After months of waiting, the Hungarian rail freight industry can breathe a sigh of relief. The country’s government has approved the waiver on track access surcharges, which should save companies a total of over 24 million euros.

The initiative to remove this surcharge from track access fees was launched by the Hungarian government at the end of September 2022. However, no further information was provided from 1 November up until 17 July, when the government made its decision known. The surcharge that will now be removed was having a significant impact on rail freight companies as it increased their costs for track access by 40 per cent.

The fee cancellation is retroactive to 1 January 2023 and the initiative does not have an expiration date. This makes it even more beneficial than in other EU countries, where similar schemes were implemented always on a temporary basis and mostly to make up for damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The news was warmly welcomed by Lajos Hódosi, managing director of Hungary’s main rail freight association HUNGRAIL. “We have been fighting for the waiver of the track access surcharge together with our member companies for the past one and a half years”, he said on LinkedIn.

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