Best Commercial Banks in Austria (2026)

Sources: easybank (2026), bank99 (2026), Erste Bank (2026), Bank Austria price list valid from 1 September 2026, BAWAG P.S.K. price overview of 23 September 2026. Bank Austria bills the Online-Konto at €8.19 per quarter. Its older ErfolgsKonto is closed to new customers and now costs €22.98 per quarter. Fees reflect standard adult accounts; student and under-27 accounts are often fee-free.

Austrian banks charge a monthly Kontoführungsgebühr (account maintenance fee) on most current accounts (Girokonto), unlike fee-free neobanks. The five cheapest everyday accounts you can open in 2026 are easybank easy gratis (€0/month), bank99 smartkonto99 (€1.99/month), Bank Austria Online-Konto (€2.73/month), BAWAG P.S.K. Online KontoBox (€2.90/month), and Erste Bank s Kompakt Konto (€3.89/month). Best pick for most residents: easybank easy gratis for a genuinely fee-free salary account. Fees are current provider price sheets, October 2026.

For the full breakdown see how to open an account, the bank types, every bank that takes retail customers, which banks offer English service, the fee details, and how banks rank by size. For a step-by-step walkthrough read our account opening guide; for fee-free digital alternatives compare our fintech apps guide; and to grow idle cash see our savings accounts guide.

Source: OeNB banking structure statistics, Q2 2026. Counts cover licensed head institutions and their branch offices in Austria.

Austrian banks split into seven domestic sectors plus branches of foreign banks, and the sector decides the ownership model, the branch network, and which deposit-guarantee scheme protects your money. The OeNB counted 445 licensed head institutions and 3,013 branch offices in Q2 2026. Raiffeisen is by far the largest sector by institution count with 276 head institutions, while Bausparkassen hold a restricted licence and cannot offer you a current account at all.

The two cooperative sectors are tiered. Raiffeisen runs three tiers: your local Raiffeisenbank owns a share of one of 8 Landesbanken, which in turn own Raiffeisen Bank International. Volksbanken runs about 9 regional banks under Volksbank Wien as central institution. Sparkassen use a two-tier model around Erste Bank der oesterreichischen Sparkassen. Landes-Hypothekenbanken are owned by or tied to the provinces, and Sonderbanken hold restricted licences that mostly exclude retail deposits. The 18 foreign-bank branches under § 9 BWG answer to their home-state supervisor and their home deposit-guarantee scheme, not to Austria's.

Supervision is split three ways. The ECB directly supervises significant institutions, and the list of 1 March 2026 names seven Austrian-headquartered groups: Addiko Bank, BAWAG Group, Erste Group, Raiffeisen Bank International, Raiffeisenbankengruppe OÖ Verbund, Raiffeisen-Holding NÖ-Wien, and Volksbank Wien. UniCredit Bank Austria is ECB-supervised as part of UniCredit. The FMA licenses banks, supervises conduct and less significant institutions, and sets the buffer regulation, while the OeNB runs on-site inspection and analysis.

The O-SII buffers are unchanged for 2026: 1.75% for Erste Group, UniCredit Bank Austria and Raiffeisen Bank International; 0.90% for BAWAG, Raiffeisenlandesbank OÖ, Raiffeisen-Holding NÖ-Wien, Erste Bank Oesterreich and RLB NÖ-Wien; and 0.45% for the Volksbanken-Verbund and Steiermärkische. The countercyclical buffer stands at 0%.

Sectors follow the OeNB classification, Q2 2026. “Not verified” means we could not confirm English-language service either way, not that the bank refuses it.

Eleven branch-bank groups and a short list of digital banks take ordinary retail customers in Austria. Erste Bank, UniCredit Bank Austria, BAWAG P.S.K. and the Raiffeisen network are the four with verified English service. The rest are branch-by-branch propositions, so ask before you book an appointment. Every bank in the table above is Austrian-licensed, which puts your balance under one of the three Austrian deposit-guarantee schemes up to €100,000.

