Business Opportunities in Budapest

Hi sherif1986!

Maybe you could tell the fields you are interested in ?

Armand

Hello,

The current situation in Hungary is not the best for new business. There are many hidden trap and extremely difficult taxation.
The current government made the law system quite unstable, the laws are not protecting the private properties. many big companies left the country for this.

I have (had) business here if u want more info pm me.

Andras

I am thinking about small businesses. Supermarket, Restaurant, cofee shop or petrol station

Petrol station: not a good idea, the usage of cars decreased dramatically, even big companies (like Shell) closing stations, some of them simply left the hungarian market...

Supermarket, restaurant, coffe shop: u have to be expensive and provide very good services in a very good location or be cheap and cheat ( dont enter half of your sold items into the cashier).

I dont think you want that

Entity wrote:

Petrol station: not a good idea, the usage of cars decreased dramatically, even big companies (like Shell) closing stations, some of them simply left the hungarian market...

Supermarket, restaurant, coffe shop: u have to be expensive and provide very good services in a very good location or be cheap and cheat ( dont enter half of your sold items into the cashier).

I dont think you want that

Hi there everyone

I am thinking of moving to Hungary in a couple of months.

I note the OP's question re business.

I would also like to set up a business - either a Thai restaurant as my wife is Thai and we both have catering experience or a business service company - I have extensive international consulting, coaching and language tuition experience.

Any feedback on the above and the general economic situation in Hungary would be much appreciated.

Also, I am thinking of specifically Budapest in which case which are the nicer neighbourhoods?  We would be looking for a 2/3 be apartment or live above a restaurant etc.  rental costs?

Thank you in advance...

Paul

PaulBart1 wrote:

Hi there everyone

I am thinking of moving to Hungary in a couple of months.

I note the OP's question re business.

I would also like to set up a business - either a Thai restaurant as my wife is Thai and we both have catering experience or a business service company - I have extensive international consulting, coaching and language tuition experience.

Any feedback on the above and the general economic situation in Hungary would be much appreciated.

Also, I am thinking of specifically Budapest in which case which are the nicer neighbourhoods?  We would be looking for a 2/3 be apartment or live above a restaurant etc.  rental costs?

Thank you in advance...

Paul

Hi,

I don't know good thai here, what I know almost same as chinese.
Please read above comment with my opinion about restaurants...

General economic situation is bad. And it gets worse, because more taxes will be introduced. The VAT is highest of all eu countries (27%).

Business administration is extremely difficult, getting all required license for restaurant will not be easy, because there are very few english speaker workers in authorities.


Budapest is quite big, rentals are greatly vary on location. It depends on your budget and needs. There are areas what best to avoid (district 8, some areas of district 10 and 13).

http://realestatehungary.hu/ here you can find the biggest selection of properties.

Andras

mmmh thai food is delicious (one of my former bosses wife is thai and she cooked for us and it was soooo good) but i guess people will just not recognize/appreciate it enough since chinese restaurants/fastfood are really at every corner. You cannot walk 500 meters in Budapest and not cross a chinese restaurant i think. and they are extremely cheap. so the only option as mentioned before would be a high class thai restaurant.

general economic situation ? well "not so good" would be a nice way to say it pretty much. I think part of the problem (of course not just Hungary has problems... and i dont wanna make them look bad or anything) is that the government and people in general are more with a "problem focused/creating" mindset. So often the actual goal is kinda out of sight... Its not like they wouldnt be effective to solve problems but they are even more effective to generate problems and make things more complicated then needed. so get used to that... after 2 years i think i can say something about it. Bureaucracy is horrible. Its a pity because Hungary has so much potential but they need some reforms badly.

Many shops with big names in downtown closing and instead of them 2nd hand clothes shops open. My ex-gf comes from an arabic family and they run some businesses. It still can workout but its not so easy.

Hi,
It is true situation is not so good due to taxation etc.but overall economic situation is bad all over and in most of European countries even in US.It does not mean all businesses are going worse.
I am already here and can share my experience and may be we can work out something together.My advise is to visit,discuss and then decide action.
Subhash

my above message is for sherif 1986

Thank u Shubhash. I wll touch base with u when i am in Hungary.

Hey Sherif,

I am managing an israeli owned cosmetics company for more than four years now, it runs, and i have experience in the hungarian business environment, i have connections to shopping centers, i know the Vací utca opportunities as well.

Get in touch with me if u r still interested.

U r right 100%:

Guys, I would like to warn you, please be very careful in Hungary. The current goverment does not respect private property, they are eager to redistribute the market with a simple law ( see for example: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news … co-scandal )
The last speech of Viktor Orbán clarifies, if they win the next elections, they will try to leave the EU..

Entity wrote:

Guys, I would like to warn you, please be very careful in Hungary. The current goverment does not respect private property, they are eager to redistribute the market with a simple law ( see for example: globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130613/hungarians-fume-over-revealing-tobacco-scandal )
The last speech of Viktor Orbán clarifies, if they win the next elections, they will try to leave the EU..

