Compare countries

Two or three countries, side by side, one row per question. Pick up to 3.

Countries

JapanChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: MediumEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Japan lets personal data leave the country, but you need paperwork. Only Europe and the United Kingdom are pre-approved. For anywhere else you either sign a contract that binds the recipient to Japanese-standard protection, or you get the person's consent after telling them which country the data goes to. There is no general rule forcing data to stay in Japan.
The catch: Two things break the calm headline. If you sell to the Japanese government, the data must physically sit in Japanese data centres. And if you run a website, an app or any online service used from Japan, the telecoms law reaches you even with no office here, requires a representative in Japan, and makes leaking a communication a criminal offence rather than a fine.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. Japan's privacy law reaches a foreign company with no office and no staff in Japan, as long as it handles the personal information of people in Japan while supplying them goods or services. There is no size, revenue or headcount threshold to fall below. Unlike Europe, the privacy law does not make you appoint a representative in Japan — but the telecoms law does, if your service counts as a telecommunications service.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. Japan's general rating is conditional: personal data may go abroad once you have one of three things in place. There is no across-the-board law keeping data in Japan, and no financial, insurance, securities or health localisation rule of the kind India or China have — we searched for one and did not find it. The real wall is government work: anything running on the national Government Cloud must sit in data centres inside Japan.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an allowlist, and the list has exactly two entries: the European Union and the United Kingdom. Send data there and it is treated almost like a domestic transfer. For every other destination you need one of two things instead. Either the recipient is contractually bound to protect the data to Japanese standards and you keep checking that it does, or you get the person's consent after first telling them the destination country, what its privacy law is like, and what the recipient will do to protect the data.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Personal Information Protection Commission, and it is genuinely working. It has a chair, eight commissioners and a staff ceiling of 231 people. In the year to March 2025 it handled just over 19,000 breach reports, gave 395 pieces of formal guidance and made one recommendation. In the first six months of the following year it sharpened up: two recommendations and its first emergency order, against a company misusing personal information. What it cannot do yet is fine you — Japan has no administrative money penalty for privacy breaches until the 2026 amendment starts.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The floor is firm and the ceiling is soft. Tax law makes you keep books and records for seven years, stretching to ten if you carry a loss forward. Company accounting books run ten years. Against that, the privacy law only asks you to try to delete personal data once you no longer need it — it is a best-efforts duty, not a hard deadline. So when the two collide, the keep-it rule wins in practice.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks. For a personal data breach you file a first report to the privacy regulator within three to five days of finding out, and a full report within 30 days — 60 days if someone did it on purpose. You must also tell the people affected. Critical infrastructure operators have a separate cyber incident duty with a report to the government within 30 days. Telecoms operators report leaks of communications to the communications ministry on their own timetable.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. (1) Putting data on a foreign server is often not a 'transfer' at all — if the provider is contractually barred from touching it — but you then have to work out that country's privacy law and publish the country's name to your users. Most people miss this. (2) The privacy law has no fines: the sanctions are criminal, and a company can be fined about $650,000 for a staff member stealing a customer database. (3) Leaking a communication is a crime punishable with prison, and telecoms staff face a longer term than outsiders. (4) The telecoms rules catch ordinary websites and apps, not just phone companies, and reach foreign operators with no office in Japan. (5) Consent to send data 'overseas' is not valid — you have to name the country.High confidence
What's about to change?: The big one has already passed. On 17 July 2026 Japan published a large amendment to its privacy law. It introduces the country's first money penalty for privacy breaches, sets 16 as the age below which a guardian must be involved, adds rules for face and other biometric data, and raises the criminal penalties. It is not in force yet: the government has up to two years to switch it on by order, and no date has been announced. The other thing to watch is the new cyber defence law, which is being switched on in stages through 2027.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Government — デジタル庁におけるガバメントクラウド等の整備のためのクラウドサービスの提供 — 令和８年度募集調達仕様書

HungaryChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Hungary has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: you may send data abroad if you have the right legal paperwork in place. Hungary used to force state registers to be processed on Hungarian soil, but that rule was scrapped in April 2024. The privacy regulator is real, staffed and issuing decisions, though its fines are small by European standards.
The catch: Two things break the easy answer. Since January 2025 a large slice of the economy — energy, transport, banking, health, water, digital infrastructure, waste, manufacturing and most of the public sector — may only use a shared cloud or process data outside Hungary after completing a formal data classification under the cybersecurity law. And an online casino serving Hungarian players must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area, full stop.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. A company with no office in Hungary is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Hungary or watches their behaviour, because the European privacy rules reach outside Europe. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe you must appoint a written representative inside Europe, and Hungary is a perfectly ordinary place to put one.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, on the normal European terms — nothing in general Hungarian law says data must be stored in Hungary. This is a change worth noticing: the rule that state registers could only be processed on Hungarian soil was repealed with effect from 1 April 2024, and the law that replaced it has no territorial restriction at all. Two sectors override this. An online casino must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area. And any company or public body inside the scope of Hungary's cybersecurity law must finish a formal data classification before it uses a shared cloud service or processes data abroad.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: You need a European transfer tool before the data leaves, and Hungary adds no extra permit, filing or fee on top. The model is an approved-list one: you may send data to a country the European Commission has declared safe, or you sign the standard European contract clauses and write down a risk assessment of the destination. There is no Hungarian government sign-off, and no Hungarian list of banned countries. For police, security and other work outside the European privacy rules, Hungary's own Info Act sets the conditions instead.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, known by its Hungarian initials NAIH, and it is genuinely working. It has published decisions right through to May 2026, released its report on 2025 activity on 30 March 2026, and issued public statements in July and August 2026. Its president is Dr Attila Peterfalvi. The catch is size, not activity: a typical fine is small — two million forint, roughly six thousand dollars, in an April 2025 data-security case.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Hungary pushes hard in both directions. The floor is long: accounting records and vouchers must be kept for eight years, and health records for decades — the health data law works in periods of thirty years and more. The ceiling is the European rule that you delete personal data once the purpose is spent. When the two collide, the specific statutory keep-period wins, so a deletion request does not empty your ledgers or a hospital's files.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count at least two clocks, and three if you are a bank. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A cyber incident at a company or public body covered by the cybersecurity law goes to the national incident response centre, and the European rules that Hungary is copying use a 24-hour first alert followed by a fuller report at 72 hours. Financial firms have a separate and faster set of deadlines under the European operational resilience rules.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. One: mishandling personal data is a crime in Hungary, not just a fine — up to one year in prison, two years for sensitive data, three years for public officials. Two: the old rule forcing state data to stay in Hungary is dead, so quoting it makes you look out of date, while the new cybersecurity classification gate is very much alive and most checklists miss it. Three: several cybersecurity deadlines have already passed, so newly in-scope companies are late on day one. Four: an online casino's game server must sit in the European Economic Area. Five: Hungary's freedom-of-information regime can make your contract with a state body public.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three dated items. The Court of Justice will rule on Hungary's sovereignty protection law; the court's adviser said on 12 February 2026 that it breaks European law, and the judgment could land any time. From 12 January 2027 cloud providers across Europe, Hungary included, must charge nothing to move your data out. And Hungary's cybersecurity supervision moves from paperwork to inspections now that the first audit deadline of 30 June 2026 has passed.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Online gaming — 1991. evi XXXIV. torveny a szerencsejatek szervezeserol es a vegrehajtasi rendeletei (online kaszinojatek engedelyezesi feltetelei)
Government — 2021. evi XCI. torveny a nemzeti adatvagyonrol, 13. §

