Blog Minimum age at the Budapest baths: what to know before going with children
Minimum age at the Budapest baths: what to know before going with children
Since 1 August 2025 the Széchenyi baths have not let anyone under 14 in, not even to the outdoor pools. They are not alone: Rudas, Lukács and Dandár apply the same rule. Here is what the law says, which baths do take children, and how to plan so nobody gets turned away at the door.
The rule, bath by bath
- Széchenyi
- No under-14s, since 1 August 2025
- Rudas
- No under-14s, since April 2022
- Dandár
- No under-14s, since April 2022
- Lukács
- No under-14s
- Gellért
- Closed for renovation, reopening planned for 2028
- Paskál, Csillaghegy, Pesterzsébet
- Children welcome all year, with limits
Where the rule comes from
This is not each bath making up its own policy. Hungarian Government Decree 510/2023, which governs public baths, says under-14s may only use them under the responsibility and supervision of a parent or accompanying adult. It also bars them from medicinal-water pools, therapy pools and any pool above 35 °C unless a doctor prescribes it. Under-sixes are further kept out of massage pools, jacuzzis and anything else a bath's house rules list.
The reason given by the public company that runs Budapest's baths is medical: medicinal water at 36 to 40 °C puts real strain on the heart and circulation, and its mineral content may affect hormonal development. Even before the decree there were signs at the medicinal pools advising against them for under-14s; the law turned the advice into a ban.
Why Széchenyi closed the outdoor pools too
Every pool at Széchenyi runs on medicinal water. The 18 indoor ones were already 14-plus. The outdoor pools use filtered, mixed water and are cooler, so for a while the bath tried to keep children to those. By the company's own account it did not work, and the only way to comply fully was to admit over-14s only. That has been the rule since 1 August 2025, and it applies at Lukács as well.
There is one exception, meant for treatment rather than a fun afternoon: a child under 14 can enter Széchenyi with a certificate from a specialist (a rheumatologist or orthopaedic doctor) that includes the ICD diagnosis code, sent to the bath for approval 24 hours before the visit.
If your child is 14 or 15
Bring their original passport or ID card. Széchenyi warns that it may ask for it to check their age, and a 14-year-old can easily look 12. Do not expect a discount either: there is no child or family ticket, and the day ticket is the same for every age.
Where children can swim
The public company points families to three baths that are open all year, Paskál, Csillaghegy and Pesterzsébet, plus its open-air lidos at Római and Pünkösdfürdő in summer.
Paskál
It is in Zugló, on the Pest side, reached by trolleybuses 77 and 82. Indoors there is a baby pool (32 °C and 30 cm deep), a learner pool and a leisure pool with play features; outside, a 33-metre pool that is covered in winter, two more leisure pools and, in summer only, a children's pool. It opens every day, from 9 am to 8 pm on weekdays and from 8 am at weekends. Its thermal pools state that under-14s may use them only with a doctor's prescription.
Csillaghegy
It is in northern Buda, reached on the HÉV suburban railway. Its indoor kids' area has a baby pool, an adventure pool with slides and water jets, a dry play corner, a baby changing room and space to leave the pushchair. Watch the calendar: since 14 September 2026 that area opens only at weekends (10 am to 8 pm), on public holidays and in school holidays. Swim nappies are compulsory for babies.
Pesterzsébet
It is in southern Pest and opens every day from 8 am. There is an indoor leisure pool you can swim out of into the outdoor area, an open-air swimming pool that stays open in winter, and a kids' area whose indoor pool opens only at weekends, on public holidays and in summer. Adults are not allowed in that pool, and children still in nappies wear swim nappies; the other pools are for children who are out of nappies.
Even where children are allowed
The law is the same everywhere. Even in a family bath, an under-14 cannot go into medicinal-water pools or pools above 35 °C without a prescription, and an under-6 cannot use jacuzzis or massage pools. Read the sign at each pool and the temperatures each bath publishes online: at Paskál, for example, the indoor leisure pool is at 36 °C.
How to plan it without a scene
If you are travelling with young children plus teenagers or adults, the easy fix is to split up: a morning at Széchenyi for the older ones while the younger ones go to the zoo, which is in the same park, a few minutes' walk away. Or keep the water for Paskál or Csillaghegy, where the whole family can go together.
If you are going without children, or with over-14s, the essentials for Széchenyi are on its page. And for a full two-day plan with children, with the Children's Railway, the zoo and the water in the right place, see Budapest with children.