Accounts in Austria
Every kind of account and pension the planner offers in Austria: what each one is, when money can come out, how it is taxed, and the pages we read the rules from.
Most Austrian investment income, from interest and dividends to profit on selling, pays one flat 27.5%. Two products are taxed differently enough to have their own rows in the money step: life insurance, whose growth is usually free of income tax, and the state-supported Zukunftsvorsorge, when you take it as cash.
Workplace pensions (Pensionskasse) and money from the severance fund (Betriebliche Vorsorgekasse) pay out as a pension or as a lump sum, so they go in the pension step, not here.
Rules as of the 2026 tax year, read from the authorities on 2026-07-30. Each account lists the pages we read it from.
Accounts you can enter
Investment account
Interest, dividends and profit are all taxed at a flat rate.
Shares, funds, bonds and savings held at a bank or broker. Interest, dividends and the income a fund reinvests are taxed each year, and profit when you sell, all at 27.5%.
How it is taxed, rate by rate, is on the tax page.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the ordinary accounts
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
Unit-linked life insurance
Growth is free of income tax, unless you paid one single premium and agreed a short term. A single-premium policy surrendered early costs 7% of what you paid in.
A life insurance policy you hold as savings: unit-linked (fondsgebundene Lebensversicherung), invested in funds you choose, or a classic policy with a guaranteed rate that you draw on in parts. Each withdrawal is part premiums, which come back untaxed, and part growth.
For a policy paid for by regular premiums, the usual case, the growth is free of income tax whenever you take it out. A policy paid for with one single premium on an agreed term under 15 years is different: its growth is taxed as income on the ordinary scale, and cashing it in early also costs 7% of the premiums in insurance tax. The term is 10 years instead of 15 if everyone named on the policy was 50 or older when it was signed, for policies signed from March 2014. That is why the planner asks those details only for a single-premium policy.
The plan grows the policy at your portfolio's return, which fits a unit-linked policy. A classic policy credits a guaranteed rate and a profit share instead, so for one of those the plan swings more than your policy will.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the ordinary accounts
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
- How you paid for it We assume: regular premiums.
- Agreed term in years From 1 to 60 years. No default: you answer it.
- Youngest age at signing From 0 to 100. No default: you answer it.
- Year it was signed From 1980 to 2026. No default: you answer it.
Growth in a life insurance policy is free of income tax unless you paid for it with one single premium and agreed a term under 15 years, or under 10 if everyone named on it was 50 or older when it was signed. Surrendering a single-premium policy early costs 7 percent of what you paid in. What we simplify: a part surrender pays that 7 percent on the share of what you paid in that it takes out, and we do not look at regular premiums that stopped early, which the law can treat like a single one.
Could go either way/someone holding a single-premium life insurance policy, or drawing part of one inside its first 15 years
A classic life insurance policy credits a guaranteed rate plus a profit share each year, decided by the insurer. We grow it at your portfolio's return instead, so for a classic policy the plan swings more than your policy will, and may show more growth than the insurer credits. A unit-linked policy grows with its funds, as we model it.
Could go either way/anyone holding a classic, guaranteed-rate Austrian life insurance policy
- Bundesministerium für Finanzen: Lebensversicherungen (read 2026-10-07)
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 27 (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Zukunftsvorsorge taken as cash
Out of reach for ten years from your first payment. Taken as cash, half the state premium is paid back and the growth is taxed at 27.5%. If you will take it as a pension, enter it with your pensions instead.
The prämienbegünstigte Zukunftsvorsorge is a personal pension contract, at an insurer or a fund, that receives a yearly premium from the state on what you pay in. It can't be reached for ten years from your first payment, which is why the planner asks how long ago that was.
This row is for taking it as cash once the ten years are up. Half the state premium it received is then paid back, and its growth is taxed at 27.5%. The plan takes the state premium as 4.25% of everything you paid in, the 2026 rate.
Taken as a lifelong pension instead, it is tax free. Then enter it in the pension step as a state-supported pension insurance, not here.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the accounts taxed on the way out
- Before the earliest age
- Nothing comes out before the age the law sets for it
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
- Years since you opened it From 0 to 60 years. No default: you answer it.
