Payroll in Austria 2026: contributions, wage tax and 14 salaries

In Austria the employer withholds wage tax (Lohnsteuer) and the employee's 18.07% social insurance share from each salary and pays its own 20.98% social insurance. With the company pension contribution, the Dienstgeberbeitrag, its Zuschlag and the municipal Kommunalsteuer, an employer pays roughly 30% on top of gross salary in 2026.

Payroll in Austria at a glance

Social insurance and employer wage taxes

Social insurance is reported and paid to the health insurer, for most employers the Österreichische Gesundheitskasse (ÖGK). These are the 2026 rates for white-collar (Angestellte) and blue-collar (Arbeiter) employees:

What to watch:

• Low earners pay a reduced unemployment share: 0% on a monthly contribution base up to €2,225, 1% up to €2,427 and 2% up to €2,630.
• Vienna raised its housing contribution to 1.5% from 1 January 2026, split 0.75% each, so the totals there are 18.32% and 21.23%.
• The 13th and 14th salary (Sonderzahlungen) have their own ceiling of €13,860 a year. The chamber of labour levy and the housing contribution are not charged on them, so the employee pays 17.07% and the employer 20.48%.
• Marginal employment. Jobs up to €551.10 a month in 2026 (the limit was not raised this year) are geringfügige Beschäftigung without full insurance. The employer still pays accident insurance and, if its total marginal pay exceeds €826.65 in a month, a 19.4% Dienstgeberabgabe.
• Betriebliche Vorsorge. For employment that began after 2002 the employer pays 1.53% of all pay, including the 13th and 14th salary, from the second month of employment. The health insurer collects it and passes it to the Vorsorgekasse the employer has chosen.

On top of social insurance the employer pays three wage-based charges on the monthly gross wage bill:

• Dienstgeberbeitrag (DB) to the family burdens equalisation fund: 3.7%, paid to the Finanzamt.
• Zuschlag zum Dienstgeberbeitrag (DZ): 0.31% to 0.4%, depending on the Land, paid with the DB.
• Kommunalsteuer: 3%, paid to the municipality where the business is located. Where the monthly base is not more than €1,460, an allowance of €1,095 is deducted first. Employers in Vienna also pay the city's Dienstgeberabgabe (the U-Bahn tax).

Lohnsteuer: wage tax and the 13th and 14th salary

The employer withholds Lohnsteuer every month. The base is gross pay minus the employee's social insurance; payroll annualises it and applies the 2026 tariff, whose bands were raised by 1.733% for inflation:

Two items are built into the monthly calculation: the employee's lump sum for work expenses (Werbungskostenpauschale) of €132 a year, and the traffic credit (Verkehrsabsetzbetrag) of €496 a year, which is deducted from the tax. Employees entitled to the commuter allowance get a higher credit of €853 if their income is not more than €15,069. Low earners can receive a further supplement of €804 for 2026 through their annual tax assessment (Arbeitnehmerveranlagung) if their income is not more than €19,761, phasing out up to €30,259. You can check a monthly result with the tariff published by the Ministry of Finance.

The 13th and 14th salary. One-off payments such as the holiday bonus (Urlaubszuschuss) and the Christmas bonus (Weihnachtsremuneration) are sonstige Bezüge and are taxed apart from regular pay. After deducting the social insurance on them:

The reduced rates apply only within the annual sixth (Jahressechstel), one sixth of the regular pay, which equals two average monthly salaries: regular pay received so far in the year ÷ months elapsed × 2. Anything above the sixth is taxed with the regular pay at the tariff. If the annual sixth is not more than €2,615 in 2026 (€2,570 in 2025), the sonstige Bezüge are not taxed at all.

