Why this guide exists
When I arrived in Budapest, I spent weeks piecing together answers from scattered forums, outdated blog posts and half-translated official pages. Address cards, tax numbers, the client gateway, how leases actually work here: none of it was in one clear place, in plain English.
Budapest Expat is my attempt to fix that. It is an independent guide, written from the point of view of someone who has recently gone through the same paperwork, the same apartment hunt and the same first winter. No sponsor tells me what to say, and every guide points you to the official Hungarian sources so you can always check the current rules yourself.
From the French Alps to five countries in Asia
I grew up in Haute-Savoie, in the French Alps, the son of a carpenter. I started street workout at 16, which taught me early that consistency beats motivation. At 19 I left France, and I did not really stop moving for the next four years.
I spent that time as a digital nomad across roughly five countries in Asia, with long stretches in Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Bangkok. Along the way I built an online business from scratch: first a site comparing AI tools that grew to around 100,000 visitors, then a small agency. Working from anywhere sounded like the dream, and for a while it was.
Why I left the nomad life
After four years, the shine wore off. The everyday chaos added up: repeated food poisoning in Bali, small corruption and a background sense of insecurity, and a time difference that put me half a day out of sync with Europe, where most of my clients and family were.
The bigger problem was structure. Running an online business needs boring, reliable things: stable banking, clean tax and legal frameworks, and payment tools like Stripe and PayPal that actually work where you live. I wanted calm, order, good infrastructure and a European environment I could build on for years, not just the next three-month visa.
Why Budapest
I did not pick Budapest on a whim. I made a list of countries and scored them against the things that mattered most to me, roughly in this order: safety and low corruption first, then quality of daily life, then taxes, then what there is to do, and finally how easy it is to travel from there.
Budapest kept coming out on top. I came over for a month in June 2025 to see it for myself, walked the neighbourhoods, tested the daily rhythm, and by August 2025 I had moved in for good.
What I love about living here
Budapest feels safe and calm in a way that is hard to describe until you have lived somewhere that is not. The streets are clean, the culture is European and close to what I grew up with, and the food is genuinely excellent: I do my shopping at the market, with a proper cheesemonger and butcher a short walk away.
The social side surprised me most. There is a real community of entrepreneurs here, so building a circle was fast. Add the thermal baths, the pedal boats in the middle of the city on a summer afternoon, and a pace that leaves room to actually live, and it did not take long before Budapest simply felt like home.
How I think about all this
I am fairly agnostic about countries. My rule of thumb is simple: you go where you are treated best, and you stay grateful for it. My personal motto is action or gratitude, and I put a lot of energy into working on myself. That mindset carries into sport too. I have run two half-marathons and a full marathon, and training keeps me honest.
On the work side, I run an online software business in the search and SEO world. I mention it only so you know how I spend my days, not to sell you anything. This guide is deliberately kept separate from my work, because I want it to stay useful and independent.
Start here
If you are planning your own move, the best place to begin is the moving and residency guide, or browse every guide on the site. If you have hit a step that needs a professional, I can point you to vetted legal and company services in Budapest.
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