Is Saint Stephen's Day on 20 August or 26 December?

Both dates exist and they honour different saints. Hungary keeps 20 August for its first king, while 26 December is the feast of Saint Stephen the First Martyr, and the general Roman calendar keeps the Hungarian king's memorial on 16 August.

Why is Hungary's national day on 20 August?

It marks the day in 1083 when King Stephen I was raised to the altars at Székesfehérvár. The medieval legend that records the elevation places it on the fifth day after the Feast of the Assumption.

Does Hungary have other national holidays?

Yes. The Fundamental Law also names 15 March, for the 1848-49 revolution and war of independence, and 23 October, for the 1956 revolution and war of independence.

Hungary National Day

Next celebratedFriday, August 20, 2027

Hungary's kings were once bound by charter to keep 20 August at Székesfehérvár and hear their subjects' complaints there. The date is now the country's official state holiday, and it closes with fireworks over the Danube.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated September 2, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEAugust 20

OBSERVED INHungary

CATEGORYCulture

SUBCATEGORYCivics

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

National Assembly of Hungary

FIRST OBSERVED

1938

“Act VIII of 1991 gave the date back by repealing the 1950 decree that had made it the People's Republic's holiday.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Three regimes wrote their own law for one date.

Hungary's parliament first put the day in statute with Act XXXIII of 1938, which declared 20 August a national holiday in memory of King Saint Stephen, whose remains were raised to the altars at Székesfehérvár on that date in 1083. Act VIII of 1991 restored the observance after four decades as a communist state holiday and made 20 August the official state holiday of the republic.

Read Act VIII of 1991via Hungarian National Assembly

INTRO

An agriculture minister invented the day's oldest looking ritual

A loaf of the new harvest is cut, blessed and handed over somewhere in the programme of Hungary National Day. Of everything on the bill, it looks like the oldest thing there.

It is not. The ethnographer Ákos Kovács traced the ritual to an 1899 decree by agriculture minister Ignác Darányi, who pushed the revival of harvest festivals to quiet the agrarian unrest of the late 1800s and to repair what the decree called patriarchal good relations between landlord and harvesters. For decades the bread belonged to the midsummer harvest dates and had nothing to do with 20 August.

The Communist Party moved it onto 20 August in the 1940s, in what Telex describes as a search for a secular way to hold a saint's feast. Kovács set out to explain how a tradition invented from above became, in national memory, an ancient one. The regime that moved the loaf is gone, and the loaf is still there.

ORIGINS

Hungary National Day history

INTRODUCTION

Every year on the national holiday a mummified right hand is carried through Budapest. It belonged to a king who died in 1038, and where it has been allowed to go maps two centuries of Hungarian politics.

The procession was banned after the 1848-49 war of independence and not held again until 1860. It was called off in 1944 and banned once more in 1948.

CHAPTER 01

A grave that would not open

Stephen I died on 15 August 1038. Forty-five years and five days later, under King Ladislaus I, he was canonised at Székesfehérvár.

The one detailed account is a legend written by Bishop Hartvik at King Coloman's order, and Hungary's own state research institute warns it is politically motivated. In it the tomb will not open until a nun called Karitas tells the king his labour is wasted while his cousin Salomon sits in a cell. Salomon was freed, the stone lifted as though weightless, and the Holy Right was not with the body.

CHAPTER 02

The day the crown had to answer

The Synod of Szabolcs prescribed the observance for 20 August in 1092, and the royal gatherings moved onto it. A charter of Béla III from 1181 has the king keeping the feast at Fehérvár, hearing out the canons of Zagreb and putting their grievance right.

By 1222 the habit was law. The first article of Andrew II's Golden Bull binds the king to keep Saint Stephen's day at Székesfehérvár and lets any noble who wishes gather there. Attila Zsoldos notes that the charter wrote down an existing practice rather than inventing one.

It hardened, then faded. From the 1270s the assemblies drifted away from the town and away from the date.

CHAPTER 03

Three laws, one date

Emperor Francis I turned the church feast into a state holiday. For the ninth centenary of Stephen's death a separate statute moved both houses of parliament to a town hall courtyard in Székesfehérvár, with one item of business. The law they made there declared 20 August a national holiday in memory of King Saint Stephen.

It lasted twelve years. A law-decree of 1950 handed the date to the People's Republic and its new constitution, and the saint went unmentioned.

Act VIII of 1991 gave it back and made this one the official state holiday. Its closing section struck that decree out alongside the ones for 4 April and the October Revolution anniversary.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Stephen raised to the altars

King Ladislaus I had Stephen I's remains lifted at Székesfehérvár on 20 August, forty-five years and five days after the king's death.

The Golden Bull's first article

Andrew II's charter of liberties opens by binding the king to keep Saint Stephen's day at Székesfehérvár each year.

First Holy Right procession

The mummified right hand of Saint Stephen was carried through Buda Castle for the first time, with Archduke Joseph setting the rules a year later.

