From the 2026 budget audit
2.8 milliárd Ft for government app development — held flat in cash terms.
Development of new government digital applications: frozen at current level, letting real-terms erosion impose the discipline that competitive procurement would otherwise provide.
Roughly 709 Ft per taxpayer per year — 2,832 millió Ft in application development, held at a nominal level so the operator must absorb real-terms compression through smarter procurement.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: new government digital tools and service upgrades delivered to citizens. The unseen: the development contracts awarded without competitive market pressure, in an environment where the client (government) does not face the cost at the point of use.
Objection
"Government has to keep its digital services current — freezing development means falling behind."
Answer
The freeze sets the budget; the operator decides which development is most valuable within it. That prioritisation is exactly what a market price forces a private operator to do — and what a soft-budget government IT environment avoids. The constraint is doing the work the competitive signal would otherwise do.
Share if you think government software development should prioritise within a budget, not expand to fill one.
The analyst's verdict
Infocommunication tasks — Government infocommunication services — Application development
Rationale
Running the IT systems on which government administration depends — the operational and infrastructure lines — is a real support cost of functions that exist for other reasons. It is not itself a rights-protection function, but it is the unavoidable operating cost of the administration that delivers those functions, and it cannot be cut without disabling the services it underpins. The honest classification is Nominal Freeze: hold the lines flat, let real-terms erosion impose a steady efficiency discipline (roughly 20-25% real compression over a decade), and require the operator to absorb that through procurement and consolidation rather than through tariff growth. Government IT is a notorious soft-budget environment — costs drift upward because the internal customer does not face a price and the provider faces no competitive tender — so the nominal freeze is doing real work: it converts an open-ended cost into a fixed envelope the provider must manage within.
Transition mechanism
Hold at nominal level. Real-terms erosion of roughly 20-25% over a decade imposed through the freeze. The operator absorbs this through procurement and consolidation rather than tariff growth.
Affected groups
Government IT developers and contractors; public-sector staff and citizens who benefit from application development.
Free Society Institute
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