Hungarians on a borrowing spree - even the most experienced bankers have never seen anything like it

Annual data: nominal record for the population, modest growth for companies due to HUF firming

In 2025, Hungarian households took out a total of 3,845 billion HUF in loans from banks. This was a historic absolute nominal peak, representing an increase of 39% compared to the previous year.

In real terms, however, last year's lending volume fell slightly short of the 2021 peak and was essentially the same as in 2019, before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Companies took out HUF 986 billion more in loans last year than they repaid (it is the net transaction value that we should focus on in the case of companies), thanks to a strong year-end surge, which we will return to later.

While retail loans grew by 14.3%, reminiscent of the early years of the decade, corporate bank loans increased by just 3.6%. This low growth in corporate lending can be partly attributed to the strengthening of the forint. Without this, we estimate that corporate lending would have grown by 6.9%.

At the end of 2025, households owed banks HUF 12,700 billion and companies owed HUF 13,600 billion. However, in both cases, deposits far exceeded loans, resulting in a customer loan/deposit ratio of 82% (indicating bank liquidity abundance). This explains why there is no real competition for customers, with a few exceptions.

Monthly data: Robust results in December from every aspect

Although December was the strongest month of the year in terms of household lending, it still lagged behind November in terms of new mortgage lending (HUF 269 billion) and personal loans (HUF 90 billion).

Throughout the year, new mortgage loans increased by 46% to reach a nominal peak of HUF 1,970 billion, while personal loans increased by 37% to reach a nominal peak of HUF 1,121 billion. Home loans jumped 130% year-on-year in December, while personal loans rose 40%.

In December, the Home Start Programme accounted for 72% of mortgage lending, which is in line with the average for the previous two months. The proportion of subsidised loans, including CSOK Plus and rural CSOK loans, was 80%. In its first four months, the programme reached HUF 597 billion, which, based on the government's communicated average amount of HUF 34 million, could equate to 17,600 loan agreements.

Thanks to the programme, the number of new mortgage loans issued each month has risen from 6,000–7,000 to almost 10,000. The question is how much this figure will decline in the coming months, given the housing market slowdown estimated by Duna House at the beginning of the year.

The average value of new home loans increased from HUF 19.5 million the previous year to over HUF 27 million. Meanwhile, the average 'ticket size' for personal loans increased from HUF 3.0 million to over HUF 3.2 million last year.

Although many new residential real estate investments have been launched as a result of Home Start, they are not yet having an impact on the share of new residential real estate in the credit market, which remains below 15%. Banks still have a lot of work to do in preparation for the condominium construction law, which comes into force on 1 March.

Despite the launch of the rural home renovation programme and the associated interest-subsidised loans last year, renovation loans still do not represent a significant proportion (they accounted for less than 2% in autumn). In 2025, the state paid out HUF 56 billion under the programme, HUF 24 billion of which went to pensioners.

The distribution of new mortgage loans by interest rate period primarily reflects how interest subsidies are applied under the programmes. Market mortgage loans account for only 20% of the total and almost always have a 10-year interest rate period or are fixed throughout the term.

In December, the average interest rate on market mortgage loans was 6.35%, which is almost identical to the figure of 6.45% recorded a year earlier, and only one percentage point lower than the figure of 7.35% recorded two years earlier.

Although credit fees are gradually decreasing, there has been a rather spectacular decline in the case of personal loans: the average APR has fallen from 16.7% to 14.8% in one year, with interest rates below 10% now readily available.

Last year was the weakest year so far for baby loans, which is not surprising given the record low birth rate. Disbursements fell by 11%.

In the first year of the Workers' Credit scheme, the MNB registered HUF 168 billion worth of loans and 43,000 loan agreements. This figure fell short of the government's initial expectations but was not significantly lower than the banks' expectations. Demand for the product gradually declined over the course of a year.

The total household loan portfolio amounted to HUF 12,695 billion at the end of the year, 53% of which was made up of housing loans. These grew by 19.9% last year. Growth in personal loans was slightly lower at 18.6%.

In line with the long-term trend, both retail lending and deposits were strong in December. After reaching HUF 299 billion in November, household deposit claims increased by HUF 236 billion on a transaction basis in the last month of the year.

On average, banks paid 5.7% annual interest on corporate fixed-term forint deposits and 1.5% on retail deposits. The respective figures for new deposit agreements were 6.0% and 3.9%.

At the end of 2025, domestic bank deposits held by households stood at HUF 14,795 billion. The proportion of demand deposits increased from 83.8% to 85.8% over the course of last year, while the proportion of foreign currency deposits fell from 16.5% to 15.9%.

As we have been saying for some time, the last two months of the year were also strong in terms of corporate lending. However, this was not due to the fixed 3% Széchenyi Card Programme loans in forints, but rather to foreign currency loans.

Thanks to the final two months of the year, companies' loan portfolios grew significantly in 2025.

Despite the introduction of the Certified Corporate Loan (CCL), which capped interest rates and fees, in August, there has been no significant decline in the average interest rate on HUF corporate loanss, which remains at around 8-9%. A substantial decrease in the central bank's base rate, and consequently in the BUBOR, could prompt a change in this situation.

The figure below, showing the volume of corporate loan agreements, also shows that the year-end surge in corporate loans is due to euro loans of over EUR 1 million, presumably driven by borrowing by large enterprises

By the end of 2025, corporate bank debt had reached HUF 13,611 billion. Due to the strengthening of the forint, the proportion of foreign currency loans fell from 50% to 49% last year. Meanwhile, the proportion of loans with a maturity of more than one year remained at 75%.

Corporate bank deposits broke all previous records at the end of December, reaching HUF 17,434 billion. Last year, the proportion of companies holding fixed-term deposits rose from 36% to 40%, while the proportion holding foreign currency deposits increased from around 35% to almost 37%.

The heads of the eight largest domestic commercial banks discussed their expectations for this year in our overview below, which is well worth reading:

Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images