Compulsory Charges in Austria: What Every Household Pays (2026)

How Much Do Three Austrian Households Pay in a Year?

Computed for 2026. The compulsory core covers social insurance, the AK levy, the ORF-Beitrag, the e-card fee and municipal waste, water and sewerage. It excludes income tax and the optional rows (parking, church, dog). Graz and Linz publish their municipal charges only as bands, so households B and C are approximate. Sources: OBS, ÖGK, SV-Dachverband, wien.gv.at, as of August 2026.

Three Austrian households, three very different bills. The single employee in Vienna loses about €8,320 a year to compulsory charges before a cent of income tax, and €7,350 of that never touches their bank account because payroll deducts it first. The family in Graz pays about €12,900, driven by the higher gross salary and by the Styrian ORF surcharge of €4.70 a month. The pensioner in Linz pays about €1,600 to €1,900, most of it the 5.1% health-insurance deduction from the pension itself.

Strip out payroll and the picture gets easier to act on. A Vienna household with no car, no church membership and no dog still pays about €760 a year: €183.60 for the ORF-Beitrag, €25.00 for the e-card, and roughly €550 for waste, water and sewerage. That is the floor. Nothing on that list is cancellable, and only the ORF-Beitrag has an exemption route.

If you rent, you will not see most of the municipal charges as separate invoices. Waste collection, water and sewerage arrive inside the Betriebskosten statement from your landlord, which is why new arrivals often think Austria is cheaper than it is. Compare the figures here against your annual Betriebskostenabrechnung rather than against your monthly rent. For the wider budget, see our cost of living guide and the income tax guide.

How Much Is the ORF-Beitrag and Who Has to Pay It?

ORF household levy 2026. Source: OBS and oesterreich.gv.at, figures as of August 2026.

The ORF-Beitrag is €15.30 a month per main residence, €183.60 a year, and the federal rate is frozen until 2029. Since 1 January 2024 it is a household levy that does not depend on owning a television or a radio. Four states add a surcharge, so the real bill runs from €183.60 in Vienna to €240.00 in Styria. You can pay every two, six or twelve months.

You do not sign up. The OBS matches its register against the central residents register (ZMR), so the levy attaches the moment your Meldezettel is filed, and it follows you when you move. Miss the payments and the OBS can claim up to three years back, plus arrears. A second home with its own main-residence registration is charged separately, and having your main residence elsewhere does not exempt it.

Businesses pay on a different scale. The levy is staggered by the number of employees counted for Kommunalsteuer, from one up to 50 times €15.30 a month. Check your own figure with the official obs.at calculator, which is run by the OBS and is free of advertising.

The freeze has a date on it, and the debate about what follows has already started. In August 2026 the acting ORF director general opened the statutory review in which an independent audit commission checks whether the levy still funds the public-service mandate. Press reports put an increase of about 10% from 2028 on the table, which would lift the annual bill above €200, but no decision had been taken, per VOL.at on 25 August 2026. Separately, the €93 million a year the federal budget paid the ORF ends in 2027. Until the law changes, €15.30 is what you pay.

How Do You Apply for an ORF-Beitrag Exemption?

Ausgleichszulage reference rates (Richtsätze) for 2026, the thresholds the OBS applies to exemption applications. Source: OBS, ÖGK.

The exemption is the only way out of the ORF-Beitrag, and it saves €183.60 to €240.00 a year. You qualify if you receive the Ausgleichszulage, if your household net income stays at or below the Richtsatz above, if you draw the blind or deaf allowance, if you are already exempt from prescription charges on social grounds, or if you receive Pflegegeld above care levels 1 and 2. A spouse without their own income is covered by your exemption.

The four steps

1. 1Check your household net income against the Richtsatz table above. The test is net, and it covers everyone living at the main residence.
2. 2File the application with the ORF-Beitrag Service GmbH (OBS), online at obs.at or by post. The exemption replaces the old GIS exemption and carries the same conditions.
3. 3Attach proof of income. Recipients of the Ausgleichszulage are treated as qualifying without a separate income calculation.
4. 4Diarise the renewal. An exemption granted under the new rules runs for a maximum of five years, after which you file a fresh application or the billing restarts.

