About the exam

Since 1 January 2025, a third-country national applying for a national residence card or an EU residence card has to pass this exam to show they meet the social coexistence conditions.

There are four cases in which you do not need it:

• You have already passed it in an earlier immigration procedure.
• You are under 14 years old.
• You are under court-ordered guardianship.
• You are applying for a national residence card issued in the national interest.

The fee is 20,000 forints for each attempt. It can only be paid by bank transfer to Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala’s account at the Hungarian State Treasury: 10023002-00299592-00000000.

In the reference field put your name followed by "magyar kulturális ismereti vizsga". Keep the proof of payment, because you have to attach it to your registration.

The fee is per attempt, not per candidate. If you fail and sit it again, you pay again.

You register with Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala, whatever part of Hungary you live in. The form is a Word document you can fill in on a computer. Do that if you can, and otherwise write legibly.

Attach a copy of the travel document that proves your identity and nationality, or your statelessness, and the proof that you paid the fee.

Send it to kepzes.budapest@bfkh.gov.hu, or by post to Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala, 1364 Budapest Pf. 234.

Places are allocated in the order registrations arrive, taking the number of applicants into account.

You will be told your exam date in writing, using the contact details you gave, at least 15 working days before the exam. The organiser can change exam dates.

That 15 working days is the notice you get, not the wait. Nothing sets an outer limit on how long it takes to be given a date, and in practice the wait has run to months.

Register as early as you can. If you are working towards a deadline on a residence application, the queue for an exam date is the part you cannot hurry.

The official study material is published on Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala’s site, and it covers the six topic areas listed in the next step. That material is what this platform’s chapters, practice questions and vocabulary are built from.

At an easy pace, reading through all six chapters takes about a month, which is why it fits inside the wait for an exam date.

It is a written exam, sat in Hungarian, in Budapest. Twelve questions in sixty minutes: two from each of the six topic areas. Thirty points are available, you pass with sixteen, and anything between zero and fifteen is a fail.

The six topic areas are the six chapters of this course:

• National symbols and holidays.
• The most important events of Hungarian history.
• Defining figures of European and Hungarian literature and music.
• The basic institutions of the Fundamental Law.
• Fundamental civil rights and obligations.
• Europe and Hungary in everyday life.

The mock exam on this platform is set out in exactly the same way: twelve questions, two from each topic, thirty points in total and the same pass mark of sixteen. So the paper you sit holds no surprises about its shape.

The exam is held at Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala, 1138 Budapest, Váci út 174. Registration and document checks run from 8:30 to 9:00, the written exam from 9:00 to 10:00, and results are announced at 12:00, when you are handed the exam record.

You can only sit the exam if you show your valid travel document, or your statelessness document, and have paid the fee.

The office cannot provide parking. If you drive, you park on the street and pay for it.

Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala issues an exam record with your result and hands it to you once the exam is closed. That record is what you attach to your residence card application.

You can sit the exam three times. After a third "not satisfactory" result, a further registration has to be refused.

If you miss an exam through your own fault, or say beforehand that you cannot attend, and you do not justify it with an officially stamped document by the second working day after the exam, the fee is not refunded and the attempt counts as a fail. If you do justify it in time, you can be given a new date.

A missed exam without a stamped justification costs you both the fee and one of your three attempts.