A quarter of a million couples have already taken the baby expecting subsidy - Families have already received 2,400 billion Forint of support
Baby Expecting Subsidy has been helping young couples who want to have children since 1 July 2019. Almost half a million parents-to-be across the country have taken advantage of the subsidy so far: since the start of the program, 246,000 families have applied for subsidy with a total of 211,000 children born so far. With the baby expecting subsidy, families have so far received HUF 2400 billion of government support. The subsidy is popular across the country, with high demand regardless of the size, location and income of the people living in the communities. To further help, the government has granted an extension until 1 July 2026 for couples who have taken the subsidy in the first two years following its introduction but have not yet had the expected child.
According to the aggregated data of the Mária Kopp Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS), based on detailed anonymous data from the Hungarian State Treasury, the highest share of families receiving the baby allowance was in small rural towns (33%) and villages (31%), while one fifth of contracts were signed in towns with county rights and one sixth in the capital. Apart from the municipalities in Central Hungary, most people applied for the subsidy in three north-eastern counties (Hajdú-Bihar, Borsod, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg). The take-up rates of the baby expecting subsidy correspond exactly to the population proportions, both in terms of the type of municipality, the size of the municipality and the county distribution, i.e. the take-up of the subsidy covers the whole territory of Hungary proportionally.
The same applies to the analysis based on the tax capacity of the inhabitants of the municipalities. One third of all families claiming the subsidy (34.7%) were in the bottom two income quintiles, most families (36.5%) were in the middle quintile, while slightly fewer (28.8%) were in the top two quintiles. The distribution of take-up of the baby expecting subsidy is similar to the distribution of income in the municipalities, i.e. it is equally popular in the poorest and the richest municipalities and is most common among the middle class, i.e. the middle fifth.
The baby expecting subsidy has made a measurable difference to Hungary's demographical trends. In the years after 2019, despite the coronavirus epidemic, both marriage and childbearing increased, and the number of weddings and births rose until the summer of 2022, when the economic effects of the coronavirus, the economic and energy crisis caused by the war and Brussels sanctions, and soaring inflation forced many to postpone their childbearing plans. This has led the government to extend the childbearing period by two years, an important relief for thousands of families who have not yet had the child they were expecting.
In the five years since the introduction of the baby expecting subsidy in July 2019 (until May 2024), - in relation to the number of marriages - 78.5% of all marriages have taken advantage of the subsidy, i.e. it can be assumed that the vast majority of couples who have married have taken advantage of the baby waiting period. According to official data provided by the Hungarian State Treasury, the use of the baby expecting subsidy covered the whole territory of Hungary, with nearly half a million people having taken up the subsidy in the first five years, indicating that the opportunity of the subsidy has been widely extended to couples planning to have a child.
