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FinObservatory

External balance sheets

Hungary

In 2024, Hungary had a net international investment position of -35.9% of GDP, owning 210.1% abroad and owing 246.0%. Across the four instrument legs it reports in 2024, 75.3% is equity-like (direct investment and portfolio equity) and the remainder is portfolio debt and other investment.

The balance sheet through time

YearNet positionAssetsLiabilitiesReservesCurrent accountCrisis
1970n/an/an/an/an/a
1975n/an/an/an/an/a
1980n/an/an/an/an/a
1985-37.1%27.3%64.5%10.0%-2.1%
1990-45.6%17.0%62.6%3.1%1.1%
1995-54.4%38.3%92.6%25.7%-3.7%banking, currency
2000-70.6%44.3%114.9%23.7%-8.8%
2005-88.5%53.8%142.3%16.4%-9.9%
2010-106.1%234.3%340.4%34.0%-0.2%banking
2015-61.4%233.9%295.3%26.4%2.1%banking, currency
2020-53.5%357.4%410.9%24.9%-1.0%banking
2024-35.9%210.1%246.0%16.7%1.6%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 All figures as a share of GDP. Every fifth year shown, plus the first and last. Crisis column is the FinObservatory atlas, deduplicated across its five chronologies. Methodology

What it owes, and in what form

The composition of external liabilities. Direct investment and portfolio equity are equity-like: their value falls when the country does badly, so the foreign investor shares the loss. Portfolio debt and other investment (mostly cross-border bank lending) are fixed claims that do not.

YearDirect investmentPortfolio equityPortfolio debtOther investment
1992first31.3%0.3%68.4%0.0%
2024latest72.3%3.0%11.0%13.6%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 Each leg as a share of the four legs, which sum to 100 percent. EWN's total-liabilities aggregate also carries a financial-derivatives leg, left out here on both sides of the ratio, so these shares describe a smaller stock than reported total liabilities wherever that derivative leg is non-zero. First and latest year with a complete instrument split (33 years available). Methodology

Bilateral direct-investment positions

Where Hungary's direct-investment positions are located, and where inward positions come from. These are annual position stocks, not flows. The reported World observation supplies each total; the ranked counterpart rows describe its published geography and can be incomplete or confidential.

Outward direct investment

Positions abroad, grouped by the immediate destination economy.

Official reported World total

$177.82B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
United Arab Emirates ARE$58.01B
Switzerland CHE$16.59B
Luxembourg LUX$16.45B
United Kingdom GBR$10.33B
Cayman Islands CYM$8.83B
United States USA$7.99B
Netherlands NLD$7.42B
Cyprus CYP$6.30B
Croatia HRV$5.30B
Germany DEU$3.71B

Coverage in 2024: 187 named economies among 210 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: ATF, BES, CCK, CXR, GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, NFK, PCN, SGS, TKL, TX374, TX871, TX872, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Inward direct investment

Positions in this economy, grouped by the immediate investor economy.

Official reported World total

$249.57B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Luxembourg LUX$69.37B
Netherlands NLD$31.93B
United Arab Emirates ARE$21.69B
Germany DEU$17.96B
Austria AUT$15.36B
United States USA$15.09B
Cayman Islands CYM$12.92B
Malta MLT$10.77B
United Kingdom GBR$7.26B
Isle of Man IMN$6.98B

Coverage in 2024: 170 named economies among 194 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: ATF, BES, CCK, CXR, GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, NFK, PCN, SGS, TKL, TX374, TX585, TX871, TX872, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Reported versus counterpart-derived

Official reported data (O) are the reporter economy's submission. Counterpart-derived data (SCC) are IMF staff calculations from counterpart submissions. They are alternative views of the same direction, not addends, so they are shown side by side and never summed.

DirectionOfficial reported (O)Counterpart-derived (SCC)
outward$177.82B (2024)$44.98B (2024)
inward$249.57B (2024)$131.48B (2024)

Source: IMF Direct Investment Positions by Counterpart Economy Values are full US dollars, scaled only for display. Top 10 named economies shown. Methodology

Reading this page

The atlas records 27 distinct crisis episodes for Hungary since 1970. The crisis column marks them beside the balance sheet, and it is deliberately left to the reader to look. This page does not narrate a causal story about deteriorating positions and subsequent crises, because for most countries no such story survives inspection, and the cross-country table on the index shows why.

EWN is a reconstruction. Where a country never reported a position, the authors estimate it, and the file carries no flag separating a reported cell from an estimated one, so this page cannot mark them either.

Methodology