From the 2026 budget audit
A subsidy on top of a subsidy
The state guarantees SME loans, charges a guarantee fee for that guarantee, and then subsidises the fee — 5.2 milliárd Ft to make a state-backed support line cost even less.
Roughly 1,300 Ft per taxpayer per year — 5,200 millió Ft total, one layer further inside the same credit-subsidy architecture as the Széchenyi Kártya schemes.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: small businesses paying a reduced fee on state-backed loan guarantees. The unseen: every taxpayer funding a double intervention — first the guarantee itself, then the subsidy of the fee for the guarantee — stacking incentive distortions inside a credit market the state has already heavily shaped.
Objection
"But guarantee fees are a real cost for small businesses trying to access credit — reducing them helps."
Answer
The guarantee exists because the state is already bearing the credit risk; the fee subsidy then removes the signal that the guarantee has a real cost. Stacking subsidies inside the same architecture deepens the misallocation without addressing the underlying constraint. Phase out the fee subsidy alongside the guarantee schemes it supports.
Share if you think the state shouldn't be subsidising the cost of its own guarantees.
The analyst's verdict
Institutional guarantee-fee subsidies
Rationale
A subsidy of the guarantee fees charged on state-backed SME credit guarantees — the same family of intervention as the Széchenyi Kártya schemes, one layer further in. The state guarantees the loan, a guarantee fee is charged for that guarantee, and this line then subsidises the fee. It is a subsidy of a subsidy. The honest classification is phase-out on the same loan-book run-off logic as the schemes whose guarantees it supports: existing guarantees run their term, no new fee subsidies are written.
Transition mechanism
Five-year linear phase-out aligned with the run-off of the guaranteed loan book; existing guarantee-fee commitments honoured.
Affected groups
SMEs with existing guaranteed loans (protected); guarantee institutions; future borrowers (face the unsubsidised guarantee fee, or unguaranteed market credit).
Free Society Institute
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