A Zukunftsvorsorge cannot be touched for ten years from the first payment in. Taken out as cash after that, half of the state premium it received is paid back and its growth is taxed at 27.5 percent; taken as a pension, nothing is taxed, so enter that with your pensions instead. What we simplify: we take the state premium as 4.25 percent of every payment in, the rate for 2026, though it was higher in some earlier years. If you were 50 or older when you signed and chose to wait until your pension instead of ten years, we do not model that choice.
Your real tax is higher/someone cashing in an older Zukunftsvorsorge
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 108g (read 2026-10-07)
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 108i (read 2026-10-07)
- Bundesministerium für Finanzen: Förderung durch eine staatliche Prämie (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Kinds of pension
A pension paid to you as an income goes in the pension step, not here. Choose its kind there and the plan taxes it by that kind's rules; leave it on standard and it is taxed like a state or workplace pension.
Private pension insurance (private Rentenversicherung)
Payments are tax-free until they add up to what you paid in, and taxed as income after that.
Give the premiums you paid as its price. For an annuity that is already paying, give only the premiums not yet paid back to you. Without a price the plan taxes every payment.
The pensioner tax credit shrinks only as your pension income rises. Income from a privately bought annuity should not shrink it, but in our model it does, so for a pensioner inside that range the tax we show on the annuity is too high. Beside a 30,000 state pension it is about 250 a year too much, and never more than the 1,020 credit itself. The reverse also happens: if you have such an annuity but no pension at all, our model still gives you the credit, so the tax we show is too low by up to 1,020.
Could go either way/up to €1,020 a year/anyone with a private annuity beside a pension in the credit's taper range
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 29 (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Company pension fund (Pensionskasse)
Taxed in full as income, without the health contribution taken from the state pension.
A Pensionskasse pension is taxed according to who paid in. The part from your employer's contributions is taxed in full, only a quarter of the part from your own contributions is taxed, and the part from contributions that drew the state premium is tax free. We tax the whole pension as if your employer had paid for all of it, so where you paid in yourself the tax we show is too high. On a 13,160 pension paid wholly from your own money beside a 21,000 state pension, that is about 3,800 a year too much.
Your real tax is lower/up to €3,835 a year/anyone with a Pensionskasse pension built partly from their own contributions
A small Pensionskasse entitlement, worth at most 16,500 in 2026, can be paid out as one sum taxed at half your average rate. We cannot model taking a pension as a lump, so this option does not appear.
Could go either way/anyone with a small Pensionskasse entitlement who would take it as a lump
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 25 (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Tax-free annuity from a Zukunftsvorsorge or your severance fund (BV-Kasse)
Tax-free, because the contributions earned the state bonus or the money came from your severance fund.
A Zukunftsvorsorge turned into a lifelong pension goes here, as does a pension bought with money from your severance fund. If not every payment into a Zukunftsvorsorge drew the state premium, enter the part that did not as a private pension insurance.
An annuity bought with your severance fund money is tax free, but if you later cash it in as one sum, 6 percent tax is due on that sum. We cannot model cashing in a pension, so that charge does not appear. On a 12,000 sum it is 720.
Could go either way/up to €720 once/anyone who turned a severance fund balance into an annuity
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 67 (read 2026-10-07)
- RIS: Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 29 (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Where other things you hold go
- Pensionskasse and betriebliche Kollektivversicherung
- Enter the pension in the pension step as a company pension fund pension.
- Abfertigung neu (Betriebliche Vorsorgekasse)
- Taken as cash it is taxed at 6%: enter what is left as a one-off lump sum in the year it is paid. Moved into a pension instead, it is tax free: enter that pension in the pension step as a tax-free annuity from a Zukunftsvorsorge or your severance fund.
- Abfertigung alt (severance pay from your employer)
- Enter it as a one-off lump sum, after tax, in the year it is paid.
- Private pension insurance (private Rentenversicherung)
- Enter it in the pension step with its kind and what you paid in.
- Savings book, fixed deposit and building society savings (Sparbuch, Festgeld, Bausparvertrag)
- Enter them in the investment account. Bank interest is in fact taxed at 25% rather than 27.5%, so the plan shows slightly too much tax on it.
- Shares and funds bought before 2011
- Enter them in the investment account. Their profit on selling is in fact free of tax, but the plan charges 27.5% on it, so it shows too much tax when you sell them.