I wish everybody would think like you! Unfortunately, most of the people are blind. Or the situation is still not bad enough for them.

There is just one thing what i hope the government see also: its theirs interest as well to keep on capitalism.

And even if they leave the EU: i hope that there is life also out of the EU. Both business and private life. But neither i dont want to leave the EU!

Entity wrote:

...if they win the next elections, they will try to leave the EU..

A lot of this nationalist stuff is simply diversionary in order to draw voters attention away from the poor economics.

Orban might get re-elected again next year but he'll have a reduced majority and won't be able to steam roller through legislation. He won't last to a third term - all radical governments start to fall to pieces by the end of their 2nd term - they get stale, corrupt and lack any new ideas.

I know that's no comfort to voters but the other option is simply to leave the country.

Hungary is a very small and undistinguished market so investing here is only ever going to generate a proportional (small) return.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Entity wrote:

...if they win the next elections, they will try to leave the EU..

A lot of this nationalist stuff is simply diversionary in order to draw voters attention away from the poor economics.

Orban might get re-elected again next year but he'll have a reduced majority and won't be able to steam roller through legislation. He won't last to a third term - all radical governments start to fall to pieces by the end of their 2nd term - they get stale, corrupt and lack any new ideas.

I know that's no comfort to voters but the other option is simply to leave the country.

Hungary is a very small and undistinguished market so investing here is only ever going to generate a proportional (small) return.

What small return is meaning to you?

Hi folks,

I am looking at moving to Hungary and would like to invest in a business, preferably a restaurant and real estate.
I am from India and want to have a peaceful and better life. I have read that a company formation is an easy route to get going.
My choices are either join an existing business as a working or silent partner with investment or create my own company.

Dear Naushir,

Check out my website: http://bmanh.com
You can leave message there (right-down corner on the site), I will get back to you by email soon.
We can talk about the options this way much easier and personally.

Regards,

Adorján

Hi Ado,

I saw your website, let me have your views or options.

Sent you PM.

Real estate, restaurants, clothing shops, wow.
Not trying to be negative but Good luck Chuck!
We know several Hungarians who have done pretty darn well for themselves since 1989 with the small businesses.
It was trial and error for all of them. A few made it and are still going strong but they have the market pretty much sealed up in their fields.
One guy who is still doing very, very well was forced to close down several times because of , how can I say it without stirring it up, mafia would be a good term. People wanted a cut of his "action" or else. He was forced to close down several food operations before he finally learned and got his own "crew" if you get my drift.
We had a small time import/export in 89. hard as heck to get what was owed  us from vendors. We barely broke even in the end.
Without knowing the right people and speaking HUngarian and being in the know street wise, it will be extremely hard and stressful to do much here at this time.
It's not even easy to open our own  place up in one's home country let alone when you know nothing about the in's and out's of how things go here.
Might make a go of it but you will for sure have paid out more then you will ever get back.
Many districts have their local "players" who will be very interested in your activities. Make sure you have a few bucks tucked away for these "silent" partners.

Sorry for the above rant.
It just stirs up old painful memories thinking of doing business.
Thank goodness we have lived long enough to be a pain and collect some SS. After years of paying taxes and into the system, it's nice to finally be a "burden",
There are tons of empty shops of different sizes located on Rakoczi  Utca. There is a huge property for lease which used to be a large furniture store, I really do wish someone would take that over and do something with it, maybe a large gym or several smaller shops could be made out of the existing layout.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Sorry for the above rant......

It's an old thread Marilyn. 

And it's much the subject as many posts we get here, many of them from India etc.   People wanting an easy out of their current locale to Hungary without knowing anything about the place.

Someone probably posted some spam in it and it was then notified to the recipients as having new postings but in the meantime, the spam was deleted so there are actually no new questions  or information.

Thanks for the info.
I understand trying to improve your lot in life but yes, those spammers are just too much.
Only once have I gotten a message from someone in a 3rd world country trying to get funds. Delete and never open up any mail from people I don't know.
Still there are allot of empty sites on Rakoczi Utca, sad to see them boarded up, I remember walking in this area in the late 70's and things were booming, shops were all super busy.
I also come from a family who had allot of newbie immigrants from eastern Europe. My step-dad's parents were also first generation immigrants, Irish  dad and eastern European mom, these people worked hard in coal mines in Penn., my Ruysn grandfather was born in the US but moved to Poland  ( formerly Galicia)for a few years, both his parents were born in Europe. He was working up until his death at age 67 as a self employed handyman, no retirement funds etc. He once fell off the ladder and broke his neck, recovered and went back up on the ladder. No such thing as a easy ride or disability back in the day.
Even my husband who is from Hungary always said the first generation must suffer a bit for the coming generations, no easy way around it.

fluffy2560 wrote:

It's an old thread

Personally, I to go my "subscriptions" list here (in your user preferences menu -- it is a drop down menu that appears when you hover over your icon, at the above right of this page**, when logged in) every few months and delete my following for old threads. If anything comes up worth while, those posts will be found at the main forum page.

