BREAKING: Date of new, one-day motorway vignette purchase in Hungary announced

The option will serve foreign tourists who would only like to travel via Hungary. However, the one-day vignette will not be cheap.

According to Infostart, the first day you would be able to buy a one-day motorway vignette in Hungary is 25 March. However, it will be expensive.

In the D1 category, the one-day vignette will cost HUF 5,150 (EUR 13.4). Meanwhile, a 10-day motorway vignette costs HUF 6,400 (EUR 16.6), so the price difference will not be that big. If you travel to and back via Hungary, you will not buy a one-day vignette.

The new one-day vignette will be valid for 24 hours after its purchase.

According to experts, three categories of people should consider buying the one-day motorway ticket. The first are those who drove on a motorway by accident. In that case, you have 60 minutes to buy a motorway ticket, and this category will be the cheapest. Of course, buying it will also be a good choice for tourists travelling via Hungary, provided they are in Hungary for only one day or return to Hungary ten days later.

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Government prefers public transport?

According to a non-representative survey, 98% of respondents wanted the introduction of a one-day motorway vignette. However, most of them would have liked it to cost only HUF 500-1,500. Otherwise, they would not buy it.

Before, János Lázár, Hungary’s construction and transport minister, talked about 1 March as the introduction date.

The Hungarian one-day vignette will be the most expensive in the region. In Austria, the same version costs only EUR 8.6. In the Czech Republic, the price is the same, while Slovakia is expected to introduce it for EUR 5.4. Romania does not have a one-day motorway vignette for passenger cars, only for trucks (4-11 euros) and tourist buses (4-7 euros).

Mr Lázár said last November that the Hungarian government prefers public transport, which is why the one-day vignette’s price was set to be this high.

However, the government’s measures contradict that statement. For example, we wrote HERE that the government would expand the Vienna-Budapest motorway, Hungary’s busiest one, between Budapest and Bicske. As a result, cars, trucks, and buses will be able to commute there on three lanes soon.

Meanwhile, as Dávid Vitézy, former Hungarian transport secretary, pointed out in a Facebook post, the government halted most railway developments. Mr Vitézy mentioned the substitution project of the HÉV carriages in Budapest. The project started in 2021, but the government called off the relevant public procurement process, claiming there was not enough money. They have not restarted it ever since. Meanwhile, they will spend billions of forints on motorway development a couple of kilometres away, serving the interests of the suburban and cargo motorised traffic.

Vitézy also mentioned three railway development projects on line 1, the railway counterpart of the Vienna-Budapest motorway.