Fireworks join the programme

The evening display became a recurring fixture, fired from Gellért Hill at ten o'clock, and watching it from a pleasure boat was fashionable.

Parliament moves to Székesfehérvár

Both houses were moved out of Budapest by statute and sat in a town hall courtyard with a single item on the agenda.

Restored as the state holiday

Act VIII named Hungary's three national holidays and singled out 20 August as the official state holiday of the republic.

BY THE NUMBERS

Hungary National Day by the Numbers

11: Statutory public holidays in Hungary
800,000: Marchers, 1938 Holy Right procession
45,000+: Pyrotechnic effects, 2024 Budapest show
10.3bn HUF: Net state spend, 2022 four-day programme

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Hungary National Day

A councillor said nobody would travel to see the fireworks

At a session of the Budapest city committee in the mid-1930s a member said he did not believe anyone would travel to the capital from 500 to 1,500 kilometres for the Gellért Hill display. The following year 200,000 people watched it, and the city archives note the gate money that year exceeded the entire cost of the celebration.

By the numbers the 2006 storm was not an extreme one

Comparing its radar reflectivity and lightning against other severe storms, the Hungarian Meteorological Service's own peer-reviewed post-mortem found the 2006 supercell was not an extreme event. What set it apart was the extreme speed at which the cell moved.

No king named a son for Stephen until Coloman

In the forty-five years between Stephen's death and his elevation every Hungarian king was crowned at Székesfehérvár as he had been, yet not one was buried beside him and not one gave a son his name. King Coloman was the first to do both.

Imre Nagy greeted the same date two ways

As agriculture minister in 1946 he welcomed the new bread festival. By 1951, as collection minister, he was greeting 20 August as the first deadline for compulsory produce delivery and the day of calling to account, warning that the government punished those who failed their duty.

The fireworks are staged like a play

The company that runs the display described the 2024 show as seven acts linked by a historical audio play, with the score composed on Hungarian folk songs. It was fired from three Danube bridges, nine barges and a number of pontoons.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Hungary National Day

SOVEREIGNTY

One date in the basic law, named as the state's own.

Hungary's Fundamental Law lists three national holidays and then singles out one of them, stating that the official state holiday shall be the 20th day of August. It is the only date the Fundamental Law designates that way.

SCRUTINY

What the day costs is a public argument

The state tourism agency first refused a freedom of information request for the 2022 figures, saying they were data serving the preparation of a decision and would not be public for ten years, then published a tally of its own. A Publicus Intézet survey for Népszava found eight in ten respondents believed the money spent on the fireworks could be put to better use.

RISK

The launch decision has cost lives and jobs

In 2006 a supercell reached the crowd on the Danube embankments soon after the display began and five people died, though the meteorological service had issued its red level warning in time and attributed the failure to communication between the responsible bodies. In 2022 the show was pushed back a week on a storm forecast that did not verify, and the head of the National Meteorological Service and her deputy were dismissed.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Hungary National Day

Watch the Holy Right procession

The mummified right hand of Saint Stephen is carried through the streets of Budapest, and the procession has been held on this date every year since 1989. Pope John Paul II joined it in 1991, when the relic travelled to Heroes' Square by papamobile.

TURN

Turn up early on Kossuth Lajos Square

The state ceremony opens with the national flag raised under military honours in front of Parliament, followed by the commissioning of the year's new officers. The President also presents the Order of Saint Stephen, which the head of state describes as Hungary's highest honour.

TASTE

Taste the bread and the cake of the country

The Magyar Ízek Utcája runs between the Chain Bridge and Döbrentei tér and serves both the Ország kenyere and the Ország tortája. The street sets out the food cultures of the Carpathian Basin, with healing plants, spices and drinks alongside them.

PICK

Pick a spot along the Danube

The evening display runs over a stretch of about five kilometres from Petőfi Bridge to the lower third of Margaret Island, with drones and light painting alongside the pyrotechnics. The organisers say the view is roughly the same from every point on that stretch, so the far end is as good as the middle.

GET

Get inside the buildings that open for the day

Recent programmes have opened the Karmelita and the backstage of Parliament to visitors, and run the Mesterségek Ünnepe folk art festival in Buda Castle. There is an air parade over the Danube during the day, hours before the evening show.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Hungary National Day?

1 / 8

What did the Golden Bull of 1222 require the Hungarian king to do on Saint Stephen's day?

Answer

Yes. Hungary's Labour Code lists it among the statutory non-working days, so it is a day off across the country.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

17sources

8primary records

15independently dated

Primary records

Hungarian National Assembly1991-03-14

1991. évi VIII. törvény a Magyar Köztársaság állami ünnepéről

The promulgated text of Act VIII of 1991, which names Hungary's three national holidays, declares 20 August the official state holiday, and repeals the 1950 law-decrees on 20 August, 4 April and the October Revolution anniversary.