Two traps catch people. A second residence pays its own levy, and the fact that your main residence is elsewhere is not a ground for exemption. And the five-year limit is new: the old GIS exemptions were open-ended, so anyone carrying one over needs a reminder in the calendar rather than an assumption that it runs forever.

Which Law and Which Authority Stand Behind the Levy?

The household levy is statutory, not contractual, which is why there is no cancellation route and why the exemption test is written into law rather than set by the broadcaster. The block below gives the statute, the authority that applies it, the free official calculator, and the concrete right the statute grants you.

The same logic runs through the rest of this page. The e-card service fee sits in § 31c ASVG, the AK levy in the Arbeiterkammergesetz, municipal waste and water charges in each municipality’s own by-law published on RIS, and the Vienna dog tax in the Wiener Hundeabgabegesetz. None of them is negotiable with the body that bills you, so the only levers are the exemption routes and, for the church contribution, membership itself.

How Is the Kirchenbeitrag Calculated?

Rates as of August 2026. Diocesan rates vary between 1.0% and 1.1%, so check the letter from your own diocese.

The Kirchenbeitrag is not a state tax, but for the roughly 4.9 million registered Roman Catholics in Austria it behaves like one: the diocese assesses it, bills it and pursues it. The standard rate is 1.1% of income after the standard work-related allowance, so €42,000 gross produces a bill of about €460 a year. Innsbruck charges 1.0%. Protestants pay 1.5% of the income-tax base.

Two reliefs cut the bill. Each child reduces the contribution by 7%, so a family with two children pays 14% less, and low earners and students fall under income floors set by the diocese. On top of that, the contribution you actually pay is deductible as a Sonderausgabe up to €600 a year, which is worth roughly €110 to €240 back depending on your marginal rate. The deduction is open to the Roman Catholic church and several other recognised religious communities.

How Do You Leave the Church in Austria?

Leaving the church in Austria is an administrative act, not a church one, and it is free. You declare it in person or in writing at the Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde, meaning the Magistrat in a city or the Bezirkshauptmannschaft in a district, or at a registry office (Standesamt). Bring photo ID. There is no fee, despite the persistent myth that the exit costs money.

The three steps

1. 1Go to the Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde for your registered address, or send a written declaration. Some authorities take appointments online.
2. 2Show photo ID and state which religious community you are leaving. The authority records the declaration and notifies the community.
3. 3Expect one last invoice. For Roman Catholics the exit is effective in the diocese on the last day of the month of the declaration, so the diocese charges the months up to that point.

The arithmetic is not as one-sided as it looks. Leaving saves the full 1.1%, about €460 on a €42,000 income, but it also removes a Sonderausgabe deduction worth roughly €110 to €240 in tax back, so the net saving is smaller than the headline figure. Run your own numbers against the income tax rules before you decide.

What Do Waste, Water and Sewerage Cost in the Largest Cities?

Municipal charges 2026. Sources: wien.gv.at (MA 48, Wiener Wasser, Wien Kanal), stadt-salzburg.at, innsbruck.gv.at, and the Tyrolean waste by-law on RIS. Graz and Linz do not publish a comparable per-household figure, so those cells are marked unverified rather than estimated.

There is no Austrian average here, because waste, water and sewerage are set municipality by municipality. Vienna charges €52.79 a year for waste collection, €2.37 per m³ for water and €2.60 per m³ for sewerage, which lands a one-person household at roughly €550 a year on 100 m³. All three rose in 2026: waste from €50.52, water from €2.27, sewerage from €2.49.

The structural split is urban versus rural, not city versus city. Vienna, Salzburg, Graz and Linz bill waste by bin volume and emptying frequency: Salzburg charges €258.44 a year for a 120-litre bin emptied weekly, up from €248.56, billed quarterly on 15 February, 15 May, 15 August and 15 November, with one bulky-waste collection a year included. Rural municipalities bill by weight and headcount instead: the Tyrolean sample charges €0.46 per kg of residual waste and €13.18 per person for bio waste.

