Platform Work Regulation: The Legal Status of Couriers and Digital Platform Workers in 2026

Work performed through digital platforms — food delivery services, ride-hailing applications, household services — has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the labour market in the past decade. With the adoption of the Platform Work Directive ((EU) 2024/2831), the European Union has sought to bring divergent national regulations into a unified framework. Below, we review the actual content of the directive, the status of Hungarian transposition, and the applicable labour law framework.

Directive Status: Transposition in Progress, Not Completed

Transposition Deadline: 2 December 2026

An essential starting point: the directive was published in October 2024, and Member States have until 2 December 2026 to transpose it into national law. This means that as of March 2026, transposition in Hungary has not yet been completed — the legislative process is underway, but the final Hungarian implementing legislation is not yet in force.

It follows that certain provisions of the directive are not directly applicable — unlike a regulation, a directive does not have direct effect but requires a national legislative act. Nevertheless, the objectives set by the directive and the joint interpretation of existing Hungarian labour law rules already provide relevant guidance as of March 2026.

The Employment Presumption: What Does the Directive Actually Say?

The Rejection of the “2 out of 5” Test

The European Commission’s original proposal of December 2021 contained an automatic mechanism whereby if a digital platform met at least two of five specified criteria, the relationship had to be regarded as an employment relationship. This was the so-called “2 out of 5” test.

The finally adopted directive ((EU) 2024/2831), however, abandoned this mechanical test. Article 5 establishes a rebuttable legal presumption of employment that applies when the facts — taking into account national law and practice, as well as the case law of the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) — indicate the existence of control and direction in the relationship between the platform and the person working through it.

The directive thus affords Member States discretion in how they incorporate the presumption into their national legal systems. The “2 out of 5” formula is not contained in the final text.

Rebuttal of the Presumption

Article 5(2) provides that the presumption is rebuttable: both the platform and the worker are entitled to rebut it — the platform by proving that the relationship is not in fact an employment relationship, and the worker by proving that it effectively is.

The Current Position Under Hungarian Law

Under current Hungarian law, the distinction between the Labour Code (Act I of 2012, Mt.) and the Civil Code (Ptk.) in respect of employment relationships and civil law relationships (mandate contract — Ptk. Section 6:272, contract for work — Ptk. Section 6:238) is based on the following criteria:

• Personal work obligation (Mt. Section 52(1));
• Right of instruction and its scope (Mt. Section 52(1)(c));
• Working time regulation (Mt. Section 96);
• Provision of work equipment — whether the employer or the worker provides it;
• Bearing of economic risk — whether the worker bears the entrepreneurial risk or the employer does.

In platform work relationships, the Curia (Supreme Court) and lower courts decide by examining so-called “primary” and “secondary” qualifying features: if the platform determines the level of remuneration, the expected method of work, the time and place of performance, and sanctions the refusal of orders, this — according to existing case law — indicates an employment relationship, regardless of the contractual denomination chosen by the parties (Mt. Section 75 — reclassification of a sham contract as an employment relationship).

Algorithmic Management: Transparency and Human Oversight

The Directive’s Algorithmic Management Rules

Articles 7–11 of the directive set out the requirements for algorithmic management, which — and this is important — apply not only to those in an employment relationship but to all persons working through platforms, including those operating as self-employed:

Article 7 — Information on automated systems: The platform must inform workers that it uses automated decision-making or monitoring systems, including:

• what personal data is processed;
• how automated systems affect working conditions (task allocation, remuneration, restriction or suspension of access);
• what the evaluation parameters are and how they affect the overall rating.

Article 7(1)(b) — Prohibition of emotion recognition and psychological profiling: The platform may not process personal data on the emotional or psychological state of the worker within the framework of its automated systems. This is consistent with Article 5(1)(f) of the AI Act ((EU) 2024/1689), which classifies workplace emotion-recognition AI systems as a prohibited AI practice.

Article 10 — Human oversight: The platform must ensure that significant decisions made by automated systems affecting the worker’s working conditions are supervised by a human being. This includes:

• suspension or restriction of the account;
• reduction of remuneration;
• modification or termination of the contractual relationship.

Article 11 — Right to a remedy: The worker has the right to request an explanation of a decision made by an automated system and to request human review of the decision. Where the automated decision infringes the worker’s rights, the platform must promptly rectify the situation or compensate the worker.

Parallels in Hungarian Law

Under current Hungarian labour law, the following provisions are relevant to algorithmic management transparency:

• GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) Article 22: Prohibition of decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects concerning the data subject — the worker is entitled to request human intervention.
• Mt. Section 9(2): Protection of the employee’s personality rights — algorithmic monitoring must not violate the employee’s human dignity.
• Information Act (Act CXII of 2011): Transparency requirements for data processing, applicable to platform data processing.

