Which Austrian VAT Rate Applies When Two Could

Four clauses do the ordering work and none of them is a rate. Three are the opening words of a subposition, one is a closing sentence, and together they are why a supply that could sit in two heads has one answer.

The ordering words are not older drafting that a new rate slotted into. One amending act re-enacted Abs. 1a, Abs. 2, Abs. 3, Abs. 4 and Anlage 3 together, so the rate question is a date question too: § 28 Abs. 69 applies them to "Umsätze und sonstige Sachverhalte, die nach dem 30. Juni 2026 ausgeführt werden bzw. sich ereignen". The operative fact is the date the supply is carried out, and the paragraph names no invoice, payment or contract date.

It matters whether a rule is in the act or inferred from it, so this article says which. The order among the three reduced rates is express: the words quoted above are operative text, not a heading or an annotation. The subordination of the 19 percent territorial rate is express too, in the third sentence of Abs. 4.

The position of the 20 percent standard rate is not express. It is structural. Nothing in § 10 says Abs. 1 applies only where nothing else does. Abs. 1 fixes 20 percent for every taxable supply, and Abs. 1a, Abs. 2, Abs. 3 and Abs. 4 each say the tax "ermäßigt sich", is reduced. A reduction presupposes a figure it reduces, and that figure is the one in Abs. 1. The standard rate is the residue by construction, and a page presenting it as the last rung of an express ladder says more than the statute does.

One limit matters, because it is the difference between an ordering rule and an answer. The order decides which head is asked first. It does not decide which head a supply belongs to. That is settled by Anlage 1, Anlage 2, Anlage 3 and the wording of the individual Ziffern, and for a particular supply it is a matter for a licensed Austrian Steuerberater.

The order between subpositions does not settle everything, because § 10 also carries cross-references running the other way. A head at 10 percent can point down to a head at 13 percent, and several heads stand aside for an exemption in § 6 rather than for another rate. Each is express, a few words long, and decisive.

The clearest is passenger transport. Abs. 2 Z 6 puts transport "mit Verkehrsmitteln aller Art" in the 10 percent head and then removes what Abs. 3 Z 9 covers. Abs. 3 is reached only where Abs. 2 is not, so the removal is what leaves the aircraft head anything to reach.

So the answer has two layers: wherever a Ziffer says so, the exemption question comes first, and an exempt supply has no rate to choose between.

The hardest version of the question is one contract carrying more than one thing. § 10 states no general rule about ancillary supplies. It legislates particular cases, in both directions, within a single Ziffer.

A supply of heat made as an ancillary service is pushed out of the 10 percent head three times over: Abs. 2 Z 3 lit. a excepts it from residential letting, lit. b from the supplies of an owners' association, and Z 4 from the non-profit head.

Two litterae later the same concept works the other way. Abs. 2 Z 3 lit. c taxes accommodation in furnished rooms at 10 percent together with "die regelmäßig damit verbundenen Nebenleistungen (einschließlich Beheizung)", and pulls a customary local breakfast into the same head "wenn der Preis hiefür im Beherbergungsentgelt enthalten ist", where its price is contained in the accommodation charge. Lit. d does the same for camping, so far as a single charge is paid.

Heating is therefore inside the accommodation head and outside the residential-letting head, two letters apart in one Ziffer.

The head asked first carries the narrowest condition, and it is a second sentence that is easy to drop when the rate is summarised. § 10 Abs. 1a reduces the tax to 4.9 percent for the goods listed in Anlage 3 on supply and on import, and then adds:

Dies gilt nur, wenn die Lieferungen und die Einfuhr ausschließlich Gegenstände betreffen, die nur in der jeweiligen Position bzw. Unterposition der Kombinierten Nomenklatur der Anlage 3 aufgezählt sind.

This applies only where the supply and the import concern exclusively goods listed under the particular Combined Nomenclature position or subposition named in the annex. It restricts the head rather than describing it, and it is how a transaction plainly including a listed good can still fall out of the first question into the second. The list itself is on the five Austrian VAT rates and what each one covers and in Anlage 3, in force from 1 July 2026.