Minimum wage, working time and mandatory pay

• No statutory minimum wage. The Ministry of Social Affairs (Sozialministerium) confirms that Austria has no minimum wage set by law for all employees. More than 800 collective agreements set minimum pay by sector and cover about 95% of employees; where none applies, a Mindestlohntarif or appropriate local pay applies. According to the ministry, most collective agreements set at least €1,700 gross, paid 14 times a year.
• 13th and 14th salary. They are not statutory; they are owed when the collective agreement provides for them, and most agreements include a holiday bonus and a Christmas bonus.
• Working time. Normal working time is 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. Including overtime, work may not exceed 12 hours a day or 60 hours in a single week, and the average over 17 weeks may not exceed 48 hours a week.
• Overtime. Each overtime hour carries a premium of 50%, or 1.5 hours of time off.
• Annual leave. 30 working days for a six-day week or 25 days for a five-day week, so five weeks; six weeks after more than 25 years with the same employer.

Monthly payroll calendar and filings

1. 1Before the first hire: request a contribution account number (Beitragskontonummer) from the ÖGK, free of charge.
2. 2New employees: register each one with the health insurer before they start work, electronically through ELDA. Where an on-site registration was made instead, the full electronic registration must follow within seven days.
3. 3By the 15th of the following month: send the monthly contribution report (mBGM) through ELDA and pay the social insurance contributions to the ÖGK; pay the Lohnsteuer, DB and DZ to the Finanzamt; pay the Kommunalsteuer to the municipality.
4. 4Every year: send each employee's wage-tax statement, the Lohnzettel (form L16), electronically by the end of February (on paper by 31 January only if you have no internet access), and file the Kommunalsteuer return by 31 March.

Payslips and records. The payslip goes to the employee together with each payment of pay, and payroll keeps a Lohnkonto for every employee with the personal data and all pay items.

Worked example: €3,000 a month, 14 times a year

A white-collar employee outside Vienna, single, no children, no commuter allowance, employed all year on €3,000 gross a month, with a 13th salary paid in June and a 14th in November:

How the monthly Lohnsteuer is reached: €2,457.90 × 12 − €132 = €29,362.80 a year. The tariff gives 20% of €8,453 (€1,690.60) plus 30% of €7,370.80 (€2,211.24), €3,901.84 in total; minus the €496 traffic credit that is €3,405.84 a year, or €283.82 a month. On the 13th salary the first €620 is tax-free, so 6% applies to €1,867.90; on the 14th, 6% applies to the full €2,487.90. Both stay within the annual sixth of €6,000.

Over the year the employee earns €42,000 gross and receives €30,803.42 net; the employer's cost is €54,238.20 before the DZ, which adds €130.20 to €168.00 a year depending on the Land.

Common mistakes

1. 1Taxing the 13th and 14th salary at the tariff, or forgetting the €620 tax-free amount and the annual sixth.
2. 2Charging 18.07% on Sonderzahlungen instead of 17.07%: the chamber of labour levy and the housing contribution do not apply to them.
3. 3Missing Vienna's higher housing contribution, 0.75% each since 1 January 2026.
4. 4Deducting the full unemployment share from low earners, who pay 0%, 1% or 2% below €2,630.
5. 5Registering a new employee after the first working day; registration is due before work starts.
6. 6Leaving the DZ, the Kommunalsteuer or the BV contribution out of the employer cost.
7. 7Paying below the collective agreement, including its 13th and 14th salary.

How Clientlly helps

Clientlly ships a built-in payroll profile for Austria: the income-tax bands and allowance as modelled, the employee and employer contribution rates and the contribution ceilings, checked against official sources in October 2026. It calculates gross to net and the employer contributions, produces payslips, and supports recurring payroll adjustments and imports of employees and payroll data; an administrator can adjust the rates in the payroll tax settings.

The profile models one employee in a primary job, single, without dependants, at national level, so Vienna's housing contribution, collective agreements and personal circumstances such as the Familienbonus Plus or the commuter allowance must be checked. It covers regular monthly pay: check the 13th and 14th salary, the DZ and the Kommunalsteuer separately.

Alongside payroll, the human resources module handles leave requests and approvals with a leave calendar and HR documents, and attendance and time tracking records working hours and overtime. To close the books after the payroll run, see our month-end close checklist.