The Two Nine-Month Rules in Austrian Reorganisation

Both periods are nine months and both end at a filing, which is why a summary can put them in one line and lose the distinction. Everything else differs.

A merger, a conversion and a demerger all move a business by universal succession, and all three are built on a closing balance sheet drawn to the reorganisation date. The tax act treats that document as the anchor: UmgrStG § 8 Abs. 5 defines the conversion date as "der Tag, zu dem die Schlußbilanz aufgestellt ist, die der Umwandlung zugrunde gelegt wird", the day the closing balance sheet underlying the conversion is drawn to, and UmgrStG § 33 Abs. 6 says the same for the demerger. How far back the date may sit is therefore a question about a document, and company law answers it.

AktG § 220 Abs. 3, in full and in its own words. "Jede übertragende Gesellschaft hat auf den Verschmelzungsstichtag eine Schlußbilanz aufzustellen. Für sie gelten die Vorschriften des UGB über den Jahresabschluß und dessen Prüfung sinngemäß; sie braucht nicht veröffentlicht zu werden. Die Schlußbilanzen müssen auf einen höchstens neun Monate vor der Anmeldung der Verschmelzung liegenden Stichtag aufgestellt werden." Every transferring company draws a closing balance sheet to the merger date; the UGB rules on the annual accounts and their audit apply to it, and it need not be published; and the closing balance sheets must be drawn to a date at most nine months before the Anmeldung of the merger. That last word is the filing at the register court, not the contract, not the shareholder resolution and not the register entry.

1. The merger. AktG § 220 Abs. 3 applies to it directly, and GmbHG § 96 Abs. 2 provides that AktG §§ 220 to 233 apply sinngemäß, by analogy, so far as the GmbH rules do not say otherwise. The limit therefore governs the form most foreign owners actually hold.

2. The conversion. UmwG § 2 Abs. 3 applies the rules on a merger by absorption to the transferring capital company, and its bracketed list opens with "§§ 220 bis 221a". UmwG § 5 Abs. 5 applies §§ 2 to 4 to the errichtende conversion, the one that creates an OG or a KG, so both routes carry the limit.

3. The demerger. SpaltG § 2 Abs. 2 states it in its own text rather than borrowing it, in the AktG sentence with the transaction renamed and the noun in the singular: "Die Schlußbilanz muß auf einen höchstens neun Monate vor der Anmeldung der Spaltung liegenden Stichtag aufgestellt werden." § 2 sits in the part of the act on demerger to newly formed companies, and SpaltG § 17 applies §§ 2 to 16 by analogy to a demerger to an existing receiving company, so the limit reaches both forms.

The contribution, the combination and the division of assets have no closing balance sheet of the company-law kind, none of them being a universal succession under a company-law reorganisation act. The tax act does the limiting itself, and it limits a different thing.

UmgrStG § 13 Abs. 1, first three sentences. "Einbringungsstichtag ist der Tag, zu dem das Vermögen mit steuerlicher Wirkung auf die übernehmende Körperschaft übergehen soll. Der Stichtag kann auch auf einen Zeitpunkt vor Unterfertigung des Einbringungsvertrages rückbezogen werden. In jedem Fall ist innerhalb einer Frist von neun Monaten nach Ablauf des Einbringungsstichtages (§ 108 der Bundesabgabenordnung) ... die Anmeldung der Einbringung im Wege der Sachgründung bzw. einer Kapitalerhöhung zur Eintragung in das Firmenbuch und ... in den übrigen Fällen die Meldung der Einbringung bei dem für die Erhebung der Körperschaftsteuer der übernehmenden Körperschaft zuständigen Finanzamt vorzunehmen." The contribution date is the day the property is to pass with tax effect; it may be carried back to a point before the contract is signed; and in every case the register filing, or in the other cases the notice to the tax office, is to be made within nine months of the end of that date.

The two limbs are not alternatives a filer picks between. Where the contribution goes through a formation in kind or a capital increase, there is a Firmenbuch filing and that filing is what has to happen inside the period. Where there is no such register event, the notice to the tax office takes its place. The combination and the division of assets each get their own version of the same split.

Rule two names its counting rule, which rule one does not: § 13 Abs. 1 puts "(§ 108 der Bundesabgabenordnung)" in brackets immediately after "nach Ablauf des Einbringungsstichtages", after the end of the reorganisation date. BAO § 108 then supplies three mechanics that decide real dates.

Abs. 2, the month-end rule. A period fixed in weeks, months or years ends at the close of the day of the last week or month whose name or number corresponds to the day governing the start of the period, and where that day is missing from the last month, at the close of that month's last day.

Abs. 3, the roll-forward. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays do not hinder the beginning or the running of a period. But where the end falls on a Saturday, a Sunday, a statutory holiday, Good Friday or 24 December, the next day that is none of those is treated as the last day. The list is closed, and Good Friday and 24 December are on it by name.

Abs. 4, the post. Days of postal transit are not counted into the period.

