Hungary construction output falls 5.6% in September 2026

Hungarian construction output fell -5.6% in the year to September 2026 while new contracts dropped 34.5%, pointing to a thinner building pipeline.

The facts

Construction output in September 2026 was -5.6% below the level a year earlier on both raw and working-day-adjusted figures, the Hungarian statistical office KSH reported in a release dated 13 November 2026.
On seasonally and working-day-adjusted indices, output was 9.9% below the previous month.
The two construction groupings moved in opposite directions: output on buildings rose 5.3% while output on other structures, which covers civil engineering, fell 22.2%.
New contracts signed during the month were 34.5% below September 2025, and the stock of orders at the end of the month was 14.0% lower.
In value terms September output came to HUF 775,125 million, of which buildings accounted for HUF 526,165 million and other structures for HUF 248,960 million.
Construction producer prices in the third quarter of 2026 were 5.5% higher than in the same quarter of 2025, and 0.9% higher than in the second quarter. This is a quarterly figure, not a September one.

Less construction is being contracted for. New orders 34.5% lower than a year ago mean less new stock reaching buyers in 2027 and 2028.
Prices are not waiting for the builders. Glopra puts the Hungarian national average asking price at 4,049.14 USD per m², 12.3% higher over a year, so the cost of entering is climbing while the order book shrinks.
An owner already holding Hungarian property should read the split rather than the headline: the weakness sits in other structures, the grouping that covers civil engineering, down 22.2%, while building work rose 5.3%.
Renovation and new-build budgets are rising too. Contractor prices 5.5% above a year earlier feed straight into what a refurbishment costs.

The October figures are due on 11 December 2026, and the release names that date.
The monthly data cover construction organisations only, so the monthly series does not capture work done by households or by firms outside the construction sector.
The release reports construction by grouping, not by dwellings. It does not say how much of the 5.3% rise in building work is housing, and KSH publishes dwelling construction separately.

Sources: KSH https://ksh.hu/gyorstajekoztatok/epi/epi2609.html; KSH https://www.ksh.hu/stadat_files/epi/hu/epi0013.html