The honest answer to “what does a flat cost in Budapest” is that it depends on which side of the Grand Boulevard you are standing on, and that is not a dodge. In July 2026 the median asking price in the capital was 1,344,655 forints per square metre, about €3,400. The most expensive district asked 2.3 times what the cheapest did. A city-wide number is a starting point and not much more.
Collaborative content
The figures below come from the monthly Price Index published by Housiko, a Hungarian property portal, and rest on 24,215 flats and houses that were actually on the market in Budapest in July. The median listing was priced at 89.9 million forints, roughly €228,000, for about 88 square metres.
The climb has paused
Budapest prices have gone flat. The median moved 0.2% between June and July. It peaked in March at 1,362,121 forints per square metre and has drifted 1.3% lower since. Over ten months it is still 4.8% up, so nobody is calling this a downturn, but the summer has been quiet.
Quiet is good news if you are the one buying. The pressure to commit within a weekend has gone, and a flat that was listed in May and is still there in August will take an offer below the ask. Sellers are the ones adjusting. The listing priced above what the neighbours settled for is the one that stops getting viewings.
All 23 districts, ranked
Median asking prices per square metre, July 2026, with rounded euro equivalents at 395 forints to the euro. Housiko’s page on Budapest property prices by district carries the same table and refreshes it on the first of every month.
| Rank | District | Median HUF/m² | ≈ €/m² |
| 1 | V – Belváros-Lipótváros | 1,960,784 | 4,960 |
| 2 | I – Várkerület | 1,872,500 | 4,740 |
| 3 | XII – Hegyvidék | 1,833,333 | 4,640 |
| 4 | II – Rózsadomb and the lower Buda hills | 1,744,444 | 4,420 |
| 5 | XIII – Újlipótváros, Angyalföld | 1,664,706 | 4,210 |
| 6 | XI – Újbuda | 1,635,556 | 4,140 |
| 7 | IX – Ferencváros | 1,605,357 | 4,060 |
| 8 | VI – Terézváros | 1,576,316 | 3,990 |
| 9 | VII – Erzsébetváros | 1,479,630 | 3,750 |
| 10 | III – Óbuda-Békásmegyer | 1,428,571 | 3,620 |
| 11 | XIV – Zugló | 1,359,091 | 3,440 |
| 12 | VIII – Józsefváros | 1,323,881 | 3,350 |
| 13 | IV – Újpest | 1,229,231 | 3,110 |
| 14 | XXII – Budafok-Tétény | 1,215,663 | 3,080 |
| 15 | XV – Rákospalota | 1,175,000 | 2,970 |
| 16 | XVI – Mátyásföld, Sashalom | 1,171,605 | 2,970 |
| 17 | X – Kőbánya | 1,167,606 | 2,960 |
| 18 | XIX – Kispest | 1,113,208 | 2,820 |
| 19 | XVII – Rákosmente | 1,039,326 | 2,630 |
| 20 | XX – Pesterzsébet | 1,035,088 | 2,620 |
| 21 | XVIII – Pestszentlőrinc | 1,027,586 | 2,600 |
| 22 | XXI – Csepel | 998,333 | 2,530 |
| 23 | XXIII – Soroksár | 845,652 | 2,140 |
The order hardly changes from month to month. The historic core and the Buda hills hold the top, the outer Pest districts fill the bottom, and what moves is the distance between them. In July that distance was 1,115,132 forints per square metre.
One thing the table does not show: the drop from District V to District XIII is nearly 300,000 forints a square metre for a walk of fifteen minutes.
What €200,000 buys, district by district
Take €200,000, call it 79 million forints, and carry it across the city.
In District V it buys about 40 square metres, which in practice means a one-bedroom on an upper floor of a courtyard building, quite possibly without a lift. Cross into District XIII and the same money stretches to 47 square metres. Ferencváros gives you 49. Zugló, the leafy district behind the City Park, 58. Józsefváros, which has changed more in ten years than most districts do in thirty, nearly 60.
Keep going. In Pestszentlőrinc, out by the airport, €200,000 buys 77 square metres. In Soroksár, on the southern edge of the city, it buys 93, and on some streets that is a small house with a garden rather than a flat.
