Hungary: visa and entry rules

Hungary's borders: every crossing point

Hungary's land border crossings, listed by the neighbours it shares a border with:

With Serbia: Roszke - Horgos, the main crossing. It is a key direction: travellers can fly into Serbia and then enter the Schengen area overland.

With Ukraine: Zahony - Chop and Beregsurany.

With Romania: Nagylak and Arpad.

With Croatia: Letenye.

With Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia the borders are inside the Schengen area, with no permanent control.

Roszke - Horgos is open around the clock, but queues there are normal: it carries the main flow from the Balkans.

Bringing a car into Hungary

A Green Card is compulsory.

A vignette is needed to use the motorways - it is electronic, bought in advance, and the fine for not having one is issued automatically by camera.

An International Driving Permit is needed only if your licence was issued outside the EU and the EEA; a licence from an EU or EEA country is valid as it is.

Travelling to Hungary with a pet

The rules are the same across the whole EU.

An ISO-standard microchip is compulsory and has to be implanted BEFORE the rabies vaccination.

Rabies vaccination - not before 12 weeks of age, and 21 days must pass after it before entry.

A rabies antibody titre test is required only for pets from a country not on the EU's approved list. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are on the list, so this does not apply to pets travelling from those countries; Russia is one of the countries it does apply to. A three-month wait then applies before entry.

An EU veterinary certificate is required.

No more than five animals per person.

Overstaying your visa in Hungary

The violation is recorded across the whole Schengen area.

The main consequence is a refusal of your next visa.

An entry ban for a substantial overstay applies to the entire area.

The count is kept for the whole of Schengen at once.