Innsbruck uses a hybrid: €0.3481 per week for each living-area unit plus €0.0521 per litre of bin capacity, billed quarterly, which puts a two-person household at roughly €150 to €250 a year. Extra sacks are priced separately everywhere: €4.80 for a 60-litre residual sack in Innsbruck, €5.40 in Salzburg, and €3.20 for an 80-litre bio sack in Salzburg. Graz residents pay €7 per visit to the Ressourcenpark for loads up to 200 kg.

If you rent, all of this arrives inside the Betriebskosten and never as a bill in your own name. That does not make it optional, it makes it invisible. Ask for the itemised Betriebskostenabrechnung once a year and check the waste and water lines against the figures above before you accept a rise. Our housing guide covers what a landlord may and may not pass on.

What Does Resident Parking Cost in Vienna and the State Capitals?

Vienna resident parking permit, 2026. The same prices apply in all 23 districts. Source: wien.gv.at and wien.ORF.at.

State-capital comparison as of May 2026, source linza.at. Klagenfurt, St. Pölten, Eisenstadt and Bregenz run their own schemes and are not verified here.

A Vienna Parkpickerl costs €13 a month in parking levy, €156 a year, plus the application charges. Since 1 September 2026 a 12-month permit comes to €202 online with ID Austria and €227 in person, against €199.70 and €212.70 before that date. The levy rose on 1 January 2026 from €10 to €13 a month, a 30% increase that dominated the coverage.

The most persistent myth is a district premium. There is none. The price is identical in all 23 districts, including the 1st, and the permit is valid for the district you are registered in. Terms run from 4 to 24 months. Vienna’s short-stay zones apply Monday to Friday, 9am to 10pm, and a two-hour parking ticket costs €6.80 in 2026.

Across the state capitals the spread is wide enough to matter in a relocation decision. Linz charges €61.10 a year and Graz charges €229, a difference of almost €168 for the same thing. Applying online in Vienna rather than in person saved €13 a year up to 31 August 2026, and the gap has widened since, to €202.00 against €227.00.

How Much Is the Dog Tax in Austria?

Dog tax 2026. Vienna figures from wien.gv.at; the other cities publish rates only through individual municipal by-laws, so those cells are marked unverified.

The Hundeabgabe is a provincial competence, set in practice by each municipality, so there is no national rate. Vienna charges €72 a year for the first dog and €105 for each further dog in 2026, against a statutory ceiling of €72.67 for the first dog in the Wiener Hundeabgabegesetz. Vienna exempts owners on low incomes and dogs taken from a shelter.

A large rise is already decided. From 1 January 2027 Vienna moves to a flat €120 per dog and €240 a year for listed breeds, under a decision taken in December 2025. For a single-dog household that is €48 more a year. Registering a dog is separate from insuring one: Vienna also requires liability cover, which our dog liability insurance guide covers in full.

What Do the e-card Fee and Prescription Charges Cost?

Source: ÖGK and oesterreich.gv.at, as of August 2026. The cap steps down each year: 2% in 2026, 1.875% in 2027, 1.75% in 2028, 1.625% in 2029 and 1.5% in 2030.

The e-card service fee is €25.00 for 2026, up from €13.80, after the Budgetbegleitgesetz 2025 reset it. It was collected on 15 November 2025 through your employer, the AMS or your pension provider, so it appears as a one-line payroll deduction rather than an invoice. It rises to €26.85 for 2027, collected on 15 November 2026, and is indexed annually under § 108a ASVG after that.

Several groups pay nothing: co-insured dependants, marginally employed workers, recipients of the Ausgleichszulage, people exempt from prescription charges on social grounds, and anyone on parental leave or military service on the reference date. Pensioners are exempt in 2026 but become liable from 2027, which is the single biggest change on this page for retired households. If you are insured twice, you can reclaim the duplicate fee on application.

The prescription charge is €7.55 per pack in 2026 and is frozen, unlike most other charges here. The protection is the cap: once your charges in a calendar year reach 2% of your annual net income, you are exempt for the rest of the year. It is applied automatically through the e-card medicines account (Heilmittelkostenkonto), with no application. A minimum ceiling of 41 charges, €309.55, caps low earners earlier; oesterreich.gv.at quotes €314.01 once crediting is included.

