The prosperity index remained in negative territory, determined by the uncertainty generated by the prolonged Russia-Ukraine war and the economic sanctions. A major improvement in economic expectations is likely to occur if the war ends, inflation remains in the central bank’s target range (between 2% and 4%), the interest rate environment becomes more favourable, the European economy strengthens, and energy markets sustain low prices.
Three sub-indices of the household prosperity index strengthened, and one sub-index weakened in October compared with the previous month. Employment continued to be the most positively assessed, improving from -2.1 in the previous month to -0.7, while perceptions of the economic environment went from -22.0 to -21.2 in October, and the inflation perception sub-index went from -53.8 to -53.3. Meanwhile, the perception of financial situation weakened slightly, from −8.7 to −9.1.
The October 2025 household prosperity survey found a significant positive shift in planned major expenditures for the coming year compared to September.
In fact, when asked “Do you plan to make major expenditures (e.g. buying or renovating a home, buying a car, etc.) in the next year?”, respondents gave a much more favorable response in October. 26.0% of respondents said they planned major spending in the coming year, up from 23.6% the previous month.
When examining households’ sense of prosperity by educational attainment, three out of four categories showed an improvement. Those with no more than primary school education showed a decline of 6.0 index points. Those with vocational school or vocational school leaving certificate showed an increase of 1.8 index points, while those with secondary school leaving certificate showed an increase of 2.0 index points. Furthermore, those with college or university degrees showed a 4.3 index point increase in their sense of prosperity. Therefore, economic sentiment is strongest among those with college or university degrees, at −11.3 index points, while it is weakest among those with at most eight years of elementary school education, among whom we measured a sense of prosperity of −13.4 index points in October 2025.
The October corporate survey showed an increase in all four sub-indices. The business environment sub-index improved from -21.4 to -16.2, the economic environment sub-index from -28.6 to -21.3 and the production environment sub-index from -10.3 to -7.9 index points. The industrial environment sub-index strengthened from -2.5 in the previous month to -0.7.
In October 2025, we saw one of the most significant positive changes in the improvement of the general economic sentiment among companies.
When asked, “Overall, do you think things are going in the right or the wrong direction in Hungary today?”, company executives gave overall more favourable responses in October than in September’s forecast. This month, 17.4% of companies said that things were moving rather in the right direction, up from 12.4% in September. A definite positive trend was identified by 4.9% of companies, following 4.4% in September. A mixed picture (both good and bad in certain respects) was reported by 22.0% of the companies surveyed, following 21.8% in the previous month. In October, 29.4% of respondents detected a rather negative or definitely negative trend, compared to 30.2% and 25.1%, respectively, in September.
An analysis of the sectoral breakdown of companies shows that sense of prosperity improved on average in all sectors examined. This month, the prosperity index strengthened by +6.8 index points in construction, +5.4 index points in agriculture, +4.1 index points in services and +0.8 index points in trade. In October, the best sense of prosperity was measured in agriculture (-8.6), while the weakest in trade (-13.8).
The purpose of the prosperity survey conducted by Századvég Konjunktúrakutató is to provide information to decision-makers and analysts on current and near-term economic developments. Since August 2019, our Institute has been producing the business and consumer prosperity index on a monthly basis. Our monthly survey asks 1,000 business leaders and 1,000 adult residents about their assessment of the economic situation and their expectations. For the two groups, we ask 29 and 28 questions respectively, covering a wide range of economic life. Among the responses received, positive ones (e.g. expected economic improvement) are given a positive score, while negative ones (expected decrease in employment) are given a negative score. The scores are then averaged and converted to a scale between -100 and +100 to obtain the prosperity indices. Thus, the higher the value of the prosperity indices, the more positive households’ and companies’ perception of the economy is. In addition, for both the household and the business survey, 4 sub-indices are constructed using a subset of the questions to illustrate the evolution of economic sentiment in a particular area.
