In 2012, the Hungarian parliament passed a law to create a Residency Bond allowing non-European Union investors to acquire permanent residence status through investing in special government bonds with a five-year maturity. The investment threshold was €250,000. In January 2015, it was raised to €300,000, while the application fee was increased to between €55,000 and €65,000.

The program has had as steady uptake. 430 bonds were sold in 2013 and 672 were sold in the first eight months of 2014. The final four months of 2014 saw more than 1,100 bonds sold. Since, the increase in investment threshold and fees in January 2015, there has been lower uptake. As of the end of April 2015, the government had issued 2,754 residency bonds.