- Decision
- Maintain
- Rate change
- 0 bps
- base rate
- 6.25%
The Monetary Council of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) kept all policy settings unchanged on 28 April 2026, leaving the base rate at 6.25 %, the overnight deposit rate at 5.25 % (base minus 100 bp) and the overnight collateralised loan rate at 7.25 % (base plus 100 bp), effective 29 April. Following a 25 bp cut in February, the Council has now held rates steady for two consecutive meetings. The unchanged ±100 bp interest-rate corridor around the base rate will continue to guide interbank conditions. In its March assessment, the MNB reported that headline inflation fell to 1.4 % in February and core inflation to 2.1 %, alongside 0.8 % y/y GDP growth in 2025 Q4 and a forecast for 1.7 % growth in 2026, driven mainly by household consumption. The same assessment projected the current-account surplus to reach about 1 % of GDP by the end of the forecast horizon and warned that elevated energy prices linked to heightened geopolitical tensions were amplifying global inflation risks. The Council reiterated its commitment to maintain a positive real policy rate, preserve tight monetary conditions and base future decisions on incoming macroeconomic data and financial-market developments to secure a sustainable return of inflation to the 3 % target.
Rate evolution
From May 2025 to September 2026, the National Bank of Hungary lowered the central bank base rate by 100 basis points to 5.50%, holding it at 6.50% for most of the period before a February 2026 cut, a pause through May, 25-basis-point reductions in June, July and August, and a hold in September. The long hold reflected inflation above the tolerance band, persistent market services and core pressures, strong corporate repricing, high household inflation expectations and a desire to preserve tight conditions amid tariff, trade and geopolitical tensions, while growth stayed weak outside consumption. Through late 2025, the Monetary Council saw mostly upside risks to inflation and downside risks to growth, but by December and January it judged the inflation outlook balanced as disinflation broadened and the stronger HUF improved costs, despite uncertainty over start-of-year repricing and price restrictions.
After cutting in February because favourable underlying inflation and stable financial markets allowed it, the National Bank of Hungary held the central bank base rate at 6.25% from March to May as Iran-related energy shocks and global uncertainty revived upside inflation risks, even as inflation moved near the lower bound of the tolerance band. It then cut the rate to 6.00% on 23 June as the June forecast showed a significantly improved inflation outlook and balanced inflation risks, before reducing it to 5.75% on 21 July after June inflation fell to 1.7% and core inflation held at 2.0%, below the forecast, while slower food price growth and a persistently lower risk premium on domestic assets preserved room to manoeuvre despite escalating USA-Iran tensions and higher oil and European gas prices. The Monetary Council cut the central bank base rate by a further 25 basis points to 5.50%, effective from 26 August, and held it at that level at its 22 September meeting.