From the 2026 budget audit
396 millió Ft: the same payroll wedge on the state as on your employer.
The social contribution tax on NKFI's own staff runs at the same 13% employer SzocHo rate that adds 41% to total labour costs across every private employer in Hungary.
Roughly 180 Ft per full-time taxpayer per year — 396 millió Ft that moves mechanically with the personnel line and will be held flat alongside it.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: 396 millió Ft of employer-side social contributions on state payroll, a number that appears in the budget and flows into the social fund. The unseen: the same rate — 13% of gross wage as employer SzocHo, plus 18.5% employee contributions — that on a private payroll leaves about 41 Ft of every 100 Ft of total employer cost in the hands of the state before the worker spends anything.
Objection
"But this is just the normal payroll tax everyone pays — there is nothing wrong with the state paying the same levy private employers do."
Answer
Exactly: the state and the private employer face the same wedge. On a private payroll, that 41% tax cost on total labour is the reason a worker's take-home is lower and a job less worth creating. Holding this line flat alongside the payroll it covers keeps both visible without compounding the cost.
Share if you think the same payroll wedge on public and private employers deserves the same scrutiny.
The analyst's verdict
NKFI Office — Employer contributions and social contribution tax
Rationale
The employer-side payroll levy on the personnel line above. It moves mechanically with that line and carries the same classification. Worth naming what this number is, because it is the same wedge that runs through every chapter of the budget: the state, as employer, pays SzocHo on top of gross salary, and that 396.2 millió Ft is a tax the state levies on its own payroll and then collects from itself — a closed loop here, but the identical mechanism that on a private payroll suppresses the worker's take-home before it is ever paid. For a private employer, roughly 41 Ft of every 100 Ft of total employer cost reaches the state before the worker spends anything (income tax + employee social security contributions + employer SzocHo, combined share of total labour cost at the average wage); ÁFA on what remains takes a further 11-12 Ft of the original 100; excise on fuel and energy more on those categories. The cumulative effective state take on a typical working household's full employer compensation sits in the 52-55% range. This line is one small visible instance of a wedge that the budget mostly leaves invisible.
Transition mechanism
Moves with the personnel line. Held nominally flat.
Affected groups
None directly; an accounting consequence of the personnel freeze.
Free Society Institute
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