** I rarely log in on a tablet/phone so I have no idea how this works on this systems with no "mouse hover" option.

I also only look when I get a notice of a post.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I also only look when I get a notice of a post.

Same here.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Thanks for the info.
I understand trying to improve your lot in life but yes, those spammers are just too much.
Only once have I gotten a message from someone in a 3rd world country trying to get funds. Delete and never open up any mail from people I don't know.

The way I work to avoid the spammers is to have two e-mail addresses: the public one and the private one.

I only give out the public one to currently untrusted people or for registrations on web sites etc and set all e-mail to go to the spam directory. Then case by case set each allowed address to go to the inbox - i.e. work by exception.  Then only access the public one via the web interface. 

The other can be downloaded to Outlook (if you have it).

One thing I notice clearly is that if I go to Africa, if I give out my business card (has my public "spam" address on it), I usually get bombarded with nonsense sometimes even by the time I even made it back to my hotel. 

Naturally one needs to run a virus checker (I dropped both Avast and AVG for Alvira), keep the firewall on and think twice before opening anything.  I backup everything as often as possible - usually before I go anywhere for work.  I keep my "live" work also on a USB memory stick and an additional copies  on my phone and tablets.

Sounds almost paranoid.

fluffy2560 wrote:

One thing I notice clearly is that if I go to Africa, if I give out my business card (has my public "spam" address on it), I usually get bombarded with nonsense sometimes even by the time I even made it back to my hotel.

I worked in places like Africa, South America and Asia a lot. Learned a long time ago how to deal with that. One must assume all the computers in such places are infected, and any email list will be harvested. So my business card has a web site where someone has to fill out a form to email me the first time (and with "prove you are human" features). Only legit contacts got an email back from me. And only those email addresses were white listed. And then the company's email server would work to weed out 98% of random SPAM in addition. Together, those two actions help reduce SPAM in my in-box Today, I almost never see SPAM at my email accounts. And I do not have to waste my time checking "throw away" email accounts. But of course, I worked in IT, so I knew how to apply those solutions. 

fluffy2560 wrote:

Sounds almost paranoid.

Oh, I do not know. I have had backups fail. Unless you also have redundant, encrypted copies at a remote site, maybe not paranoid enough.

klsallee wrote:

.....

fluffy2560 wrote:

Sounds almost paranoid.

Oh, I do not know. I have had backups fail. Unless you also have redundant, encrypted copies at a remote site, maybe not paranoid enough.

Oh yes, I have those too.  Usually at the end of a trip, I upload that trip's work product.  I always thought I'd never want to use cloud computing but I find myself using the cloud storage.  Sometimes, I compress it and apply encryption 3 times using different encryption modes.  Not foolproof but sufficient probably.

Hi may i ask if this Forum is still actual? I saw your post here, really very detialed and informatic. we also are planning to move to Hungary from Austria. and start some Kind Business. i Need some advices. is it possible to have your contact? we are visiting Budapest on 2nd june. regards
Eva/singh

singh21 wrote:

we also are planning to move to Hungary from Austria.

Why?

Starting a business in Hungary is not difficult.

But don't be fooled by that. The day to day dealing with all the business related paperwork and regulations can be complicated.

I was in a Chinese restaurant in Sopron and asked the owner why he didn't open a branch in Budapest (as I know he has a branch in Wiener Neustadt, Austria).  He told me operating in Hungary was far more difficult than in Austria - obtaining quality ingredients, the cost of employing someone and the language were some of the things he mentioned.  He had quite a rant about it too.

sherif1986 wrote:

I have to intention to establish new Business or being partner in already established Business  in Budapest. I don't know the business types with the good potential since i am very new in Hungary. Can any of you guide me to ideas of investment or put me in touch with trusted people who would like to have partners. I prefer the kind which do not require my physical presence all z year around if it possible as i have obligations which requires my physical presence in my home country, Egypt.

The budget that i am considering for such investment around 50 K Euro, i know it is not much but i guess could be ok for a start up or partnering with others

http://www.franchiseeurope.com/confirmation/

Is it stable to create a business now in 2017 in Hungary or is the situation is still the same??

Om Muhammad wrote:

Is it stable to create a business now in 2017 in Hungary or is the situation is still the same??

No, it'll stabilize around 2020.

Hi

I want to start a business in Hungary but I'm not sure what to do.

I'm interested in construction and trading.

Appreciated

arash.qanavati12 wrote:

Hi

I want to start a business in Hungary but I'm not sure what to do.

I'm interested in construction and trading.

Appreciated

How about selling construction equipment and materials..?