 16,312 in Q4 2020.

VBKJ stands for 'optional fringe benefits', also known as the 'cafeteria system'. This is a type of employee benefit whereby employees can create a tax-efficient benefits package in addition to their salary, made up of various components.

Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images