In a food-processing plant in the countryside, on a construction site in Budapest or in a logistics warehouse, it is now normal for part of the shift to be made up of workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, India or Central Asia. Recruitment, accommodation and the permit paperwork typically go smoothly with the temporary-work agency or recruitment intermediary – but the question of health cover often only comes up when one of the workers ends up in the emergency department in their second week, and it turns out that they do not yet have a TAJ number (Hungarian social security number) and their foreign travel insurance has expired. As a broker, what I see is that companies mix up two things here: the proof of cover needed for the residence permit and Hungarian social-security status. This article untangles the two, shows where the gap is and what the employer can do – touching only briefly on the details of joining group health insurance, because csoportos.biz covers those.
- Under Section 17(1)(g) of the Btátv. (the Hungarian act on the entry and residence of third-country nationals), a general condition of a residence permit is that the third-country national is insured for the full range of healthcare services or is able to cover the costs of their healthcare – as long as they have no Hungarian social-security (TB) status, this is typically proven with private health insurance.
- A third-country worker employed under a Hungarian employment relationship is insured under the Tbj. (Social Security Act): the insurance arises on the first day of employment – not on arrival – and the employer's registration makes it visible to the state health insurance fund; after that, the TAJ (social security number) can be applied for and the worker is entitled to state healthcare; the time between arrival and starting work, and the period after the employment ends, may be uncovered.
- No law generally obliges the employer to take out private insurance, yet in practice it is the employer who organises it: to fill the gap, insurers offer separate health insurance for foreign employees (guest workers), whose scope – emergency or more complete care – varies from insurer to insurer.
The permit requirement: proven health cover
Act XC of 2023 on the entry and residence of third-country nationals (Btátv.) lays down, among the general conditions for issuing a residence permit – in Section 17(1)(g) – that the applicant 'is insured for the full range of healthcare services, or is able to cover the costs of their healthcare'. Someone who does not yet work in Hungary is not insured under the Hungarian social-security system (TB), so in practice the condition is proven with private health insurance that covers the costs of healthcare in Hungary for the period of stay. This requirement lies on the employee's side, not the employer's: the law does not oblige the company to take out insurance. In reality, however, the application is prepared by the employer or the temporary-work agency, and recruitment agreements also often place the organisation of cover on the employer – so the company manager needs to know what the authority expects and what it accepts. One thing is worth stating up front: the system of employment-related permits has changed several times in recent years – following Government Decree 92/2026. (VI. 5.), according to Deloitte's June 2026 summary, from 6 June 2026 new guest-worker residence permits can no longer be applied for, permits issued earlier can be extended under the earlier rules, and residence permits for the purpose of employment can still be applied for – so for the current permit types and the documents accepted with the application, the guidance of the immigration authority should be treated as authoritative, not the memory of an earlier application. What hiring the first staff generally changes in a company's insurance is discussed in the article on the first employee.
Social-security (TB) status: it starts with registration, not with arrival
Under the act on persons entitled to social-security benefits (Tbj.), a person employed in Hungary under an employment relationship is insured – regardless of nationality, with a few exceptions, typically relating to posted workers. The insured status becomes visible to the state health insurance fund through the employer's registration: the employer must register the worker with the tax authority (NAV) at the latest on the day they start work, before work begins, after which the TAJ number can be applied for, with which the worker can use Hungarian state healthcare in the same way as any other insured person. With temporary agency work, registration is the task of the temporary-work agency, but the user company would do well to check that it has been done. This is how the picture of the gaps emerges. The first gap is the time between arrival and starting work: the worker arrives, gets accommodation, attends orientation – but until the employment relationship starts, they are not insured, and any travel insurance linked to their travel documents was not designed for a long-term stay in Hungary either. The second gap is administrative: entitlement arises when the employment starts, but it only appears in the records upon registration, receiving the TAJ card takes time, and the lack of proof can cause misunderstandings at the healthcare provider – in such cases, proof of registration and the document showing the TAJ application submitted to NEAK (the National Health Insurance Fund) help. The third gap is at the end: when the employment relationship ends, the insurance ends too; the Health Insurance Act provides a further transitional entitlement – 45 days under the rule – if the relationship existed for at least that long beforehand, but at the same time the worker must, under the terms of their permit, leave the country within a short time; the Btátv. also contains rules on the journey home and its costs. If someone ends up in hospital during this period, in practice the bill is often received by the employer.
What is health insurance for foreign employees for – and what is it not for?
Hungarian insurers offer a separate product for the gaps above, under names such as guest-worker or foreign-employee insurance, or similar; the essence of the arrangement is that the company – or the temporary-work agency – takes it out as policyholder for the third-country workers it employs, for a fixed term or a term aligned with the employment. The scope of cover varies considerably from insurer to insurer: some products are limited to emergency care, accidents and repatriation, while others aim at the 'comprehensive' cover expected for the residence permit, with outpatient and inpatient care and medicines, and can typically be used within the Hungarian state healthcare system or at contracted private providers. The exclusions – pre-existing conditions, pregnancy, dental care, chronic treatment – and the limits also vary, so when choosing, what counts is not the name but the table of benefits. There are two things this product does not replace. It does not replace social-security (TB) status: registration and the TAJ remain the employer's statutory obligation, and private insurance covers the gap, not the whole. Nor is it the same as the service-financing health insurance taken out as an employee benefit, which gives Hungarian colleagues organised private care – foreign employees can also be included in this group cover, and insurers set different conditions for this (TAJ number, Hungarian address, language support); the overview of benefit packages and csoportos.biz cover this. The tax treatment of the premium depends on whether the insurance is cover of a compulsory nature that fulfils a condition of residence or a benefit, and on who the beneficiary is – this needs to be clarified with the accountant; the article on the tax logic of benefits lists the questions.
The employer's obligations – and what is merely good practice
Statutory obligations: complying with the conditions under which employment is permitted, registering the insured relationship before work starts, paying contributions, and following the Btátv.'s rules on notification and bearing costs in connection with the end of employment – for the details of these, the guidance of the immigration authority and the tax authority is authoritative. Good practice, not an obligation: insurance providing cover from arrival until TB status starts and for the days after the employment ends; starting the TAJ application as soon as possible after registration; explaining to workers in their own language where they can turn if something goes wrong; and agreeing in writing with the temporary-work agency who is responsible for cover. Group accident insurance can also be extended to foreign employees, and it is particularly justified in manual jobs – this is the subject of the group accident insurance overview.
What should you do now?
List how many third-country workers you have, who their employer is (your own company or a temporary-work agency), when they arrived, when their registered employment started, and whether they have a TAJ number – the gap becomes visible from this table. Check in the recruitment or agency agreement who is made responsible for organising health cover. If you let me know, I set out the benefit tables of foreign-employee health insurance products – emergency or more complete scope, exclusions, limits, language assistance – in a comparable form, and I help where I can; registration, the TAJ application and handling the permits are the employer's own, non-transferable tasks, and for the official requirements, the guidance of the immigration authority is authoritative.
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Sources
- Act XC of 2023 (Btátv.) on the general rules for the entry and residence of third-country nationals – Section 17(1)(g) (cover for healthcare)
- Social Security Act (Tbj., Act CXXII of 2019) – scope of insured persons, insurance of employees
- Health Insurance Act (Ebtv., Act LXXXIII of 1997) – entitlement to healthcare services after insurance ends
- Deloitte – Important changes to the rules on employing guest workers (5 June 2026)
