.hu trustee and local-presence services compared

Start with the finding, because it decides the purchase. The .hu Domain Registration Policy in force from July 2026 opens registration to applicants from any country. There is no Hungarian address requirement, no compulsory Hungarian administrative contact, and for most buyers no reason to pay anyone for a local presence. Several of the pages compared below still tell you otherwise.

The pick is Netim, and not because of its trustee. It is the only service here whose own .hu page reproduces the current eligibility rule, including the route that lets an applicant outside Europe register directly, and it pairs that with a €16 domain, a local contact service at no charge and the trustee priced separately at €25 a year excluding VAT so you can see exactly what you would be buying and decline it. Where you do want the service without paying for it, INWX and Openprovider both list .hu among the extensions where the trustee is free, and Openprovider applies it by itself when an order arrives without a Hungarian administrative contact.

The nine services compared

On most registries the model column is the important one. On .hu the cost column is, because the honest price for this service is now zero and three providers have arrived there. Ratings weigh whether the provider states the current rule, whether the fee is published, and whether the exit is described, and they are given per domain rather than per company: INWX and Openprovider both score higher here than they do where their product is a genuine dependency. None of these services are affiliated with ISZT, and the registry does not licence, approve or supervise trustee arrangements. Each name links to its profile in the provider directory, and the methodology explains where the figures come from.

The rule that removed the requirement

ISZT rewrote .hu registration in March 2025, driven by the NIS2 transposition and a new registration system, and has amended the policy twice since. The version in force from 1 July 2026 opens Chapter II with two sections that between them settle the whole question.

• Section 1.1.1. Domain applicants may be citizens or legal entities of any country, provided that no applicable law precludes persons from those countries from applying for a domain name.
• Section 1.1.2. An applicant who is not a legal person or national of an EU, Council of Europe, EEA or EFTA member state or a country bordering Hungary, and is not a natural person with a Hungarian residence permit, is eligible to apply if it carries out or starts an economic or other activity that justifies the use of a .hu domain name. On request by the registry or the registrar, they shall provide appropriate evidence to that effect.

Two details make this more than a formality. Section 10.1 makes the administrative contact optional: the applicant is entitled to designate one, not obliged to. And the same section 1.1 survives unchanged in the amended policy that takes effect in November 2026, so this is settled rather than provisional. An Australian company with a Hungarian product line, a US publisher with a Hungarian edition, a consultancy starting to trade there: all of them apply in their own name and produce evidence if asked.

Section 5.3 is the clause nobody quotes and everybody should. The registry shall not suspend or withdraw a domain name where the registrant complied with section 1.1 at the time of applying but has since ceased to comply only with that section. Eligibility on .hu is tested once, at the door. That is the opposite of .it, where the registry can check a registrant at any time and revoke, and it removes the standing risk that makes a trustee's continuing substance matter elsewhere.

Where a trustee still makes things worse

Buying one anyway is not neutral. Two clauses in the same policy point straight at the arrangement.

Section 5.1(d) requires the registry to suspend a domain where it can reasonably be concluded from the circumstances that the information the registrant provided at application to verify their identity was not true. Section 6.1(e) withdraws a domain where the registrant has not ensured that the identifying and contact data in the registry database are real and up to date, once a request to the registrant or registrar has gone fifteen days unanswered. Section 1.2.2.1 goes further for applicants registering under 1.1.2: a natural person must supply their nationality and identity document number, which may be an identity card, passport, driving licence or residence permit. The registry is asking for identification, not for an address, so a service whose product is a borrowed address is answering a question that is no longer on the paper.

Then there is the objection window. A new .hu registration is conditionally registered and published on the registry's public list for eight days under section 1.2.3.6, and section 1.2.3.7 lets anyone file a complaint through the Unified Complaint Management System during that period, which sends the application to the ADR Forum and can end in cancellation. Whoever is named as the applicant is the party that appears on that public list and the party that has to answer.

What you are buying

If the trustee is the registrant, you are buying a contract, and the policy decides what it is worth.

• Leaving is a trade, and the holder has to act. Section 7.1 lets the registrant terminate the maintenance agreement while another applicant of their choice applies for the same name. Section 7.2.1 has the registry authenticate the current registrant so it can approve the trade; section 7.2.2 has the current registrant obtain the Domain Authorisation Code and give it to the incoming applicant. Either way the trustee is the party who authenticates. There is no unilateral exit.
• Then you wait. Section 7.3(a) blocks a further trade or transfer for thirty days after one completes, so a change of holder followed by a move to your own registrar is two steps a month apart, not one afternoon.
• There is a remedy, and it is a real one. Section 7.4 lets a court or the ADR Forum decide to transfer a domain to a complainant, provided the incoming party meets the policy's own conditions. Since section 1.1.1 now admits applicants from anywhere, that condition is easy for you to satisfy, which quietly makes a written agreement with your trustee more useful on .hu than it is on most registries.
• The public record shows the holder. Section 1.2.3.11 publishes the registrant's name, telephone number and email address where they are not personal data, plus the administrative contact and the registrar. Look your own domain up and you will see which of the two products you bought.

