ERP and accounting software for Austria: VAT, RKSV, UGB

Austrian compliance in one view

Keeping the books of an Austrian business means filing monthly or quarterly VAT pre-returns on FinanzOnline, running a secured cash register if you take cash, keeping seven years of records in a form an auditor can read electronically, and preparing annual accounts under the Commercial Code (UGB). Austria has no B2B e-invoicing mandate as of September 2026. It matters because each obligation depends on the ledger's line detail.

Tax administration is federal. The Federal Ministry of Finance sets policy and the Finanzamt Österreich, Austria's nationwide tax office, administers VAT, income and corporation tax and wage tax. Returns are filed through FinanzOnline, and the Business Service Portal (USP) is the government's single entry point for businesses. Social insurance for employees is handled by the Österreichische Gesundheitskasse (ÖGK), and municipal tax on payroll is paid to the municipality.

This page sets out what those rules require, where a finance system helps or hinders, and what Skyline Nexus ERP covers for an Austrian business today and what is being rolled out.

• Tax authority: Finanzamt Österreich, filing through FinanzOnline
• Currency: euro; standard VAT rate 20%
• Accounts: UGB for individual accounts; EU-adopted IFRS for listed groups
• Retention: seven years under section 132 BAO
• E-invoicing: B2G only; no domestic B2B mandate

VAT rates, the 4.9% food rate and the small-business exemption

Austria has four VAT rates as of September 2026. The standard rate is 20%. The 10% reduced rate covers items such as residential rent, accommodation, books, newspapers and most food. The 13% rate covers items such as raising animals and growing plants, artists' services and tickets to cultural and sporting events. From 1 July 2026 a third reduced rate of 4.9% applies to selected basic foods listed by Combined Nomenclature heading in Annex 3 of the VAT Act: products such as drinking milk, yoghurt, butter, fresh eggs, fresh and frozen vegetables, certain fruit, flour, rice, plain pasta, bread and simple baked goods, and salt.

The 4.9% rate was introduced without an end date, and it applies only where a supply or import consists exclusively of the listed goods. A supermarket receipt with milk, coffee and bananas therefore carries three rates, and bread and baked goods only qualify with no more than 5% fat and 5% sugar in dry matter and no added honey, eggs, cheese or fruit. The only reliable way to get this right is a rate held on each product and applied per line.

Since 1 January 2025 the small-business exemption (Kleinunternehmerregelung) applies to businesses whose annual turnover does not exceed 55,000 euro gross, up from 35,000 euro net before 2025. A small business charges no VAT and cannot recover input VAT. If the limit is exceeded by no more than 10%, the exemption continues until the end of that year.

• 20% standard rate
• 13% reduced rate, including cultural and sporting events
• 10% reduced rate, including rent, accommodation and most food
• 4.9% on Annex 3 basic foods from 1 July 2026
• Small-business exemption up to 55,000 euro gross turnover

Filing VAT: UVA, annual return and FinanzOnline

Austrian VAT is declared in advance through the Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung (UVA). A business whose turnover in the previous calendar year exceeded 100,000 euro files monthly; a business between 55,000 and 100,000 euro files quarterly. The UVA and the payment are due by the 15th day of the second month after the period, so January's return is due by 15 March, and the quarterly deadlines are 15 May, 15 August, 15 November and 15 February. A business whose previous-year turnover did not exceed 55,000 euro does not have to file UVAs unless the tax office requires it or it is claiming a refund.

After the year end, an annual VAT return reconciles the year's pre-returns. Intra-EU supplies are also reported in the recapitulative statement, and purchases of services and goods from other member states are generally self-assessed under the reverse charge. Each of these needs its own tax code so that the UVA boxes can be read straight from the ledger rather than rebuilt in a spreadsheet.

E-invoicing: B2G since 2014, no B2B mandate yet

Austria was early with public-sector e-invoicing. Since 1 January 2014, suppliers to federal government bodies must submit invoices in structured electronic form; paper and e-mail are not accepted. Invoices go through the e-Rechnung an den Bund service, reached through the USP, either by entering them in an online form, uploading a structured file, or sending them automatically over the Peppol network. The accepted formats are ebInterface (versions 4.3, 5.0, 6.0 and 6.1, with 6.1 recommended) and UBL following Peppol BIS 3.

For business-to-business supplies there is no domestic e-invoicing or real-time reporting obligation as of September 2026, and no legislated date. We are not going to invent a deadline. What is fixed is the EU framework: the VAT in the Digital Age package, adopted on 11 March 2025, introduces mandatory e-invoicing and digital reporting for intra-EU B2B supplies from 1 July 2030, and it allows member states to introduce domestic mandates before then.

The practical position for an Austrian business is therefore two-speed. If you sell to the federal government you already need a structured-invoice route today. If you trade across EU borders, 2030 is the date that matters, and the preparation is clean master data: customer VAT numbers, correct tax codes and line detail that any EN 16931 format can be produced from.

• B2G: mandatory for federal bodies since 1 January 2014
• Formats: ebInterface 4.3, 5.0, 6.0 or 6.1, or UBL (Peppol BIS 3)
• B2B domestic: no mandate or legislated date as of September 2026
• Intra-EU B2B: e-invoicing and digital reporting from 1 July 2030

Cash registers and receipts: the RKSV

The obligation that most often surprises businesses new to Austria is the cash-register rule. Every business must record cash sales individually and give the customer a receipt for each cash payment. Once annual turnover per establishment exceeds 15,000 euro and cash takings exceed 7,500 euro, both thresholds together, a cash register is compulsory.