So the same budget buys more than double the floor space at the edge of the city that it does in the middle. That is not unusual for a European capital. What is unusual about Budapest is how close the middle of the price ladder sits to the centre of the map. Districts XIII, IX and XI are all a short tram or metro ride from downtown and all sit a full rung below it. Buyers arriving from abroad tend to look at V, VI and VII first. A good many of the ones we hear back from bought one district further out and do not regret it.
Budapest against the rest of Hungary
The national median in July was 1,110,769 forints per square metre, so the capital asks 21% more than the country as a whole. Measured against the regional cities the gap is wider. Average asking prices were 1,045,916 in Debrecen, 989,796 in Szeged, 940,578 in Pécs and 675,914 in Miskolc. Put plainly, Budapest costs about a third more than Debrecen and twice what Miskolc does.
The towns outside the capital that do clear a million forints a square metre are not the regional cities. They are the Balaton shore and the commuter belt, and it is the commuter belt that has risen most steadily over the past year. Érd, just beyond the south-western city limit, was up 5.6% in July alone.
What landlords are charging
Plenty of people arrive in Budapest as tenants and only start reading price tables a year later, so here is the rental side. In August the median asking rent in the city was 280,000 forints a month, about €710, for a flat of around 49 square metres. Half of all rental listings sat between 220,000 and 320,000.
By district the medians ran from 230,000 forints in Erzsébetváros and 240,000 in Ferencváros to 290,000 in Józsefváros and 300,000 in District V. These rest on a few dozen listings each, so read them as a guide rather than a rule. The rents and the prices do not always line up. Erzsébetváros rents for a quarter less than District V and sells for a quarter less, so the two tables agree there. Józsefváros is the odd one out: its median asking rent sits within a whisker of District V’s while its asking price per square metre is a third lower.
Lay the two sets of figures side by side and the city-wide asking rent comes to roughly 5% a year of the city-wide asking price, before building charges, tax and the months a flat sits empty. If you are weighing renting against buying, that is the number to start the conversation with.
The costs that never make the headline
The asking price is not the bill. Hungary levies a 4% transfer duty on residential purchases, dropping to 2% on any portion above one billion forints. A lawyer is compulsory and typically charges around 1% of the price. Add land registry and bank fees and most buyers land between 5% and 7% on top of the agreed price. On a median Budapest flat that is roughly five million forints, which is a number people prefer to find out about before they make an offer.
Foreign buyers have less to worry about than they usually assume. EU citizens buy on the same footing as Hungarians. Most non-EU nationals need an acquisition permit from the local government office, which is a routine piece of paperwork rather than a hurdle.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure here is an asking price from a live listing, not a completed sale. Hungary does not publish transaction prices in a form that supports a monthly index, so any index that is current measures what sellers ask. Agreed prices usually settle a little below that, and in a flat market a little more than a little.
Housiko recalculates the index on the first of each month from the listings on the platform. July rests on 24,215 Budapest listings and 69,687 across 499 towns and cities nationally. Districts are reported as medians, because a handful of very expensive flats drag an average upwards and make a market look dearer than it is. Euro figures are rounded and will drift with the exchange rate.
Quick answers
What is the average price per square metre in Budapest in 2026? The median asking price was 1,344,655 forints per square metre in July 2026, about €3,400. The average was 1,416,497.
Which is the most expensive district in Budapest? District V, at a median of 1,960,784 forints per square metre, followed by Districts I and XII. The cheapest is District XXIII at 845,652.
Are Budapest property prices rising or falling? Flat. The median rose 0.2% on the month, sits 1.3% below the March 2026 peak and is 4.8% higher than ten months ago.
How much does a typical flat in Budapest cost? The median listing was 89.9 million forints, about €228,000, for roughly 88 square metres.
Victor Martinez is co-founder of Housiko. The Housiko Price Index is published monthly and may be quoted with attribution.
Disclaimer: the author(s) of the sponsored article(s) are solely responsible for any opinions expressed or offers made. These opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position of Daily News Hungary, and the editorial staff cannot be held responsible for their veracity.