The services in detail

Netim ★★★★★★★★★★

A French registrar with corporate legal terms and a trustee list of about forty extensions, .hu, .co.hu and .org.hu among them. It publishes .hu at €16 a year excluding VAT, a local contact service at no charge and the trustee at €25 a year excluding VAT, all three on the same page. More to the point, its .hu page carries the current rule: it lists the qualifying countries and then the alternative, that the holder must carry out or start an economic or other activity that justifies the use of a .hu domain name. That is the sentence that saves most readers €25 a year.

Weakness: it also states that the registry may request documents, may deny the registration if they are unsatisfactory, and that in case of rejection by the registry no refund nor credit note will be issued, so the risk of a failed activity claim is entirely yours. Full profile.

INWX ★★★★★★★★★★

A long-running German registrar with one of the widest local-presence lists anywhere, and .hu is one of the extensions it marks as free. The domain is €25.13 a year, registration and renewal alike, with a stated registration period of ten days that matches the registry's conditional registration and eight-day publication window. Its model, one sentence covering the whole list, is that the domain is registered in your name but with INWX's data or that of a local partner. On .hu that is the right shape: you stay the applicant, so section 5.3 protects you and the trade rules never bite.

Weakness: the .hu page still frames the extension as needing an administrative contact from Hungary, which section 10.1 makes optional, and no cancellation terms are published, so how the borrowed contact data comes off the record is unstated. Full profile.

Openprovider ★★★★★★★★★★

A reseller-focused registrar platform that includes .hu and .co.hu among the local-presence services it supplies free of charge, and applies the service automatically to an order that arrives without a Hungarian administrative contact. It is also the company that publishes the most useful sentence in this industry: where a trustee service is in use, an external transfer code commonly cannot be requested, and it will require the service to be disabled or moved before releasing the code, because it does not want its trustee attached to domains it no longer manages.

Weakness: retail buyers reach it only through a reseller, so the contract you sign is somebody else's, and it does not say which party is recorded as the applicant on a .hu registered with the service applied. Full profile.

CentralNic Reseller ★★★★★★★★★★

The wholesale platform behind Key-Systems, RRPproxy and Hexonet, part of Team Internet Group, and the source of the most detailed .hu technical documentation available: the eight-day publication window, the rejection of abbreviated names and privacy services, the extra identity and VAT parameters the registry wants, and the requirement that a registrant confirm the registry's emails within thirty days.

Weakness: its own eligibility text is out of date, its administrative contact rules describe a Hungarian residency requirement the policy does not impose, and its handling is worse than its writing. Where the data is not right, it states that registrations will be compulsorily completed using its partner's proxy data, which means you can end up with a third party on the record without asking. Trades are only possible through its fulfilment team, the transfer command is not available for .hu at all, and no price is published. Full profile.

InterNetX ★★★★★★★★★★

A substantial German registrar and the platform behind AutoDNS. Its published trustee list is one of the more specific ones, naming .hu and .co.hu explicitly among about thirty extensions, and it frames the service correctly as answering registries that want proof of a postal address for the admin-C or the owner-C.

Weakness: nothing a buyer can price. There is no published trustee fee, domain pricing lives inside AutoDNS, the trustee entity is never named, no exit process is published, and the list itself is now selling .hu against a rule that changed. Full profile.

101domain ★★★★★★★★★★

A large ccTLD specialist whose trustee list covers fifteen or so Hungarian extensions, with .hu at $24.49 the first year on a two-year minimum term and $31.49 on renewal.

Weakness: its .hu page, marked as updated in August 2026, asks for the VAT number of a company in an EU country and a contact person in Hungary able to communicate in Hungarian, and tells you that selecting trustee service at checkout satisfies all requirements. The requirements it describes are not in the policy, the trustee fee is not published anywhere, and its general trustee page promises that no contract is required and that you remain owner, which is a claim about a document that does not exist. Full profile.

EuropeID ★★★★★★★★★★

Danish, one of two sites run by the same operation, pricing .hu at €155 a year for registration and renewal alike with the trustee fee shown as €0.00. It is at least explicit about the mechanism: EuropeID itself, its local branch office or a local representative it designates becomes the legal holder and administrative contact, and you receive a user certificate describing your rights.

Weakness: the price is roughly ten times a .hu from a registrar that does not pretend the service is needed, the eligibility claim on the page (only companies and individuals located within the EU may register) is contradicted by section 1.1.1, the holding entity is never named, and the published local presence terms let it revise data or transfer ownership at its discretion, keep prepaid fees on cancellation and require it to remain the registrar of record. Full profile.