Collective Rights: The Directive Removes Barriers, Not Creates Rights

The Position Regarding Collective Rights

The suggestion that platform workers “can now form trade unions in 2026” is misleading, because freedom of association and the right to form trade unions are already guaranteed under current Hungarian law and the Fundamental Law:

• Fundamental Law, Article VIII(2)–(5): Freedom of association and the right to form trade unions;
• Mt. Section 270: The definition of a trade union — any organisation whose primary purpose is the promotion and protection of workers’ interests in connection with employment;
• Mt. Sections 271–275: Trade union prerogatives — including the right to collective bargaining and the conclusion of collective agreements.

Article 15 of the directive does not create a new right but aims to remove specific barriers that, due to the particular situation of platform workers, make the effective exercise of collective rights more difficult — for example:

• the geographical dispersion of workers and the difficulty of establishing contact among them;
• algorithmic management applied by the platform, which may affect organising activities;
• the fear that the platform will sanction (suspend, deactivate) workers who organise.

Employee Rights Upon Successful Application of the Presumption

Where the employment presumption results in the platform worker’s relationship being classified as an employment relationship, the following employee entitlements become applicable:

• Minimum wage: The mandatory minimum wage as set by the applicable government decree;
• Annual leave: Mt. Sections 115–122 — at least 20 working days of basic leave, with additional leave entitlements linked to age and other factors;
• Sick pay: Act LXXXIII of 1997 on Health Insurance Benefits (Ebtv.) Sections 42–48 — an insured employee is entitled to sick pay during incapacity for work;
• Dismissal protection: Mt. Sections 64–90 — the employer must state reasons for ordinary dismissal, and the worker is entitled to a notice period and severance pay;
• Working time regulation: Mt. Sections 86–135 — daily and weekly working time limits, provision of rest periods.

These rights derive not directly from the directive but from the application of the employment presumption and the resulting employment relationship — under the applicable Labour Code and social security legislation.

Competition Law Dimension: Platforms and Cartel Rules

TFEU Article 101 and Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining by platform workers classified as “self-employed” long raised competition law concerns, as Article 101 TFEU prohibits anti-competitive agreements between undertakings. The European Commission’s 2022 guidelines (C(2022) 6846), however, clarified that the collective bargaining activity of persons classified as self-employed but effectively in a position comparable to employees (i.e. most platform workers) does not fall within the scope of Article 101 TFEU.

The Social Security Dimension

The Question of Contribution Obligations

The successful application of the employment presumption entails not only labour law but also social security consequences. A worker in an employment relationship qualifies as insured under Act CXXII of 2019 on Eligibility for Social Security Benefits (Tbj.), which means:

• Social security contributions: The employer (platform) pays social security contributions — in 2026, 13% social contribution tax (Szocho) plus employee contributions;
• Entitlement to health insurance, pension, and unemployment benefits: These follow automatically from insured status;
• The platform’s contribution obligation: Where the platform previously engaged persons as “independent contractors” and the reclassification as an employment relationship occurs retroactively, the platform may be required retroactively to pay unpaid contributions — including late payment surcharges.

The AI Act Connection

High-Risk AI Systems in the Workplace

Point 4 of Annex III of the AI Act ((EU) 2024/1689) classifies workplace AI systems as high-risk where they affect working conditions, task allocation, or termination of the employment relationship. The algorithmic task allocation and evaluation systems used in platform work are very likely to fall within this category, which entails the following obligations:

• Conformity assessment prior to deployment;
• Provision of human oversight;
• Transparency and logging obligations;
• Operation of a risk management system.

Practical Summary

1. Transposition of the directive is underway: The Platform Work Directive ((EU) 2024/2831) has a transposition deadline of 2 December 2026 — as of March 2026 the Hungarian implementing legislation is not yet in force, but the directive’s objectives and the existing Labour Code/Civil Code rules provide a guiding framework.
2. The “2 out of 5” test is not part of the final directive: Article 5 of the adopted directive establishes a rebuttable employment presumption whose triggering conditions are to be assessed based on national law and CJEU case law — not on a mechanical checklist.
3. Algorithmic transparency and human oversight: Articles 7–11 contain transparency, human oversight, and emotion-recognition prohibition rules — these apply to all persons working through platforms, not only those in an employment relationship.
4. Collective rights are not new: The right to form trade unions and engage in collective bargaining is guaranteed under the Fundamental Law and the Labour Code — the directive aims to remove practical barriers specific to platform workers.
5. Social security and tax consequences: Upon successful application of the employment presumption, the platform is obliged to pay employer contributions, potentially retroactively — this represents significant financial risk for platform companies.