Two details are new. Since 1 January 2026 reimbursable medicines that cost less than €7.55 also count towards the cap, which pulls the exemption date forward for anyone on several cheap prescriptions. And the cap itself steps down: 1.875% in 2027, then 1.75%, 1.625% and finally 1.5% in 2030. Separately from the cap, you can apply to the ÖGK for exemption on income grounds using the same €1,308.39 and €2,064.12 thresholds that govern the ORF exemption.

How Much Social Insurance Comes Out of Your Pay?

Contribution rates 2026. Source: the Dachverband der Sozialversicherungsträger. Employers pay a further DB of 3.7%, the DZ surcharge and Kommunalsteuer of 3% on top of their share.

An Austrian employee loses 18.07% of gross pay to social insurance before income tax, and 18.12% in Vienna because the housing levy is higher there. Add the compulsory AK levy of 0.5% and the payroll deduction reaches 18.57%. Contributions stop at a monthly ceiling, the Höchstbeitragsgrundlage, which rises to €7,410 a month in 2027 under an uprating factor of 1.046.

Low earners pay less than the headline rate, and most people do not know it. The unemployment-insurance contribution is staged: 0%, 1% or 2% instead of 3% below monthly gross pay of roughly €2,225, €2,427 and €2,630. It is applied in payroll automatically. Below the marginal-earnings threshold (Geringfügigkeitsgrenze) of €551.10 a month, frozen again for 2027, only accident insurance applies.

The self-employed pay far more, from their own pocket. Under the GSVG the SVS charges 26.83% of the contribution base: 18.5% pension, 6.8% health and 1.53% self-employed provision, plus a flat €155.40 a year (€12.95 a month) for accident insurance. The minimum base of €551.10 sets a floor of about €160.81 a month, or €1,929.72 a year, and the ceiling base of €8,085 a month caps the contribution at about €2,182 a month. Liberal professions under the FSVG pay 20% for pension.

The classic founder shock is the year-three reassessment. The SVS bills provisionally on an assumed base and then re-assesses against your actual profit, so a third-year catch-up bill is normal, not an error. Register within eight weeks of crossing the Neue Selbständige insurance threshold of €6,613.20 a year, because failing to report attracts a 9.3% surcharge. Set aside the full 26.83% from day one.

Chamber membership is compulsory on both sides. Employees fund the Arbeiterkammer with 0.5% of gross pay in every state, apprentices included, capped at the social-insurance ceiling, and that levy buys the AK advice lines and the free tax service. The self-employed fund the WKO through Umlage 1 at about 0.3%, Umlage 2 at roughly 0.04% to 0.50% depending on the state, and a Grundumlage of about €55 to €100 per chamber. Most one-person businesses land at €100 to €300 a year, and micro-businesses under €55,000 of turnover are largely exempt from Umlage 1. The exact 2026 Umlage 1 and 2 rates are not published uniformly across the states, so treat those two percentages as indicative and confirm with your own chamber.

Which Compulsory Charges Change in 2027?

Confirmed changes as of September 2026; the ORF subsidy row added 12 October 2026 from VOL.at, 25 August 2026. Sources: OBS, ÖGK, wien.gv.at, and the 2027 social-insurance values published by the Dachverband and in BGBl. I Nr. 62/2026.

Two dates deserve a calendar entry. On 1 January 2027 Styria drops its €4.70 monthly ORF surcharge, which takes a Styrian household from €240.00 to €183.60 a year, a saving of €56.40. And the federal €15.30 levy is frozen by law until 2029, so the annual indexation that applies to almost every other charge here does not apply to it.

Retired households face the opposite move. Pensioners pay no e-card service fee in 2026 but become liable for €26.85 from 2027. Pensions themselves rise by 2.95% in 2027 up to €6,930 a month, with a flat €204.44 above that. Dog owners in Vienna should register before 1 January 2027: the rate moves from €72 to €120 per dog.

One further date sits just outside this page. The reduced electricity levy expires on 31 December 2026, which raises the tax component of every household electricity bill from 2027. Our electricity and gas guide tracks that one, together with the grid charges and levies that make up roughly half of an Austrian energy bill.

Frequently Asked Questions