Office figures: Budapest Research Forum — 4,474,170 m² of modern offices, 12.2% empty in Q2 2026 (vacant area = stock × rate; older stock not counted). Map built 2026-10-09.
Every building a record says stands empty, one point per building: filter by type, size and how sure the evidence is, and open one to see who says so. “Opportunities” switches to the co-op lens: public land, conversion potential and projects already under way, every source as its own layer.
No open building register with use, storeys or floor area, and no official 3D model or height layer: floor areas come from the cadastre's own sheets or estimates.
0 empty buildings · colour = type, dark ring = confirmed
Check any building in Budapest: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?
6 buildings that the owner or a public register records as empty — whole buildings of at least 1,500 m² whose plans suit homes on paper (band A in our conversion check), not ruins and not let for interim use. Each row says who records it empty and when. We have not been to them, and a record can be out of date; those we have confirmed empty ourselves are marked as tour stops.
| Building | Floor area | Recorded empty by | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Almássy tér 6. 1980s leisure centre, closed 2007 · Almássy tér 6., Budapest VII. kerület | 6,648 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 | |
| Benczúr utca 4. neo-baroque former sanatorium, abandoned · Benczúr utca 4., Budapest VI. kerület | 1,776 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 | |
| Külső-Terézvárosi üres épületek group of empty buildings in the cadastre | ≈ 4,640 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 | |
| Belső és középső Józsefvárosi üres épületek group of empty buildings in the cadastre | at least 4,057 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 | |
| Nagymező utca - Zichy utca group of empty buildings in the cadastre | 1,792 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 | |
| Garay utca-Alpár utca group of empty buildings in the cadastre | 1,663 m² | Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Public register · Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata · 2 Dec 2024 |
Buildings with evidence that they stand empty — a second source agrees, a public record names them, or we have checked them — ranked by a score you can read: co-op scale, daylight depth, a station nearby, a zone that allows homes, affordable land and an open route in. Checked buildings carry their result; nobody has visited them on site yet. Leerstandsmelder reports join the list when they sit in a large non-residential building and a second source agrees.
| Priority | Building | Floor area | Depth | Station | Conversion check | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | Kisfaludy utca 28/A — district shop Public building named vacant · 2 other sources nearby | 5,364 m² | 13.1 m | 251 m | A fit only | |
| 76 | Eladó iskolaépületek (former vocational school, 1910s, out of use for many years) Public building named vacant · school | 8,038 m² | — | 803 m | — | |
| 73 | Népszínház utca 31 — district shop and cellar Public building named vacant · 1 other source nearby | 11,568 m² | — | 144 m | — | |
| 73 | Üllői út 16/B and 18 — district premises Public building named vacant · 3 other sources nearby | 5,058 m² | — | 291 m | — | |
| 68 | Almássy tér 6.Not confirmed yet City vacancy listing · 7 storeys | 6,648 m² | 14.9 m | 366 m | A works up to Below €250/m² | |
| 57 | Zichy Jenő utca 13 City vacancy listing · 3 storeys · 1 other source nearby | — | 11.2 m | 150 m | — | |
| 57 | Steindl Imre utca 12. City vacancy listing · 1 other source nearby | 3,780 m² | — | 302 m | — | |
| 53 | József Nádor tér 1. (Gross-ház) City vacancy listing | 3,879 m² | — | 221 m | — | |
| 53 | Bécsi u. 6-10. City vacancy listing | 12,282 m² | — | 106 m | — | |
| 53 | Külső-Terézvárosi üres épületekNot confirmed yet City vacancy listing | 4,640 m² | — | 428 m | — |
Where empty offices, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together — and what could go wrong.
Seven of the cadastre's empty buildings, among them the 25,140 m² former Stock Exchange (MTV headquarters until 2009) and the Gross-ház on József nádor tér.
Risk: Private owners, listed façades and high land prices; the Stock Exchange has been under conversion since 2018.
Fourteen empty buildings and thirteen gap sites in the cadastre — Andrássy út 73-75 (24,035 m²), Rákóczi út 66 (23,142 m²), Király utca 25-29 with district and private owners.