Online-only banks and EU neobanks

Two of these are not Austrian banks at all. N26 Bank SE is German and Revolut Bank UAB is Lithuanian, both serve Austria cross-border under freedom of services, and both run fully in English. Neither sits under an Austrian deposit-guarantee scheme, and neither counts towards the 445 licensed institutions the OeNB reports. easybank is the trap for readers comparing old reviews: it is now a brand of BAWAG P.S.K. rather than a separate bank, because its own licence lapsed when the two merged (FMA, 2020).

Total assets at 31 December 2025, group-consolidated. RLB NÖ-Wien's figure is a press figure rather than a published group balance-sheet total. Austrian-domestic-only assets are not published on a comparable basis across these groups.

Erste Group is Austria's largest bank at €368.6 billion in total assets at 31 December 2025, ahead of Raiffeisen Bank International at €210.3 billion and UniCredit Bank Austria at €109.6 billion. Every figure in the table is group-consolidated, meaning it counts the subsidiaries each group owns abroad as well as its Austrian business. There is no comparable Austrian-domestic-only ranking, because these groups do not publish domestic balance sheets on a common basis.

Read the perimeters before you compare the numbers. RBI's €210.3 billion still includes its Russian subsidiary, so the figure overstates the business a retail customer in Austria deals with. UniCredit Bank Austria reports on a sub-group consolidated basis inside UniCredit, not as a standalone parent. RLB NÖ-Wien's ~€35.5 billion is a press figure. Size also has nothing to do with your protection: the €100,000 deposit guarantee is identical at the largest and the smallest Austrian bank.

Oberbank, the Linz-based regional bank in our ranking, held €29.36 billion in total assets at the end of 2025 and 165 branches across Austria, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. The bank expects to pass the €30 billion threshold in 2026, which makes it a bank directly supervised by the ECB from 2028 (Oberbank results release, 9 April 2026).

The sector as a whole is profitable and well capitalised. The OeNB release on its Financial Stability Report of 22 April 2026 puts the Austrian banking sector's profit at €11.8 billion in 2025, lifted by higher profits at the large banks in their domestic business. Banks used most of that profit to build capital, and the sector's CET1 ratio rose to a record 19.0%. For a retail customer the practical point is narrow: capital strength is a stability signal, while your own balance is protected by the deposit guarantee below.

Opening a current account (Girokonto) in Austria is straightforward once you have a registered address. Here are the key steps:

• 1

  Register your Austrian address (Meldezettel)

  You must register with the local Meldeamt within three days of moving in. The resulting Meldezettel is required by every Austrian bank as proof of residence.

• 2

  Choose a bank that matches your needs

  Raiffeisen runs the largest branch network with 1,183 branch offices, ahead of the Sparkassen including Erste Bank with 672 (OeNB, Q2 2026). Raiffeisen is especially strong outside Vienna. UniCredit Bank Austria suits internationally mobile customers with existing UniCredit accounts abroad.

• 3

  Book an appointment or start online

  Most banks accept walk-ins but an appointment shortens the wait. See our account opening guide for a step-by-step walkthrough.

• 4

  Bring your documents

  Passport or ID, Meldezettel, proof of employment or income, and a residence permit if you are a non-EU citizen. Some banks also ask for an Austrian tax ID.

• 5

  Activate online banking and your debit card

  Your Bankomatkarte (Austrian debit card) and online banking credentials arrive by post within 5 to 10 business days. Set up the mobile app immediately for contactless payments.

Erste Bank, BAWAG P.S.K., UniCredit Bank Austria and Raiffeisen are the four Austrian branch banks with verified English service, and the neobanks N26 and Revolut run entirely in English. Erste's George platform carries a full English interface. Everywhere else the language you get depends on the branch, so confirm before the appointment rather than after.

