Before you start

Austrian tax number, issued on registration
FinanzOnline access or ID Austria
Your annual Lohnzettel from each employer
Records of deductible expenses — commuting, professional costs, insurance, dependants

Step-by-step

1
Establish whether you are tax resident and on what
Having a home available to you in Austria, or spending more than six months here, generally makes you resident and taxable on worldwide income, with double-taxation treaties allocating specific items. Anyone with foreign property, a foreign business or foreign investments should take advice in year one.
OnlineWho: You
2
Let payroll withhold the monthly Lohnsteuer
Your employer deducts income tax and social insurance each month. For a straightforward single-employer year there may be nothing further to do — but read the next step before assuming that.
Via employerWho: Your employer
3
File the Arbeitnehmerveranlagung, up to five years back
The employee assessment is voluntary in most cases and can be filed through FinanzOnline for any of the previous five years. Starting work part-way through a year almost always produces a refund, because withholding assumes the salary ran all year. An automatic assessment exists for simple cases but cannot claim expenses you never declared.
OnlineWho: YouAny time, up to 5 years back
4
Claim what a Styrian commuter can actually claim
The Pendlerpauschale is worked out with the official online calculator and pays much more where public transport is unreasonable — which around Graz means the outlying valleys rather than the city itself. Professional expenses, further training and childcare are usually the bigger levers for a city resident.
OnlineWho: You
5
Know how the 13th and 14th are taxed
Special payments are taxed at a flat 6% within the Jahressechstel after a €620 annual exemption, with a Freigrenze below which nothing is due. That is why June and November net pay looks disproportionately good, and why comparing an Austrian gross with a German one on the headline number misleads.
Via employerWho: Your employer
6
Self-employed: plan for the second-year prepayment true-up
Self-employment means an annual return, quarterly income tax prepayments and VAT registration above the small-business threshold. Early prepayments are estimates that get trued up once real profits are known, and the catch-up assessment in year two is the classic Austrian freelance shock — provision for it from the start.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Tax number and FinanzOnline credentials
Lohnzettel from each employer in the year
Receipts for professional expenses and further training
Insurance and childcare certificates
Records of foreign income and assets

Things most newcomers don’t know

There is no Styrian tax office — Austria merged forty of them into one national authority on 1 January 2021.

Finanzamt Österreich handles individual and most business taxation for the whole country, with a separate office for large enterprises. Practically, correspondence is not tied to your district, everything runs through FinanzOnline, and there is no local registration step when you move within Austria. Advice that refers to 'your local Finanzamt' predates the reform and will send you looking for an office that no longer exists.

Source: BMF

The brackets are indexed automatically, so quoting a number without the year is meaningless.

Since 2023 Austria adjusts the tax thresholds each January by two-thirds of measured inflation, with the remaining third allocated by parliament. For 2026 measured inflation was 2.6% and the thresholds rose 1.733%, putting the tax-free amount at €13,539. Only the band above €1 million is excluded. Learn the mechanism and re-check the current figure rather than carrying a number forward.

Source: BMF; Progressionsabgeltungsgesetz

The employee assessment is optional, backdated five years, and usually in your favour.

Withholding assumes your monthly salary continues for the whole year, so anyone who arrived mid-year, changed employer, took unpaid leave or has deductible costs is very likely owed money — claimable for any of the five preceding years through FinanzOnline. Newcomers who file for their arrival year routinely receive a four-figure refund they did not know existed, and the deadline is long enough that filing three years late still works.

Source: BMF

The 13th and 14th salary are taxed at 6% but are contractual, not statutory.

Special payments within the Jahressechstel are taxed at a flat 6% after a €620 exemption instead of at your marginal rate, which makes an Austrian package materially better net than the same annual gross elsewhere. But Austrian law does not guarantee them — they come from the applicable Kollektivvertrag, which covers the overwhelming majority of jobs but not every contract, and certainly not every freelance arrangement. Ask which collective agreement applies before treating the 14 payments as given.

Source: BMF; Arbeiterkammer

Common mistakes to avoid

Never filing an employee assessment and leaving the arrival-year refund uncollected.
Using a bracket figure from an older guide when the thresholds move every January.
Assuming the 13th and 14th salary are guaranteed by statute rather than by collective agreement.
Overlooking worldwide-income obligations because the money never reaches an Austrian account.
Going self-employed without provisioning for the year-two prepayment true-up.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.