Cash here is broader than notes and coins: payments by debit or credit card at the point of sale, count too, while bank transfers, direct debits and online payments do not. The register must carry the technical security features required by the Registrierkassensicherheitsverordnung (RKSV), which chain and sign each receipt so that records cannot be altered unnoticed. Operating without a compliant register is a fiscal offence carrying a fine of up to 5,000 euro.

For an ERP this matters in retail, hospitality and any business with a counter. The point-of-sale software must be RKSV-compliant in its own right, and its daily totals must reconcile to the ledger without re-keying.

UGB accounting, audit and the seven-year rule

Corporations and partnerships without an individual as fully liable partner must keep double-entry books and prepare a balance sheet and income statement under the UGB. Sole traders and other partnerships become obliged to do so once their revenue exceeds 700,000 euro in two consecutive years, or 1 million euro in a single year. Listed groups in the EU prepare consolidated accounts under IFRS as adopted by the EU.

Section 221 of the UGB sorts corporations by size. After the thresholds were raised by about 25% for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2024, a small company stays within two of these three limits: balance sheet total 6.25 million euro, revenue 12.5 million euro, and 50 employees. A medium company stays within 25 million euro, 50 million euro and 250 employees; micro companies within 450,000 euro, 900,000 euro and 10 employees. Under section 268, the accounts of all corporations must be audited except small GmbHs that are not required by law to have a supervisory board.

Records must be kept for seven years from the end of the calendar year in which the entry was made, and longer while they are relevant to pending tax proceedings. Electronic records must stay available electronically. In an audit the tax office can request the data on a data carrier; the Ministry of Finance publishes SAF-T AT, the OECD Standard Audit File for Tax adapted for Austria, as an accepted format, provided on request rather than filed routinely.

Payroll: ÖGK, wage tax and municipal tax

Austrian employers report social insurance monthly. The monthly contribution basis notification (monatliche Beitragsgrundlagenmeldung, mBGM), in use since 2019, is sent per employee to the ÖGK through the ELDA electronic channel by the 15th of the following month. Wage tax withheld from employees is paid to the tax office.

On top of that, every employer pays municipal tax (Kommunalsteuer) of 3% of the gross payroll to the municipality where the employees work. It is calculated monthly and paid by the 15th of the following month. For the ledger, that means a payroll journal each month with separate liabilities for social insurance, wage tax and municipal tax, each reconciled to what was actually paid.

Cities and regions: where the rules differ

VAT, corporation tax and wage tax are federal, so a business in Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Villach, Wels, St. Pölten or Dornbirn works under the same rates and returns. The differences are local and specific.

Vienna charges its own employer levy, the Dienstgeberabgabe, often called the U-Bahn tax: 2 euro per employment and started week for staff working in Vienna, with exemptions such as apprentices, employees over 55 and those working under ten hours a week, on top of municipal tax. A company with staff in Vienna and Graz therefore has a Vienna-only liability that its payroll and ledger must track by location. Municipal tax itself is paid to each municipality where the business has a permanent establishment, so a multi-site business pays several municipalities.

Two Alpine municipalities have their own VAT rule. In Jungholz in Tyrol and Mittelberg in the Kleinwalsertal in Vorarlberg, businesses established there charge 19% instead of 20% on their local turnover, under section 10 paragraph 4 of the VAT Act (UStG 1994), while the reduced rates apply as elsewhere.

• Vienna: Dienstgeberabgabe of 2 euro per employee and started week
• Every municipality: 3% municipal tax on payroll, paid locally
• Jungholz and Mittelberg: 19% standard VAT rate for local businesses
• Everywhere else: one federal VAT and tax system

How Skyline Nexus ERP handles Austrian requirements

Skyline Nexus ERP is a cloud ERP with a double-entry general ledger under Fiscal Authority. When the auto-post switches are on, final sales, purchases, payments, expenses and depreciation post balanced journals in the background, with output VAT computed per line, so a basket with 20%, 10% and 4.9% lines posts each rate correctly. Each rate is its own tax rate, so the 4.9% rate is added and assigned to the qualifying products from 1 July 2026. The VAT Return screen prefills tax-exclusive sales and purchase bases and VAT for a date range, ready to be entered on the UVA in FinanzOnline.

Posted journals are corrected by reversal, fiscal periods can be closed and locked, and an Accounting Audit Trail records every change with old and new values, user and time. Business locations carry their own invoice numbering, stock and a branch-filtered trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet, useful for a business with establishments in several municipalities. The trial balance, general ledger and a yearly Audit Pack workbook export to Excel for the auditor and the seven-year archive, and the interface is available in German among other languages.

National e-invoicing connectors are being rolled out market by market, and for Austria that programme covers ebInterface and Peppol output for e-Rechnung an den Bund and a SAF-T AT export: tell us your country and we will confirm your go-live date. Until then, federal suppliers use the e-Rechnung web form or upload, or a partner-led integration reading sales through the Skyline Nexus ERP Connector REST API. A business under the cash-register obligation uses an RKSV-certified register at the counter and posts its daily totals to the ledger. Austrian payroll, mBGM and municipal tax run in local payroll software or through a payroll partner, with the monthly journal posted to the ledger.

Rates, regimes and deadlines in this summary change, and many countries are actively legislating on e-invoicing. This is general information, not tax or legal advice — confirm the current position with the authority named above or with your tax adviser before you rely on it.