This paper analyses the determinants of household farms' participation in land markets in transition countries. We derive several hypotheses on the impact of households' management ability, land endowment, land quality and prices, transaction costs in the land market, rural credit and labour market constraints. We test the hypotheses combining a representative dataset on land rental activities of more than 1,400 Hungarian household farms with data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. We find that land rental markets reallocate land to households with better farm management capacities and less endowed with land. Households combine buying and renting of land to extend their farms. The continued domination of large farm organizations in some regions restricts household's access to land. Rural credit and labour market imperfections have an important impact on land rental markets.