Risk: Speculative holding in the party district; most owners are private.
The district lets its own empty premises by open tender — 80 units on offer in October 2026, from cellars to a 1,058 m² shop — and the cadastre lists the 14-hectare former Józsefváros railway station.
Risk: Units, not whole buildings: the floors above are lived in, and many cellars are derelict.
The largest brownfield district in the cadastre: 29 sites with about 75 hectares unused, including Élessarok, where the City and the district are among the owners.
Risk: Land, not buildings; contamination and missing plans.
Who controls the space, and what a housing cooperative can actually do with them.
Manages about 1,500 non-residential district properties and lets empty ones by open tender at minimum rents, sometimes setting renovation against rent. A co-op could bid for a whole-building group (Üllői út 16/B and 18) or ask for derelict units on a long lease in return for repair.
Since March 2024 the City leases privately owned empty flats long-term and sublets them about 30% below market; a co-op could offer to manage or renovate buildings for the same purpose.
Reviews the cadastre every year; 131 of its sites involve the State, the City or a district as owner — the list to start from when asking the City for a site.
Sites on BarKA (launched January 2026, about 2,500 ha in Budapest) can use the preferential TÉKA building parameters; further incentives may follow.
Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.
The district opened tender HG-049/2026 for 37 empty non-residential premises, bids until 6 November 2026.
The Budapest Research Forum counted 12.2% vacancy on 4.47 million m² of modern offices in Q2 2026; take-up fell 29% year on year.
BarKA opened with more than 3,600 validated brownfield properties, about 2,500 hectares of them in Budapest.
After the 2024 review the City's cadastre holds 2,712.5 ha on 3,185 plots; about 485 ha were developed in nine years.
The agency's head cited KSH data of about 160,000 Budapest dwellings without permanent residents (including some used as offices or short lets); exact numbers are not known.
Members of the Rákóczi Collective (MOBA network) bought Hungary's first house for a rental housing co-op in 2018, without a legal or financial framework for it.
18 sources connected, 1 waiting for access. We only use data we may lawfully reuse; where a publisher blocks automated access we do not work around it — a person downloads it, or we ask for permission.
| Source | Access | Records | Status | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 486 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap) OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Building heights: GlobalBuildingAtlas (TU Munich) Zhu, X. X., Chen, S., Zhang, F., Shi, Y., Wang, Y. (2025), Technical University of Munich GlobalBuildingAtlas: an open global and complete dataset of building polygons, heights and LoD1 3D models. Earth System Science Data 17(12), 6647–6668, doi:10.5194/essd-17-6647-2025. Read from the Parquet copy on Source Cooperative. Satellite-derived heights (typically 1.5–3 m error in Europe), turned into storeys with storey heights fitted on Berlin; used only where no register or official 3D model sizes the building. | Open download | 747 buildings sized | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL |
| Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden) European Environment Agency | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | EEA standard re-use policy (attribution) |
| Leerstandsmelder.de — public reports of empty buildings Leerstandsmelder (Gängeviertel e.V., Hamburg) Shown while we ask Leerstandsmelder for permission. Reports since 2016 only, with the address, the month reported and a link to each entry; not checked by EHC. Each point says when a report has since been marked demolished, lived in, in interim use or rebuilt on Leerstandsmelder, and the owner type the reporter gave (private owners are never named). | Asking for permission | 0 | Pending 2026-10-09 | Credited to Leerstandsmelder.de; asking for permission |
| Open-ended property funds: buildings they report partly empty Open-ended real-estate funds (each point names its fund and report) German and Austrian open-ended public property funds must list every property with its vacancy (or letting) rate in their annual and half-year reports. scripts/reuse/import-fund-reports.ts reads those lists; properties at 10 % vacancy or more are shown, those at 25 % or more count as evidence. | Open download | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Published fund report (KAGB / KARBV property list), cited per point |
