Construction cash flow: surviving between chain debt and surging demand

In brief: By the end of 2025, the estimated chain-debt stock in construction stood at HUF 300 billion, while sector profitability has narrowed to around 7% and some 21,000 firms have vanished from the market since 2022. In this environment, survival comes down to two things: how early a company sees its own stalled payments, and how fast it can respond to the demand created by the Otthon Start (Home Start) Program. This article explains why cash-flow control is really a visibility problem, what new 2026 administrative rules to prepare for, and how Fluenta One treats contracts as live business objects to flag trouble in time.

A single number captures one of the biggest financial risks in construction: HUF 300 billion. That's the estimated chain-debt stock at the end of 2025, and its mechanism is ruthlessly simple: roughly a tenth of submitted invoices go unpaid by the deadline, and part of that (about 5%) sinks permanently into chain debt. Anyone working on the lower tiers of the subcontractor chain can become insolvent at any time despite delivering on their own work. Not because of poor work, but because someone above them didn't pay on time.

This number doesn't float in a vacuum. It appears in a market where sector profitability has narrowed to around 7%, and where, since 2022 — when some 132,000 theoretical units were still operating in the sector — roughly 21,000 businesses have disappeared, shrinking the number of market players to 111,000 by the end of 2025. When margins are this thin, a single drawn-out payment is enough to tip over an otherwise healthy company. In a market like this, liquidity is no longer a sub-task of finance; it is the central question of survival.

The money is there, it just shows up late where it got stuck

Chain debt is worth looking at from a different angle. At most companies, the problem is rarely that they don't know about a given invoice. It's far more that by the time they find out where the money has piled up in the chain, they can no longer pay their own suppliers. News of the trouble arrives late where something could still be done about it. By the time accounting reports back that "this item is 45 days overdue," the problem can no longer be prevented, only managed.

Control over cash flow is therefore largely a question of visibility. An early signal doesn't eliminate the debt on its own, but it buys time: to halt further work, negotiate, or cover the shortfall from another source before the company itself slips into the chain. A company that tracks weekly, item by item, which invoice on which project stands where, negotiates from an entirely different position than one that confronts the gap monthly, after the fact. The same chain debt, two different outcomes — and the difference comes largely from the timing of information.

The new administrative vice

The situation isn't made easier by the fact that contract management itself has grown more complex. There are two new requirements to reckon with in 2026.

From 25 February, subcontractor agreements must include the client's (general contractor's) unique registration number. From 1 April, design, project-management and construction contracts must be uploaded to the e-log in two versions: alongside the full version containing real business data, an anonymized version without prices and fees.

Neither requirement is a big task on its own, but together they map out a process that is either handled manually — by email and in separate folders (accepting that occasionally the wrong version gets uploaded, or an identifier is missed) — or handled in a structured way, right where the contract is created anyway. The cost of compliance really doesn't depend on the regulation, but on how a company handles its own paperwork.

The HUF 1,650 billion lifeline that goes to the fast

On the other side lies the market's one real breakthrough point. The Otthon Start (Home Start) Program, launched in September 2025, now dominates home lending: according to official figures, home-start applications made up about 80% of housing loans. OTP Bank forecasts that the program's total contracted volume in the 2025–2026 period could reach HUF 1,650 billion, which could trigger the construction of roughly 25,000 new homes and mean approximately HUF 800 billion in additional orders for the sector.

But this demand is not spread evenly, and above all it doesn't wait. Whoever can calculate, quote and plan capacity quickly skims the cream; whoever spends two weeks gathering the data needed for a quote falls behind.

Since the energy rating of purchased properties is declining, renovation work arrives practically bundled alongside the program. That, however, assumes the contractor can guarantee a certified energy saving of at least 30% for the accounting, otherwise the client may lose the subsidy.

Two sides of the same coin

On the chain-debt side, the loser is the one who sees the trouble late; on the demand side, the loser is the one who responds slowly to the opportunity. Both are two sides of the same coin: how quickly and accurately a company sees into its own processes. Contractual discipline and day-to-day cash-flow visibility are no longer a convenience extra, but the two things that determine how much reserve a company can weather a hard quarter with.

Anyone who has made it this far in the market has survived 2008, Covid, and the 2023 material-price explosion, so they clearly know how to survive. The stakes today are no longer survival, but its price: how much stress, how much manual chasing and how much burnt profit it takes to keep the company's finances under control. The 21,000 businesses that dropped out in recent years mostly did good work; they simply ran out of reserves before they noticed the trouble.

The good news is that none of this depends on the market. We can't eliminate chain debt, we don't write the Otthon Start terms, but how early we see our own invoices and how quickly we can respond to an inquiry is decided entirely in-house. That, however, requires that contracts, invoices and approvals don't live scattered across separate folders and inboxes, but in one place where the connections are immediately visible.

This is the visibility Fluenta One provides. The software treats the contract as a live business object, not merely a stored document, and an AI agent continuously monitors whether the obligations it contains are being met. In practice, this means it automatically compares incoming invoices against contract terms and delivery data, and flags any discrepancy immediately, before an erroneous or uncovered item is paid. From incoming documents — whether a scanned invoice or an old PDF — it extracts the data on its own, so there's no need for manual entry. A slipped receivable no longer surfaces at the month-end close, but far earlier, while there's still room to react. It fits alongside existing ERP and financial systems rather than replacing them. Chain debt and tight deadlines are just as real when someone battles them in a spreadsheet, but once you've seen how much earlier trouble shows up this way, it's hard to go back to the old method.

When the next hard quarter comes

A drawn-out payment can't be predicted, but you can prepare for it by making sure the company sees it in time. The difference is often a few weeks — and that's exactly enough to react.

If you'd like to see what this looks like on your own contract and invoice portfolio, we'll show you in a short demo. Request a demo →