Budapest, 6 August 2025 – The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has opened a competition supervision proceeding against Booking.com B.V. The national competition authority suspects that the Dutch multinational undetaking has violated the requirement of professional diligence by providing unclear information on the fees of certain services, and has misled consumers regarding the discounts available through its Genius loyalty programme. This is not the first time Booking.com has been subject to GVH proceedings. The undertaking has previously paid a total of about HUF 3 billion in competition fines into the Hungarian central budget for various infringements.
The Netherlands-based Booking.com B.V. is Europe’s – and Hungary’s – leading online accommodation booking platform, offering millions of accommodation listings. During peak holiday periods, the undertaking’s website attracts more than 500 million monthly visitors.
The GVH found indications that Booking.com may have breached the duty of professional diligence by failing to provide users with predictable and reliable pricing regarding certain services. In some cases, the same service may appear at different prices depending on the platform or device used (such as mobile application or desktop website), even though the service content remains identical. Furthermore, the undertaking allegedly engages in potentially misleading commercial communication concerning the level of discounts available at various tiers of the Genius loyalty scheme.
Since 1 January 2022, these practices have likely misled Hungarian consumers, influencing their transactional decisions and, in some cases, causing them to incur unnecessary additional costs.
The initiation of these proceedings does not imply that the companies have committed the suspected infringements. The procedures aim to establish the facts and, where appropriate, confirm the alleged unlawful conduct. The statutory timeframe for each proceeding is three months, which may be extended twice, each time by up to two months, if justified. As required by the Competition Act, the period between the GVH’s request for information and its fulfilment by the parties does not count towards the procedural time limit.
The GVH continues to closely monitor the online accommodation booking and intermediation sector, particularly during the vacation season. In 2020, the authority imposed a HUF 2.5 billion fine on Booking.com for its aggressive and misleading sales practices. Later, in 2024, the company was fined an additional HUF 382.5 million in a post-investigation proceeding for failing to fulfil its commitments from the earlier case and, in some instances, continuing the infringing practices.
In summer 2023, the GVH also launched an accelerated sector inquiry into the online booking market following numerous market signals. In its final report, the authority made several recommendations, including the elimination of price-parity clauses—a step that Booking.com implemented as of 1 July 2024.
The case number in the official records is: VJ/30/2025.
GVH Kommunikáció
További információ:
Horváth Bálint, kommunikációs vezető +36 20 238 6939
Gondolovics Katalin, sajtószóvivő +36 30 603 1170