The main aim of this paper is to explore how daily commuting has contributed to the changes of ecological footprint in the Buda-pest urban region since 1990 by using census data of 1990, 2001 and 2011. First, the func-tional urban region of Budapest was delim-ited using the 15% threshold of daily com-muting to work to Budapest in 2001. Accord-ing to international methodology 185 sur-rounding municipalities and Budapest were defined as the urban region. Using data on the transport vehicle of commuting the vol-ume of CO2 emissions was estimated at mu-nicipal level for the 185 municipalities. Final-ly, on the basis of emission values the ecolog-ical footprint of the whole urban region was estimated. Our results show declining ecolog-ical footprint values throughout the 1990s, due to decreasing commuting rates, which is the result of economic restructuring, growing unemployment and less mobility of the la-bour force. However, as commuting in-creased due to economic upswing after 2000 the ecological footprint also grew, the use of motor vehicles (private car and bus) in com-muting substantially and dynamically in-creased. In the reviewed periodspatial struc-ture of commuting significantly changed: rail-commuting shrunk into a few outstanding transport axes, whereas the use of passenger cars increased also in the less booming areas of the urban agglomeration.