Distillers Hungary
A one-page guide to Hungary for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Budapest
- Official languages
- Hungarian
- Currency
- Hungarian forint (HUF)
- Time zone
- UTC+1 (CET); UTC+2 summer (CEST)
- Area
- 93,030 km²
People
- Population
- 9.5 million (2025)
- Population growth
- -0.5% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 70.7%
- Aged under 15
- 14.4%
- Aged 65 and over
- 21.2%
- Life expectancy
- 76.7 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$246.5 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$25,907 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 0.51% (2025)
- Inflation
- 4.41% (2025)
Climate
Temperate seasonal climate: warm summers (highs 23-28 C), cold snowy winters (lows -3 to -7 C), annual mean 9.7 C, rainfall about 600 mm a year. Landlocked, so no seaports.
Alcohol
- Alcohol is
- Legal
- Legal drinking age
- 18 for on- and off-premise sales of all beverages (WHO 2018 country profile, status 2016: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profiles/substances-abuse/HUN.pdf)
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 11.55 litres of pure alcohol (2022)
- What people drink
- Beer 36%, wine 32%, spirits 32% (2016)
- Traditional drinks
- Palinka (fruit spirit, EU protected; at least 37.5% ABV), Unicum (herbal liqueur)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Wikipedia - Hungary; Wikipedia - Palinka; Wikipedia - Unicum; WHO country profile HUN; EU excise duty tables (position at 1 July 2021); Your Europe: alcohol allowances for travellers entering the EU; Hungarian Spirits Association (HSA); spiritsEUROPE (EU federation of national spirits associations; members list). Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.