• BAWAG P.S.K.: Reliable English support at most Vienna branches. Online banking is available in English.
• Erste Bank: George platform has a full English interface. Branch staff in central Vienna usually speak English, less reliable in rural areas.
• UniCredit Bank Austria: International customer focus with English support available at flagship Vienna branches.
• Raiffeisen: Individual Raiffeisen branches decide their own English-service coverage. Vienna branches are usually fine, rural Raiffeisenbanken may not be.
• Oberbank and Volksbank: English service is inconsistent. Expect German-first interactions outside major cities.

Prices as of October 2026 from each bank's published price list or product page; Bank Austria bills quarterly and the monthly figure is its own stated equivalent. Verify on the bank's site before you sign.

Austrian banks charge a monthly Kontoführungsgebühr of €1.99 to €11.84 on a paid Girokonto as of October 2026. The low end is an online-only account such as Bank Austria Online-Konto at €2.73; the high end is a full package such as BAWAG KontoBox Large at €11.84. The headline fee is rarely the whole bill: counter transactions, extra ATM withdrawals and the overdraft are priced separately, and that is where the real gap between banks opens up.

Premium packages sit above that range because they bundle a credit card and branch service. Raiffeisen Stadtbank Wien charges €14.19 a month for Girokonto Bonus Komfort, which adds a GOLD credit card and free self-service bookings in the branch. Bonus Premium costs €24.63 and includes every booking, also at the counter, plus two Platinum credit cards. bank99 runs the same ladder: balancekonto99 at €6.39 adds unlimited ATM withdrawals, and topkonto99 at €15.98 adds unlimited counter services (bank99, Raiffeisen, October 2026). Pay for a package only if you would otherwise buy the credit card or the counter visits separately.

Branch use is the biggest hidden cost. Bank Austria charges €4.10 for each counter transfer or cash transaction on its Online-Konto, while the Relax-Konto includes them for €10.97 a month. BAWAG P.S.K. charges €6.00 per manual or counter booking on the Online KontoBox, includes one ATM transaction a month, and bills €0.50 for each further one. Erste Bank charges €4.55 for a transfer or cash transaction at the counter on the s Kompakt Konto, while the same at its machines is free. bank99 charges €4.79 per counter service on smartkonto99. easybank includes 12 ATM transactions per quarter on easy gratis.

Overdraft interest is the other number to check. Erste Bank charges 9.875% a year on the s Kompakt Konto, on its price basis of 1 July 2026, the lowest of the three banks quoted here. Bank Austria charges a variable 11.625% a year on salary accounts, set at the 3-month EURIBOR plus 9 percentage points. BAWAG P.S.K. charges 12.50% on the Online KontoBox and adds 4.5% a year on any amount above the agreed limit. bank99 charges 9.99% on all three of its private accounts. Cards abroad also cost extra: BAWAG adds a 0.75% handling fee to debit card payments in non-euro currencies.

Prices keep moving. The AK Bankenmonitor of 19 May 2026 checked 53 services at 11 banks and found that 5 of the 11 raised current-account and payment fees, by about 3% on average. Introductory offers cut the first-year bill instead: Bank Austria waives the account fee for one year (the quarter of opening plus four quarters) for new customers who open a current account with online banking by 31 December 2026, so the Online-Konto costs €0 instead of €2.73 a month in year one (Bank Austria, October 2026).

• Monthly account fee: €1.99 to €11.84 for a standard paid Girokonto, up to €24.63 for a premium package with credit cards. Student and youth accounts are fee-free at Bank Austria, BAWAG P.S.K. and Erste Bank.
• Debit card (Bankomatkarte): included in the Bank Austria, BAWAG P.S.K., Erste Bank and Raiffeisen packages above.
• Credit card: from €1 a month (easybank) to €5.66 a month (BAWAG GOLD), subject to a credit check. See our credit card guide for comparisons.
• ATM withdrawals: included at your own bank's machines up to the package limit. Third-party ATM operators may add their own fee.
• SEPA transfers: included through online banking. Counter transfers cost €4.10 (Bank Austria Online-Konto) to €6.00 (BAWAG Online KontoBox).

