Kratom is not a controlled substance in Hungary. It is not a narcotic, not a psychotropic substance, and not a new psychoactive substance, and Hungary is not among the countries the EU Drugs Agency reports as controlling it.
Selling it for people to consume is still unlawful, for a reason that has nothing to do with drug law and everything to do with food law.
Why Hungary is easier to check than most
Several countries keep their drug lists in one instrument and their new psychoactive substance list in another, which means two documents to read and two chances to miss something. Austria uses three separate instruments. Hungary keeps all three lists in a single decree.
Decree 78/2022 of the Minister of the Interior, on controlled substances, came into force on 1 January 2023. Its section 1 sets out the structure plainly: annex 1 holds the lists of substances qualifying as narcotics, annex 2 the lists of psychotropic substances, and annex 3 the list of substances and compound groups classified as new psychoactive substances.
We read the whole decree, all three annexes together. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, mescaline and salvinorin A are all in it, which tells us the substance lists rendered rather than being served as a summary. So are bromazolam, flualprazolam and the nitazene opioids, which tells us we were reading the current text rather than the version as first made. Neither Mitragyna speciosa, nor mitragynine, nor 7-hydroxymitragynine appears anywhere in it.
Annex 3 covers compound groups as well as named substances, and that matters. A group definition is the sort of provision that can catch an unlisted alkaloid without naming it, and in Hungary it sits in the same document rather than a separate file.
Searching for a name does not test a group definition, which is the whole point of writing one. Annex 3 opens with five structural definitions, covering synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, tryptamines, phenethylamines and fentanyls, before it names anything. The tryptamine definition is the only one worth arguing about for mitragynine, and on our reading it does not reach it: it admits only short alkyl or alkenyl substituents on the amine nitrogen, and unlike the phenethylamine definition it has no clause for a nitrogen that is part of a ring, which mitragynine’s is. That is a reading of a chemical definition rather than a legal determination, and we would rather you knew it was a reading.
The bar that does apply
Kratom has no novel food authorisation in the European Union. Under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 a food not eaten to any significant degree in the Union before 15 May 1997 may not be placed on the market until it has been authorised and entered on the Union list, and kratom is not on it. So selling it as a food for human consumption is unlawful in Hungary as in every member state. We set out how that regime works on our European Union page.
It is also not authorised as a medicine in Hungary. We did not search the Hungarian medicines register to confirm that, so treat it as the expected position rather than a checked one.
The Criminal Code reaches further than the lists
The decree is not the only instrument that matters. The Hungarian Criminal Code has provisions that reach substances which are not controlled drugs, including one aimed at supplying an intoxicating substance that is not intended for human consumption. Shops labelling kratom as not for human consumption are labelling into that territory rather than out of it.
Section 459(1a) of the Criminal Code defines what counts as a narcotic. Its first sentence points at the three annexes of decree 78/2022, which is why kratom’s absence from them settles the possession question. Its second sentence goes further, and only for a listed set of offences: for those, a narcotic also includes any substance capable of inducing an intoxicated state that is not intended for human consumption, and other mind-altering substances generally.
The listed sections are 160, 164, 184, 339, 340, 365, 366, 370, 371 and 380. Section 184 is among them. Under section 184(1), offering or handing such a substance over to help another’s harmful indulgence carries up to two years, rising to three under section 184(2) where the substance becomes available to more than ten people. Under section 184(3), placing it on the market or trading in it carries one to five years.
The possession and import offences are not on that list, so the conclusions below about possession stand. The point is narrower and sharper: a “not for human consumption” label does not move a seller outside Hungarian criminal law. It is the wording the extended definition reaches for.
What this means in practice
Possessing kratom in Hungary is not a drug offence, because it is not a controlled substance under any of the three lists.
Importing it for your own use does not run into the narcotics regime.
Selling it is where the exposure is, and it is not only food law. Selling it for human consumption is unlawful under food law, and adding a health claim creates a second problem under medicines law. Selling it as an intoxicant while labelling it not for human consumption is capable of engaging section 184(3) of the Criminal Code, at one to five years. That is the provision a Hungarian seller should be reading, not the food rules.
None of that makes kratom safe, and this page is not a recommendation. It sets out which rules apply and which do not.
How current this is
Hungary amends the annexes to decree 78/2022 by ministerial decree, and it has used the new psychoactive substances annex actively. This page rests on the consolidated text of that decree as published in the Nemzeti Jogszabálytár, the official national collection, read on the verification date at the top. We also read the Criminal Code provisions above.
On 17 October 2026 we read the decree in the version in force from 9 October 2026. That version includes decree 8/2026 (X. 6.) of the health minister, which added eighteen rows to the new psychoactive substances list in annex 3: synthetic opioids, benzodiazepines and hexahydrocannabinol variants. None of them is kratom or one of its alkaloids, and the five group definitions at the start of annex 3 carry no amendment note.
An earlier version of this page flagged a Criminal Code amendment taking effect on 7 August 2026 that we had not assessed. We have now read the Code in the version in force from that date. Three acts amended it in 2026: Act XIV of 2026, which raised emergency decrees made over the armed conflict in Ukraine to the level of statute; Act XXIII of 2026, which created a new offence of obstructing a parliamentary committee of inquiry; and Act XXXVIII of 2026, which repealed the two crypto-asset offences. None of the three touches narcotics, new psychoactive substances, or the definition in section 459. Section 184 reads as set out above.
The national collection loads long statutes a piece at a time, and section 459 is at the far end of a very long one. On 17 October 2026 we rendered the Code to its end and read the text of subsection 459(1a) itself, together with section 184. The collection’s own amendment notes record that subsection 459(1a) was inserted by section 26 of Act XIX of 2025 and has not been amended since.
If Hungary controls kratom in future, annex 2 and annex 3 are both plausible places for it to appear. An earlier version of this page said annex 3, on the reasoning that it is the annex for substances outside the United Nations conventions. That reasoning does not hold: annex 2’s own lists expressly admit substances under stricter national control that are absent from the conventions, and salvinorin A, the nearest precedent here as a plant-derived hallucinogen outside both conventions, sits in annex 2. Note also that a listing in any of the three annexes makes a substance a narcotic for the whole Criminal Code, so annex 3 is not a lesser outcome. If a listing has appeared and you can point us to it, write to editorial@wikikratom.com and we will update the page and credit the correction.