Connectivity — Hungary

You cannot buy a Hungarian prepaid SIM anonymously: the shop must verify your identity document against the national register before the contract exists. Section 129(2) of the Electronic Communications Act (2003. évi C. törvény az elektronikus hírközlésről, "Eht.") requires the provider, before concluding a contract for prepaid mobile radiotelephone service, to check the validity of the subscriber's official identity document in the national register of identity documents -- for a business subscriber, the document of the person signing. Section 129(2a) is explicit about the consequence: without a successful identity check the subscriber contract cannot be concluded and the provider may not begin supplying the service, so a passport that cannot be validated means no SIM rather than a penalty. Section 129(2c) allows the identity check for prepaid mobile to be initiated or completed through online registration instead of in person. Where a chain of fixed-term contracts runs beyond one year, the provider must re-verify the subscriber's data after the first year and then annually (§ 129(2b)). A third party may hand you a SIM only if they gave the provider the data needed for the § 129(2) check beforehand and the provider validated that third party's identity document; a close relative does not count as a third party for this rule (§ 127(2b)).

The Act states a service consequence rather than a penalty on the traveller: where the identity check under § 129(2) is not successfully completed, the subscriber contract cannot be concluded and the provider may not start supplying the service (Eht. § 129(2a)). A provider may also terminate a prepaid mobile subscriber contract on five days' notice where the subscriber handed the SIM card on before it was given over without the § 129(2) data having been supplied, and where an identity document is found to be invalid on a § 129(2b) re-check the same termination route applies. No fine on the user is stated in these sections; the supervisory consequences for providers sit elsewhere in the Act and were not read for this entry.

Verified Oct 9, 2026