Ways to Reduce Banking Fees

• Choose an online-only package: Bank Austria's Online-Konto costs €2.73 a month against €10.97 for the Relax-Konto, if you never use the counter.
• Consolidate with one bank: Bundling salary, savings, and a credit card often reduces the overall fee schedule.
• Use fintech for international transfers: See our fintech app guide for cheaper FX via Wise or Revolut.

Three Austrian accounts cost €0 if your income clears a threshold, and the thresholds differ more than the fees. easybank easy gratis asks for only €400 a month, but it must come from an employer or pension payer: a transfer from your own account at another bank does not count. DADAT asks for €1,000 and adds a free Debit Mastercard. Below the line, easybank costs €58.80 a year and DADAT €53.76, both more than bank99 smartkonto99 at €23.88 with no condition.

The small charges matter as much as the headline. easybank includes 12 ATM transactions a quarter and charges €1.00 for each one after that. bank99 lets you pay cash in at a Post counter twice a year for free, then charges €4.79 each time. BAWAG P.S.K. charges €1.82 plus 0.75% for a cash withdrawal outside the euro area. Instant SEPA transfers are free at BAWAG since January 2025 and at Erste Bank since October 2025.

DKB is the one foreign bank in the table because it accepts customers living in Austria. It is free from €700 a month and includes free cash withdrawals worldwide for active customers, but it gives you a German DE IBAN, interest is not taxed at source, and the card and PIN arrive by post in 1 to 3 weeks. Use it as a second account rather than the one that receives your salary and your FinanzOnline refund.

A full account switch in Austria takes about 6 to 12 business days. You sign one authorisation at the new bank, and the Verbraucherzahlungskontogesetz (VZKG) makes the banks do the rest: the new bank requests your data within 2 business days, the old bank sends it within 5, and the new bank sets up your standing orders and direct debits within another 5. None of the Austrian banks in our September 2026 research charged for the service.

The gap is payments the law cannot see. Merchants that charge your old debit card, rather than a SEPA direct debit, often do not move, and neither do payers you never told about the new IBAN. Keep the old account open for 2 to 3 months, watch what still arrives on it, and close it only once it stays quiet. Compare the annual cost first on the AK Bankenrechner, as the reports below did.

Check how reachable the new bank is before you move your salary. easybank has a Trustpilot score of 1.4/5 from 709 reviews as of April 2026, and about 45% of the criticism is about not getting through since the Barclays integration in February 2026. DADAT has a Trustpilot score of 2.3/5 from 115 reviews as of June 2026. Review sites collect complaints more than quiet satisfaction, and the account itself draws less criticism than the service line, as the second report below shows.

Prices as of October 2026 from each bank's product page or price sheet (BAWAG P.S.K. price sheet of 4 May 2026, Oberbank of 30 April 2026). Raiffeisen business accounts are priced by each regional Raiffeisenbank. Verify on the bank's site before you sign.

A business account (Geschäftskonto) at an Austrian bank costs about €5 to €19 a month as of October 2026. The cheapest is bank99 geschäftskonto99 at €4.99 for sole traders. BAWAG P.S.K. charges €9.90 for BusinessBox Dynamic, Erste Bank €13.61 for EPU Smart, and Oberbank €56 a quarter. Business accounts add per-booking and turnover charges that private accounts do not have.

Count your bookings before you compare monthly fees. BAWAG includes 20 electronic transactions a month and charges €0.54 each for the 21st to the 50th. Above €5,000 of monthly turnover it adds a handling charge of 0.030% on the larger turnover side. Oberbank includes 100 transactions a quarter and charges 0.4‰ on turnover above the included amount. Erste's EPU Smart is the flat-fee option: all electronic bookings are in the €13.61.

