Is CBD legal in Hungary?

24 August 2026

A flag of Hungary, next to the chemical structure of CBD

Situación formal

Under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, CBD has been treated as a novel food across the entire EU since January 2019 — and no member state has yet authorised it. EFSA's February 2026 provisional safe intake figure (roughly 2mg/day for a 70kg adult) is a safety opinion, not an authorisation.

Hungary runs two rules in parallel, and they do not point the same way.

The first is criminal. Hungary's controlled substance schedules moved into a new ministerial decree with effect from 1 January 2023, and they list cannabis, cannabis resin and extracts and tinctures of cannabis. That is a material entry rather than a substance entry - the chemical name, formula and identifier columns are empty - and it carries no THC limb and no low-THC carve-out. The Hungarian criminal code adopts that schedule directly as its own definition of a narcotic, feeding a trafficking offence that carries two to eight years. Quantity grades the offence rather than creating any exemption.

The second is food law, and it is what the authorities actually enforce. The medicines and nutrition agency holds that any preparation containing added or increased CBD cannot lawfully be marketed as a food or food supplement, expressly regardless of its THC content, and that hemp-seed ingredients may be used only where CBD does not exceed 25 mg/kg as a contaminant. The food safety authority names cannabidiol, cannabinol and other cannabinoids as novel foods when used as food ingredients, and extends that to hemp extracts and to any product containing an added cannabinoid extract.

The agency has also stated in writing that CBD is not a controlled substance in Hungary. That is compatible with the criminal entry: CBD as a substance is genuinely absent from every Hungarian schedule, while the entry names the material, cannabis extract, rather than the molecule.

¿Vendemos aquí?

No.

No, we do not ship to Hungary.

Hungary is the hardest call we have had to make. Hungarian agencies say plainly that CBD as a substance is not controlled there, and we believe them. But Hungary's criminal narcotics schedule separately lists cannabis extracts as a material, with no THC threshold — see the full detail above — and our product is exactly that kind of extract.

In practice Hungarian authorities have treated CBD as a food-law problem rather than a criminal one, and so far as we can find have never taken action against a seller based in another country — when they encounter one, they refer the matter to that country's own regulator instead. So the risk here isn't that we expect enforcement. It's that the text of a criminal statute says one thing while practice says another, and no Hungarian court has resolved which governs a product like ours.

We don't think that's a question to settle by shipping and finding out. If a Hungarian court or agency addresses it, we will revisit this page, and we would be glad to.

Perspectivas

Two things would change our position on Hungary. The first is a Hungarian court or agency reading of whether the criminal schedule's entry for extracts and tinctures of cannabis reaches a low-THC hemp extract lawfully produced in another member state. No such ruling exists, and the agencies themselves have consistently treated CBD as a food question rather than a criminal one, so a favourable answer is genuinely possible. The second is an EU novel food authorisation, which would remove the food-law objection but not the criminal one.

In the meantime the direction of travel is towards more scrutiny, not less. Hungary's consumer protection authority ran a targeted inspection of CBD products in mid-2026, found none of the food products it assessed fully compliant, singled out sleep claims and blog content as unlawful medicinal claims, and said the campaign would continue.

Timeline

September 2020

A joint police, medicines agency, disaster management and food safety operation raids Budapest's first cannabis-themed shop twenty minutes after it opens, seizing around four kilograms of plant material in 1,837 items later found to test at 0.11% THC.

Drogkutató Intézet, citing the police release

April 2021

Press reporting records the medicines agency adding roughly one prohibition decision per day to its list of banned CBD food supplements, on unauthorised novel-food grounds, against an estimated four hundred such products then on the Hungarian market.

Telex (report date; individual decisions undated)

July 2021

The medicines and nutrition agency publishes its CBD food-supplement guidance, stating that any preparation containing added or increased CBD cannot lawfully be marketed as a food or food supplement given CBD's unauthorised novel-food status.

OGYÉI

July 2021

The agency's full position paper on hemp and hemp derivatives sets a 25 mg/kg CBD contamination ceiling for permitted hemp-seed ingredients, states that foods and food supplements may not contain THC at all, and records that CBD as a substance is not a controlled substance in Hungary.

OGYEI, allasfoglalasok

January 2023

Hungary's controlled substance schedules, promulgated on 28 December 2022 in a new ministerial decree, enter into force; schedule K1 lists cannabis, cannabis resin and extracts and tinctures of cannabis as a material entry with no THC limb, and the criminal code adopts that list directly as its definition of a narcotic.

78/2022. (XII. 28.) BM rendelet; Btk. 459. § (1a)

August 2023

Reporting records that the prosecution has indicted the two owners of the raided Budapest shop for drug trafficking under the criminal code and is seeking two and a half years' immediate custody for each.

HVG (report date; the indictment itself is dated only to August 2023)

January 2024

The food safety authority publishes general guidance on hemp-based foods, naming cannabidiol, cannabinol, cannabigerol and cannabichromene as novel foods when used as food ingredients, and extending that to hemp extracts and to any product to which a cannabinoid-containing extract is added.

Nébih (displayed publication date; the page has since been silently revised)

June 2026

The controlled substance decree is amended again, confirming on its current consolidated text that the cannabis extract entry remains in force and unchanged.

1/2026. (VI. 19.) EüM rendelet amending 78/2022. (XII. 28.) BM rendelet

July 2026

The consumer protection authority publishes an analysis of the CBD market criticising "full spectrum" and "phytocannabinoid complex" labelling as obscuring composition, and the gap between marketing claims and the underlying evidence.

NKFH

July 2026

The consumer protection authority publishes the results of a targeted CBD inspection: none of the twelve products assessed as food was fully compliant, THC was found in eight of them at levels described as toxicologically concerning, declared CBD content was understated by up to four times, sleep claims were treated as unlawful medicinal claims including where made in blog content, and prohibition, withdrawal and fines followed - with foreign distributors referred to their home authorities.

NKFH

Ingredientes

Consultar la legalidad de nuestros otros ingredientes en Hungary.