The fifth rate is territorial, and it is the one whose conditions are about the supplier rather than the supply. § 10 Abs. 4 reduces the tax to 19 percent for supplies within § 1 Abs. 1 Z 1 and Z 2 made in the areas of Jungholz and Mittelberg by a business with a residence or seat, a habitual abode or a permanent establishment in those areas. Without that connection a business does not get the rate for a supply it makes there.

Three limits sit in the same paragraph. It does not reach the supply or letting of motor vehicles to recipients whose residence or seat is elsewhere in Austria, nor supplies to a permanent establishment elsewhere in Austria. And by its third sentence it does not apply where Abs. 1a, Abs. 2 or Abs. 3 does, so a listed Anlage 3 good supplied in Jungholz takes 4.9 percent and not 19 percent.

It never reaches an import, twice over. Abs. 4 names only § 1 Abs. 1 Z 1 and Z 2, supplies and own consumption, not Z 3, import. And § 1 Abs. 1 Z 3 defines an import as a good arriving from third territory "in das Inland, ausgenommen die Gebiete Jungholz und Mittelberg".

Provisions outside § 10 can decide the rate before § 10 is reached. UStG § 26a creates a special arrangement for declaring and paying import VAT on goods whose individual value per consignment does not exceed EUR 150, available to the person who presents them to customs in Austria in the name of the person for whom they are destined, and closed to excise goods and to anyone using § 25b. Its Abs. 4, in force since 1 July 2026 under the same amending act as the rate, reads: "§ 10 Abs. 1a bis 4 findet für Einfuhren von Gegenständen im Rahmen dieser Sonderregelung keine Anwendung." Every reduced rate and the territorial rate are switched off for an import declared that way, whatever the goods are.

The ordering question reaches paper where a rate has to be written down. UStG § 11 Abs. 1 Z 3 lit. e requires an invoice to state the consideration under § 4 and the applicable tax rate, or, where the supply is exempt, a reference to the exemption. The rate is a content requirement, not optional information.

Abs. 5 legislates for the case this article is about. Where an invoice covers supplies subject to different rates, the considerations and the tax amounts are to be separated by rate, and where the tax is computed and printed by machine a single total is permitted only if each item shows its rate.

Two provisions say what follows when the amount shown is not the amount owed. Abs. 12 makes a business liable by reason of the invoice for a tax amount it has shown to another business and does not owe under the Act, unless it corrects the invoice to the recipient, § 16 Abs. 1 applying. Abs. 14 reaches an amount shown with no supply or no business behind it. What to do about an invoice already issued is reserved and is not answered here; the number itself is covered on the Austrian UID and where it has to appear.

All read on 18 September 2026 through the RIS open-data API and checked as the paragraph cited.

• UStG 1994 § 10, in force from 1 July 2026, BGBl. I Nr. 37/2026: the rates, the ordering clauses, the exclusivity sentence, the Ziffern in tables 1 and 2.
• UStG 1994 § 28, in force from 30 July 2026: Abs. 69, the commencement and the date-of-supply rule.
• UStG 1994 § 26a, in force from 1 July 2026: the EUR 150 arrangement and Abs. 4.
• UStG 1994 § 11, in force from 24 December 2025: Abs. 1 Z 3 lit. e, Abs. 5, Abs. 12, Abs. 14.
• UStG 1994 § 6, in force from 1 January 2026: the exemptions § 10 defers to.
• UStG 1994 § 1, in force from 24 December 2025: Abs. 1 Z 1, Z 2 and Z 3.
• UStG 1994 Anlage 3, in force from 1 July 2026: the 4.9 percent schedule.
• USP, VAT rates and tax exemptions, official English summary, last updated 1 July 2026.

Anlage 1 and Anlage 2 are named in the text and not linked: only Anlage 3 was read in full here, and a link stands for a document that has been read.

• Company Registration Austria: VAT in Austria: the five rates, who has to charge them, the filing dates and the surcharges.
• Company Registration Austria: Austrian VAT Number (UID / ATU): how the number is applied for, and where it has to appear.
• Company Registration Austria: VAT Registration in Austria: registration, the waiver declaration and fiscal representation.