Cash is the second cost driver. bank99 charges €7.48 for each counter service on geschäftskonto99. BAWAG charges €14.60 per cash deposit through its counter cash-in service. A retailer or restaurant that banks cash daily can pay more in deposit fees than in account fees. New firms get the deepest discounts: BAWAG BusinessBox Starter is free for 12 months if you open it within 12 months of founding, then switches to Dynamic. Bank Austria waives the GoGreen-Businesskonto fee for the first year for firms with up to €1 million in annual turnover.

Account prices as in the business-account table above, October 2026. Award and results figures from the sources linked below.

The best business bank in Austria depends on the company. A sole trader gets the cheapest Austrian IBAN at bank99 for €4.99 a month, and a new firm banks free for 12 months with BAWAG BusinessBox Starter. Erste Bank sells a flat €13.61 account for one-person businesses. Oberbank suits established SMEs that borrow, and Raiffeisen suits companies trading with Central and Eastern Europe.

Two recent data points back the picks. Erste Bank und Sparkassen was named the best bank in Austria 2026 by Euromoney, after folding Salzburger Sparkasse into Erste Bank Oesterreich in August 2025. That merger added about 260,000 customers and 41 full-service branches. Oberbank grew its commercial loans by 4.8% to €18.6 billion in the first half of 2026, against market growth of 2.5%, and lifted profit after tax by 11% to €199 million (Salzburger Nachrichten, 26 August 2026).

A neobank business account is cheaper to run but changes two things. It carries the IBAN of its licensing country, German for N26 and Lithuanian for Revolut, so the account answers to a foreign supervisor and a foreign deposit-guarantee scheme. Euro payments still work, and under Art. 9 of Regulation 260/2012 no payee may refuse a valid EU IBAN. The second change is cash: a neobank has no counter, so a shop or restaurant that banks takings daily still needs a branch bank, where a counter deposit costs €14.60 at BAWAG.

The biggest shift of the last two years is not a fee but the end of one card issuer's grip on the market. card complete used to issue the credit cards of Bank Austria, several Raiffeisen banks and the Miles & More programme. Since 2025 all three have moved: Erste Bank now runs Miles & More, and Bank Austria issues its own cards. If you hold one of these cards, the old terms no longer apply.

Fees moved in both directions. Instant transfers became free, first at BAWAG in January 2025 and then by EU law from 9 October 2025. Account fees went up, as at Erste in mid-2026. Under § 50 ZaDiG 2018 a bank must propose any such change at least two months ahead, and you can terminate the account free of charge and without notice before it takes effect.

Every consumer lawfully resident in the EU has the right to a basic account (Basiskonto) at a bank based in Austria under § 23 VZKG, whatever their place of residence. Its fee is capped at €80 a year in the statute, indexed every two years, and €40 for groups designated as vulnerable (§ 26 VZKG). Banks must give you a standard Entgeltinformation before you sign, and must announce any fee change two months ahead.

The basic account is the answer for anyone a bank turns away. The Verbraucherzahlungskontogesetz (VZKG) extends the right to people without a fixed address and to asylum seekers. A bank may refuse only on narrow grounds in § 24, such as you already holding a usable account at another Austrian bank. The account covers deposits, cash withdrawals, direct debits, card payments and transfers within the EEA. The FMA handles complaints from consumers whose application was rejected (§ 29 VZKG), and the AK Bankenrechner lists the current indexed cap at €83.45 a year.

Fee changes follow § 50 ZaDiG 2018. Your bank must propose any change to the account contract at least two months before it applies. Where the contract treats your silence as consent, the bank must say so, and must tell you that you can terminate free of charge and without notice before the change takes effect. TheArbeiterkammer states that automatic index-linked increases of account fees are not permitted.

To compare banks before you switch, use the AK Bankenrechner, the advertising-free official comparison site run by the Arbeiterkammer. It ranks current accounts by annual account cost for a usage profile you pick, from 160 bookings a year for light users to 400 for heavy users. Under § 6 VZKG every bank must also hand you its Entgeltinformation, a fee sheet for the most representative account services, on paper or another durable medium before you are bound.