The paper presents the results of a survey of 246 enterprises conducted by the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest in 2003, as part of an enterprise panel research. The principle goal of the research was to study the factors influencing the level of trust buyer firms place in their suppliers (contractual trust). According to the main findings, the level of contractual trust is affected by the time horizon of planning, the prior cooperation between the firm and its partners, and the trusting attitude of the firm leader (in the sense of generalized trust) but is not influenced by the concentration of the market. The article also examines the question of whether the introduction of quality standards serves as a means for producing trust.