A late contribution is not a lost one. The fourth sentence of § 13 Abs. 1 reads: "Erfolgt die Anmeldung oder Meldung nach Ablauf der genannten Frist, gilt als Einbringungsstichtag der Tag des Abschlusses des Einbringungsvertrages, wenn dies innerhalb einer Frist von neun Monaten nach Ablauf des Ersatzstichtages (§ 108 BAO) dem für die Erhebung der Körperschaftsteuer der übernehmenden Körperschaft zuständigen Finanzamt gemeldet wird und die in § 12 Abs. 1 genannten Voraussetzungen auf den Ersatzstichtag vorliegen." Where the filing or the notice is made after the period has run, the day the contribution contract was concluded counts as the contribution date, on two conditions: it is notified to the receiving corporation's tax office within nine months of the end of that substitute date, and the conditions in § 12 Abs. 1 are met on it.

What § 12 Abs. 1 requires on that day. It defines a contribution as the actual transfer of property to a receiving corporation on the basis of a written contribution contract and a contribution balance sheet under § 15, in accordance with § 19, and it makes a positive fair value a precondition: the property must have one on its own at the contribution date and in any event on the day the contract is concluded, proved by a reasoned expert opinion in case of doubt.

Three things it is not. It is not an extension of the original period: the original date is gone and a different day takes its place. It is not a register remedy, the second nine months running to a notice at the tax office and § 13 Abs. 1 naming no filing for it. And it is not available to a merger, a conversion or a demerger, because it sits in Art. III and reaches the combination and the division of assets only through § 24 Abs. 1 and § 28.

A second door into the same room. § 13 Abs. 2 provides that the contribution date can only be a day on which the property was attributable to the contributor, and where a contribution is made to a date on which it was not, the same substitute date applies on the same two conditions. That trigger has nothing to do with lateness. It is disapplied where the property was inherited and the contribution is at book value under §§ 16 and 17.

There is a second filing at the tax office and it is easy to read as the same one. UmgrStG § 43 Abs. 1 requires anyone who transfers or receives property by a reorganisation to notify it on the official form and electronically through FinanzOnline, to the office competent for their income or corporate income tax, and to do so "abweichend von der Frist des § 121 der Bundesabgabenordnung innerhalb der im ersten Hauptstück genannten Frist", within the period named in the first Hauptstück of the Act rather than the BAO § 121 deadline. The next sentence settles the relationship between the two: "Dies berührt die Meldeverpflichtung nach § 13 nicht." This does not affect the notification duty under § 13.

So the two are separate, and making one is not making the other. The first Hauptstück is the block of reorganisations, Art. I to VI, and the only period its paragraphs name is the nine months in § 13 Abs. 1, carried to two further types by § 24 Abs. 1 and § 28. How the cross-reference operates for a merger, a conversion or a demerger, none of which has a § 13 period of its own, is not settled by the text, so this article does not state it. One relief is written in: where the transferring or receiving entity has no Austrian tax number when the reorganisation is resolved or signed, the notification need not be electronic.

The Act carries one more nine-month period, and it is worth knowing about because it is still printed in the consolidated text. UmgrStG § 38a Abs. 2 defines a Steuerspaltung by Aufspaltung, a demerger built out of an Art. III contribution rather than out of the Spaltungsgesetz, and one of its conditions reads: "Die Auflösung der spaltenden Körperschaft wird innerhalb von neun Monaten nach dem Einbringungsstichtag zur Eintragung in das Firmenbuch angemeldet." The dissolution of the demerging corporation is filed for registration within nine months of the contribution date. That is a third thing again: a limit on filing the dissolution, drafted as part of the definition, so a transaction outside it is simply not a Steuerspaltung.

And it applies to no date after 2022. The Act's Anlage 1, Z 6 lit. h, in the version in force from 30 July 2026, provides: "Die §§ 38a bis 38f sind auf Steuerspaltungen anzuwenden, denen ein Stichtag nach dem 31. Dezember 1996 und vor dem 1. Jänner 2023 zu Grunde liegt." They apply to tax demergers with a date after 31 December 1996 and before 1 January 2023. So they stand in the text of the Act in force and take no new dates, which is a distinction worth holding on to: a provision being in force is not the same as a provision being available to a transaction.

This article states what the provisions provide and how they fit together. It does not tell you which date to choose, whether a particular transaction is one of the six, or whether a given filing is inside its period: advice on a taxpayer's own position is reserved to a licensed Austrian Steuerberater by WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1, and § 124 Abs. 1 Z 1 makes even offering such advice an offence.

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The six reorganisations, their acts and what the register court charges. The company restructuring guide is the page this article supports: it maps each of the six onto its statutory type, gives the tariff line for the entry, and covers what moves with the company and what does not.

An amendment is not a reorganisation. Changing a director, a seat, a name or the capital is an ordinary Firmenbuch filing: the company amendments guide. What the register holds and how a filing reaches it is the company register guide.