City with county rights

A city with county rights (or urban county, Hungarian: megyei jogú város, MJV) is a level of administrative subdivision in Hungary. Since 1994 all county seats are automatically awarded this status, and between 2012–2022 this was the only way a city could earn county rights. All cities earned this status before 2012 have retained their status and there is no way to revoke the title by the law. From 2006 until 2022, there were 23 cities with county rights,^[1] and 25 since 1 May 2022.^[2] Before 1950, cities with former "municipal rights" (törvényhatósági jogú város) had a similar status as the present urban counties.

Budapest is not considered an urban county and has a special capital city status among the other Hungarian cities.

Every city with county rights is allowed to be subdivided into districts. The representative body is the General Assembly (közgyűlés) which elects with the County Assembly a council that takes care of different tasks related to the county.^[3] Cities with county rights performs the tasks and powers of the county as its own authority but must provide some public services to the whole or a large area of the county (eg. education, health services, cultural services). Assemblies of the county and the urban county cooperate via a coordination committee to prepare and coordinate common tasks.