Domán Nacsa, a student of the Erkel Ferenc High School in Gyula, won the 2026 Economics Olympiad on Thursday, March 26, at Corvinus University of Budapest. In the national final of the international competition for high school students, 26 students from 16 schools across 8 towns competed in economics.
The Economics Olympiad was first organized in the Czech Republic in 2016. Since 2019, Hungary has also held the national competition and has been sending the best performers from the national final to the international final. The prestige of the competition is reflected in its growth: from an initial 4,000 participants in 2017, the number has now risen to nearly 80,000 students. Since its inception, a total of 450,000 students from 29 countries across four continents have tested their knowledge of economics in this competition.
This year’s Economics Olympiad featured a strong field: nearly 70 secondary schools from around 40 towns registered students interested in economics. At the end of February, 310 high school students completed the online round of the competition with an average score of 66 percent. Ultimately, 27 students advanced to the national final — they had to achieve a perfect score of 100 percent, meaning correctly answering all 25 questions. This is the highest cutoff score in the history of the competition in Hungary. Of these, 26 students from 16 schools in 8 towns competed in the Thursday final in Budapest at Corvinus University. The national final consisted of two rounds: in the morning, students competed in a written test, and the top 10 performers advanced to an oral round in the afternoon before a jury of distinguished economists. The jury of the national final was chaired by Professor György Kocziszky; its other members were Professor Magdolna Csath, Vice President of the Innovation Section of the Hungarian Economic Association, and Ákos Dombi, Associate Professor and Head of Department at the Faculty of Economics of Eötvös Loránd University. The finalists were welcomed by Bruno van Pottelsberghe, Rector of Corvinus University of Budapest; Gyula Pleschinger, President of the Hungarian Economic Association; and Éva Hegedüs, Secretary General of the Association and CEO of GRÁNIT Bank.
The top three winners of the Economics Olympiad were: 1st place – Domán Nacsa (Erkel Ferenc High School, Gyula); 2nd place – Márton András Oláh (Illyés Gyula High School, Technical School and Vocational School, Budaörs); 3rd place – Szilárd Attila Ispán (ELTE Radnóti Miklós Practice High School, Budapest). In addition to them, the fourth- and fifth-place finishers, Bendegúz Pál Ruskal (ELTE Radnóti Miklós Practice High School, Budapest) and Vencel Kozák (Ferenc II Rákóczi High School, Budapest), will represent Hungary in mid-August at the English-language international final of the competition in Olympia, Greece.