| Co-working spaces, department stores, banks, hotels and cinemas listed as permanently closed Overture Maps Foundation (closure data: BrightQuery company records) Places with operating_status "permanently_closed" in the monthly Overture release, read by scripts/reuse/import-overture-closures.ts and matched to the building they sit in. A closed business is usually one unit; names are shown only for companies, never for sole traders. | Open download | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | CDLA Permissive 2.0 (Overture Maps Foundation) |
| Land without current use and stalled construction, mapped from satellite imagery (Copernicus Urban Atlas 2006–2018) European Environment Agency — Copernicus Land Monitoring Service Urban Atlas class 13400 (brownfields, demolition sites and gaps in the built-up area, 0.25 ha and up) compared across the 2006, 2012 and 2018 editions, so each plot says how long it has stood unused; plus construction sites (13300) already under way in 2012, and 2012 construction sites left unused by 2018. Read from the EEA's open ArcGIS services, the same way in every radar city. The 2021 edition (Copernicus Data Space) drops plots built on since 2018 where scripts/reuse/import-urban-atlas-2021.ts has been run. Points are context, never evidence of vacancy. | Open API | 201 | Live 2026-10-09 | Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA) |
| Stalled construction and buildings held by insolvent developers EHC research (dated press and court sources per point) Signa, Adler/Consus and other developer insolvencies since 2022 and stalled sites, each with its latest dated status (src/scripts/data/reuse/stalled-projects.json; news leads from scripts/reuse/mine-news.ts are reviewed before they join). | EHC research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Cited publisher per point |
| Church buildings the dioceses and regional churches plan to give up Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches (their building plans), via EHC research Buildings a church body’s published building plan or recent reporting names as to be given up, without church funding, for sale or lease, or profaned (src/scripts/data/reuse/church-plans.json and brussels-churches.json). | EHC research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Cited publisher per point |
| Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source) European Housing Coop research | EHC research | 7 | Live 2026-10-09 | Facts cited to their publishers |
| Year built and listing: OpenStreetMap building tags OpenStreetMap contributors start_date / construction_date and heritage / listed_status of the OpenStreetMap outline a record is matched to, where no register answers. Read with the outline match, not a separate query. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Inner-city empty buildings in the City's brownfield and unused-land cadastre Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata — Főpolgármesteri Hivatal, Városépítési Főosztály (brownfield and unused-land cadastre, 2024 review) | Open download | 23 | Live 2026-10-09 | None stated ("szakmai tájékoztató adatbázis") — credited to the publisher, the City of Budapest |
| Inner-city gap sites (foghíj) in the City's cadastre Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata — Főpolgármesteri Hivatal, Városépítési Főosztály (brownfield and unused-land cadastre, 2024 review) | Open download | 39 | Live 2026-10-09 | None stated ("szakmai tájékoztató adatbázis") — credited to the publisher, the City of Budapest |
| Brownfield land in the City's cadastre (former industrial, rail and military sites) Budapest Főváros Önkormányzata — Főpolgármesteri Hivatal, Városépítési Főosztály (brownfield and unused-land cadastre, 2024 review) | Open download | 242 | Live 2026-10-09 | None stated ("szakmai tájékoztató adatbázis") — credited to the publisher, the City of Budapest |
| Józsefváros district premises and flats on offer now (letting tenders and sales) Budapest VIII. kerület Józsefvárosi Önkormányzat — Józsefvárosi Gazdálkodási Központ Zrt. (JGK) | Open API | 80 | Live 2026-10-09 | None stated (public tender notices) — credited to the publisher, Józsefváros municipality / JGK |
| Office buildings mapped on OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr) | Open API | 1,053 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 |
| City of Budapest buildings offered for sale by tender Budapest Főváros Vagyonkezelő Központ Zrt. (BFVK), the City of Budapest's asset manager | Open download | 2 | Live 2026-10-09 | not stated — credited to the publisher, BFVK |
| City of Budapest buildings offered for sale by tender (building the call describes as out of use) Budapest Főváros Vagyonkezelő Központ Zrt. (BFVK), the City of Budapest's asset manager | Open download | 1 | Live 2026-10-09 | not stated — credited to the publisher, BFVK |
Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Budapest that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.
The nearest radars. All 134 cities in the atlas
The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.