Web Solutions ★★★★★★★★★★

The same business as EuropeID on a second site at a second price: $175 a year for .hu, trustee shown at $0.00, with the same statement that Web Solutions, its local branch office or a local agent it assigns becomes the legal holder and administrative contact. Its eligibility text is the more accurate of the two, correctly naming the EU, Council of Europe, EEA and EFTA states and Hungary's neighbours.

Weakness: it stops at that list and never mentions the activity route that would let its customers register in their own name, and everything after the price arrives only once you contact support. Rated alongside EuropeID because it is one operation. Full profile.

Marcaria ★★★★★★★★★★

A Miami brand-protection and domain firm, ICANN accredited, with a real filed corporate record, offering local presence across restricted extensions including .hu and a certificate of ownership on request.

Weakness: the poorest fit in this table. Its help centre still says only companies and individuals located within the European Union may register a .hu, and that a local company in Hungary is required, neither of which is in the policy. The fee appears only inside the search and order form, the eligible holder is never named, and customers have reported a $20 owner-update charge on trustee-held domains, which lands at exactly the moment section 7.2 forces the holder to act. Full profile.

Who does not sell one

Gandi's published trustee list runs to about thirty extensions and .hu is not among them. EuroDNS sells .hu at €31.50 plus a €10 setup fee and offers no local presence product at all. Both are reasonable positions to take on a domain that no longer restricts by country, and it is worth noticing that the registrars declining to sell the service are not the ones that got the rule wrong.

How to choose

1. Assume you do not need one. Section 1.1.1 admits applicants from any country. Read your registrar's eligibility text against the policy rather than the other way round.
2. Work out your justifying activity before you apply. If you fall under 1.1.2, the registry or registrar may ask for evidence that you carry on or are starting an activity that justifies the name. A trading name, a product line, a publication, an existing site in another extension: assemble it first, because a rejection is not refunded.
3. Ask which name goes on the application. Three of the nine services here do not say, and the applicant is the only party the registry recognises.
4. Check the price against the free options. INWX and Openprovider both give the service away on .hu. Any fee above zero needs to buy you something the free ones do not.
5. Watch the eight-day publication window. A new registration sits on the registry's public list for eight days and anyone may object through the Unified Complaint Management System. Have your evidence of a right to the name to hand during that period.
6. Plan the exit as two steps. A trade needs the current holder to authenticate or to hand over the Domain Authorisation Code, and section 7.3 then blocks a further trade or transfer for thirty days.
7. Get a written agreement anyway. Section 7.4 lets a court or the ADR Forum order a transfer to a complainant who meets the policy's conditions, and since you now meet them, an agreement that evidences the arrangement is worth having.
8. Run your own DNS. Two nameservers with permanent IPv4 availability are a registry requirement under section 9. Keep them somewhere a billing dispute cannot reach.

Alternatives

Apply in your own name. For most readers this is the answer, and it costs the price of the domain. The .hu eligibility rules set out the two routes and what the registry can ask for.

Use a European entity you already have. A subsidiary or associated company in any EU, Council of Europe, EEA or EFTA state, or in a country bordering Hungary, qualifies under 1.1.2(a) with no activity test at all. Switzerland, Norway, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Serbia all count on one of those lists.

Register a Hungarian entity. Rarely worth it for the domain alone now, and still the right answer if you are trading in Hungary and want a local VAT number and a local bank.

Buy a second-level name. Names under .co.hu and .org.hu follow the same policy and are covered by the same trustee lists, and where the exact .hu is taken they are worth more than a trustee-held workaround.

Frequently asked questions

Notes

Prices checked September 2026 as published by each provider. Netim lists .hu at €16 a year excluding VAT with a free local contact service and the trustee at €25 a year excluding VAT. INWX lists .hu at €25.13 a year and marks the trustee free on its local presence list. Openprovider lists .hu and .co.hu among its free local presence services. 101domain lists $24.49 the first year on a two-year minimum and $31.49 on renewal, trustee fee unpublished, page marked updated August 2026. EuropeID lists €155 and Web Solutions $175, both with the trustee at zero. EuroDNS lists €31.50 plus a €10 setup fee with no trustee offered. CentralNic Reseller, InterNetX and Marcaria publish no .hu trustee fee. The $20 Marcaria owner-update charge is a customer report on a public forum rather than a published tariff, and is described as such.

Section numbers are from the .hu Domain Registration Policy effective from 1 July 2026, quoted from the English text; the Hungarian version prevails. Section 1.1 is unchanged in the amended policy effective 18 November 2026. Provider terms are quoted or summarised from each company's own published pages, and where a provider's eligibility text conflicts with the policy, the policy is treated as correct and the conflict is named. This page describes how .hu registration works and how these services present themselves. It is not legal advice.

Last updated September 2026. The .hu policy has changed three times since March 2025 and several providers have not updated their pages. If you spot something wrong, email info@trusteeindex.com.