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	JapanChecked 18 August 2026	HungaryChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: Medium Enforcement: Active	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Japan lets personal data leave the country, but you need paperwork. Only Europe and the United Kingdom are pre-approved. For anywhere else you either sign a contract that binds the recipient to Japanese-standard protection, or you get the person's consent after telling them which country the data goes to. There is no general rule forcing data to stay in Japan.	Hungary has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: you may send data abroad if you have the right legal paperwork in place. Hungary used to force state registers to be processed on Hungarian soil, but that rule was scrapped in April 2024. The privacy regulator is real, staffed and issuing decisions, though its fines are small by European standards.
The catch	Two things break the calm headline. If you sell to the Japanese government, the data must physically sit in Japanese data centres. And if you run a website, an app or any online service used from Japan, the telecoms law reaches you even with no office here, requires a representative in Japan, and makes leaking a communication a criminal offence rather than a fine.	Two things break the easy answer. Since January 2025 a large slice of the economy — energy, transport, banking, health, water, digital infrastructure, waste, manufacturing and most of the public sector — may only use a shared cloud or process data outside Hungary after completing a formal data classification under the cybersecurity law. And an online casino serving Hungarian players must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area, full stop.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. Japan's privacy law reaches a foreign company with no office and no staff in Japan, as long as it handles the personal information of people in Japan while supplying them goods or services. There is no size, revenue or headcount threshold to fall below. Unlike Europe, the privacy law does not make you appoint a representative in Japan — but the telecoms law does, if your service counts as a telecommunications service.High confidence	Yes. A company with no office in Hungary is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Hungary or watches their behaviour, because the European privacy rules reach outside Europe. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe you must appoint a written representative inside Europe, and Hungary is a perfectly ordinary place to put one.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, with paperwork. Japan's general rating is conditional: personal data may go abroad once you have one of three things in place. There is no across-the-board law keeping data in Japan, and no financial, insurance, securities or health localisation rule of the kind India or China have — we searched for one and did not find it. The real wall is government work: anything running on the national Government Cloud must sit in data centres inside Japan.High confidence	Yes, on the normal European terms — nothing in general Hungarian law says data must be stored in Hungary. This is a change worth noticing: the rule that state registers could only be processed on Hungarian soil was repealed with effect from 1 April 2024, and the law that replaced it has no territorial restriction at all. Two sectors override this. An online casino must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area. And any company or public body inside the scope of Hungary's cybersecurity law must finish a formal data classification before it uses a shared cloud service or processes data abroad.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	The model is an allowlist, and the list has exactly two entries: the European Union and the United Kingdom. Send data there and it is treated almost like a domestic transfer. For every other destination you need one of two things instead. Either the recipient is contractually bound to protect the data to Japanese standards and you keep checking that it does, or you get the person's consent after first telling them the destination country, what its privacy law is like, and what the recipient will do to protect the data.High confidence	You need a European transfer tool before the data leaves, and Hungary adds no extra permit, filing or fee on top. The model is an approved-list one: you may send data to a country the European Commission has declared safe, or you sign the standard European contract clauses and write down a risk assessment of the destination. There is no Hungarian government sign-off, and no Hungarian list of banned countries. For police, security and other work outside the European privacy rules, Hungary's own Info Act sets the conditions instead.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The Personal Information Protection Commission, and it is genuinely working. It has a chair, eight commissioners and a staff ceiling of 231 people. In the year to March 2025 it handled just over 19,000 breach reports, gave 395 pieces of formal guidance and made one recommendation. In the first six months of the following year it sharpened up: two recommendations and its first emergency order, against a company misusing personal information. What it cannot do yet is fine you — Japan has no administrative money penalty for privacy breaches until the 2026 amendment starts.High confidence	The National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, known by its Hungarian initials NAIH, and it is genuinely working. It has published decisions right through to May 2026, released its report on 2025 activity on 30 March 2026, and issued public statements in July and August 2026. Its president is Dr Attila Peterfalvi. The catch is size, not activity: a typical fine is small — two million forint, roughly six thousand dollars, in an April 2025 data-security case.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The floor is firm and the ceiling is soft. Tax law makes you keep books and records for seven years, stretching to ten if you carry a loss forward. Company accounting books run ten years. Against that, the privacy law only asks you to try to delete personal data once you no longer need it — it is a best-efforts duty, not a hard deadline. So when the two collide, the keep-it rule wins in practice.Medium confidence	Hungary pushes hard in both directions. The floor is long: accounting records and vouchers must be kept for eight years, and health records for decades — the health data law works in periods of thirty years and more. The ceiling is the European rule that you delete personal data once the purpose is spent. When the two collide, the specific statutory keep-period wins, so a deletion request does not empty your ledgers or a hospital's files.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count three clocks. For a personal data breach you file a first report to the privacy regulator within three to five days of finding out, and a full report within 30 days — 60 days if someone did it on purpose. You must also tell the people affected. Critical infrastructure operators have a separate cyber incident duty with a report to the government within 30 days. Telecoms operators report leaks of communications to the communications ministry on their own timetable.High confidence	Count at least two clocks, and three if you are a bank. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A cyber incident at a company or public body covered by the cybersecurity law goes to the national incident response centre, and the European rules that Hungary is copying use a 24-hour first alert followed by a fuller report at 72 hours. Financial firms have a separate and faster set of deadlines under the European operational resilience rules.Medium confidence
What's the trap?	Five. (1) Putting data on a foreign server is often not a 'transfer' at all — if the provider is contractually barred from touching it — but you then have to work out that country's privacy law and publish the country's name to your users. Most people miss this. (2) The privacy law has no fines: the sanctions are criminal, and a company can be fined about $650,000 for a staff member stealing a customer database. (3) Leaking a communication is a crime punishable with prison, and telecoms staff face a longer term than outsiders. (4) The telecoms rules catch ordinary websites and apps, not just phone companies, and reach foreign operators with no office in Japan. (5) Consent to send data 'overseas' is not valid — you have to name the country.High confidence	Five things that are not in the summary. One: mishandling personal data is a crime in Hungary, not just a fine — up to one year in prison, two years for sensitive data, three years for public officials. Two: the old rule forcing state data to stay in Hungary is dead, so quoting it makes you look out of date, while the new cybersecurity classification gate is very much alive and most checklists miss it. Three: several cybersecurity deadlines have already passed, so newly in-scope companies are late on day one. Four: an online casino's game server must sit in the European Economic Area. Five: Hungary's freedom-of-information regime can make your contract with a state body public.High confidence
What's about to change?	The big one has already passed. On 17 July 2026 Japan published a large amendment to its privacy law. It introduces the country's first money penalty for privacy breaches, sets 16 as the age below which a guardian must be involved, adds rules for face and other biometric data, and raises the criminal penalties. It is not in force yet: the government has up to two years to switch it on by order, and no date has been announced. The other thing to watch is the new cyber defence law, which is being switched on in stages through 2027.High confidence	Three dated items. The Court of Justice will rule on Hungary's sovereignty protection law; the court's adviser said on 12 February 2026 that it breaks European law, and the judgment could land any time. From 12 January 2027 cloud providers across Europe, Hungary included, must charge nothing to move your data out. And Hungary's cybersecurity supervision moves from paperwork to inspections now that the first audit deadline of 30 June 2026 has passed.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall	Government — デジタル庁におけるガバメントクラウド等の整備のためのクラウドサービスの提供 — 令和８年度募集調達仕様書	Online gaming — 1991. evi XXXIV. torveny a szerencsejatek szervezeserol es a vegrehajtasi rendeletei (online kaszinojatek engedelyezesi feltetelei) Government — 2021. evi XCI. torveny a nemzeti adatvagyonrol, 13. §