Reporting Obligations in Austria: How to Comply with Sec. 109a and 109b EStG

When for­eign entre­pre­neurs start doing busi­ness in Aus­tria, they usu­al­ly focus on the obvi­ous tax top­ics first: com­pa­ny for­ma­tion, VAT reg­is­tra­tion, pay­roll, and ongo­ing book­keep­ing. Yet one area is often missed until it becomes urgent: report­ing cer­tain pay­ments to the Aus­tri­an tax office. For busi­ness­es that work with free­lancers, lec­tur­ers, super­vi­so­ry board mem­bers, inter­me­di­aries, con­sul­tants, or for­eign ser­vice providers, these rules can become high­ly rel­e­vant very quick­ly. This is exact­ly where an expe­ri­enced Tax Advis­er in Aus­tria adds real val­ue.

The two key pro­vi­sions are Sec. 109a EStG and Sec. 109b EStG of the Aus­tri­an Income Tax Act. In sim­ple terms, both rules require busi­ness­es and cer­tain pub­lic or pri­vate bod­ies to report defined pay­ments to the com­pe­tent tax office. The pur­pose is trans­paren­cy: the author­i­ties should be able to trace pay­ments made to ser­vice providers and ver­i­fy their tax treat­ment. For com­pa­nies, this means that cor­rect invoic­ing alone is not enough. Each rel­e­vant pay­ment should also be checked from a report­ing per­spec­tive.

Sec. 109a EStG: Reporting obligations for self-employed services

Sec. 109a EStG cov­ers cer­tain self-employed ser­vices ren­dered out­side an employ­ment rela­tion­ship. Accord­ing to the Aus­tri­an busi­ness por­tal, this includes, among oth­ers, pay­ments to super­vi­so­ry board mem­bers, foun­da­tion board mem­bers, lec­tur­ers, teach­ers, news­pa­per dis­trib­u­tors, pri­vate sales inter­me­di­aries, and cer­tain ser­vice providers work­ing under a free-ser­vice-con­tract regime sub­ject to social insur­ance. For for­eign investors and inter­na­tion­al groups oper­at­ing in Aus­tria, this mat­ters when­ev­er local spe­cial­ists are engaged on a non-employ­ment basis. Many busi­ness­es assume that once an invoice has been booked, the case is closed. Aus­tri­an tax com­pli­ance is more demand­ing than that.

What data must be reported under Sec. 109a EStG

For Sec. 109a EStG, the report typ­i­cal­ly includes the ser­vice provider’s name, address and social insur­ance num­ber, the type of ser­vice, the cal­en­dar year in which the pay­ment was made, and the amount paid includ­ing cost reim­burse­ments and, where applic­a­ble, VAT. There is a small-val­ue exemp­tion: no fil­ing is required if the total annu­al remu­ner­a­tion does not exceed EUR 900 and, at the same time, each indi­vid­ual ser­vice does not exceed EUR 450. Busi­ness­es must also pro­vide the recip­i­ent with a cor­re­spond­ing copy of the report. In prac­tice, mis­takes often hap­pen because com­pa­nies review sin­gle invoic­es in iso­la­tion instead of aggre­gat­ing all rel­e­vant pay­ments for the year.

Sec. 109b EStG: Reporting obligations for cross-border payments

Sec. 109b EStG is even more impor­tant in cross-bor­der sit­u­a­tions. It applies to pay­ments made abroad for cer­tain ser­vices with an Aus­tri­an nexus. The law focus­es par­tic­u­lar­ly on three cat­e­gories: activ­i­ties with­in the mean­ing of Sec. 22 EStG if per­formed in Aus­tria, inter­me­di­a­tion ser­vices pro­vid­ed by Aus­tri­an unlim­it­ed tax­pay­ers or relat­ing to Aus­tria, and com­mer­cial or tech­ni­cal advi­so­ry ser­vices ren­dered in Aus­tria. For inter­na­tion­al busi­ness­es hir­ing for­eign con­sul­tants, pay­ing com­mis­sions, or pur­chas­ing ser­vices linked to Aus­tri­an oper­a­tions, this is a crit­i­cal com­pli­ance area. The pay­ment route alone is not deci­sive; what mat­ters is whether the ser­vice has the required domes­tic con­nec­tion.

What data must be reported under Sec. 109b EStG

The data to be report­ed under Sec. 109b EStG are also clear­ly defined: name or com­pa­ny name, address and coun­try code, the key indi­vid­ual act­ing in Aus­tria if the ser­vice provider is a part­ner­ship or cor­po­ra­tion, avail­able tax iden­ti­fiers such as Aus­tri­an tax num­ber, social insur­ance num­ber, VAT ID or date of birth, the coun­try code of the des­ti­na­tion coun­try, and the total pay­ments made in the respec­tive cal­en­dar year. No report is required if pay­ments to the same for­eign ser­vice provider do not exceed EUR 100,000 per cal­en­dar year. The fil­ing is also waived where with­hold­ing tax under Sec. 99 EStG applies, or where a for­eign cor­po­ra­tion is taxed at a rate not more than 10 per­cent­age points below the Aus­tri­an cor­po­rate income tax rate. Since Austria’s cor­po­rate income tax rate is 23% from 2024 onward, the cur­rent com­par­i­son thresh­old is 13%.

Interaction between Sec. 109a and Sec. 109b EStG

A par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant prac­ti­cal rule is this: if both Sec. 109a and Sec. 109b could apply, only one fil­ing under Sec. 109b is required. Com­pa­nies should there­fore avoid dupli­cate report­ing and instead deter­mine first which rule takes pri­or­i­ty. The fil­ing is gen­er­al­ly made elec­tron­i­cal­ly, in prac­tice via ELDA. Only if elec­tron­ic fil­ing is tech­ni­cal­ly unrea­son­able may paper fil­ing be used, and then already by the end of Jan­u­ary of the fol­low­ing year. Elec­tron­ic fil­ing is gen­er­al­ly due by the last day of Feb­ru­ary of the fol­low­ing year. For pay­ments made in 2025, the final dead­line was Mon­day, 2 March 2026, because 28 Feb­ru­ary 2026 fell on a Sat­ur­day.

Reporting obligations in Austria: Risks and penalties

For­eign busi­ness­es often under­es­ti­mate the penal­ty expo­sure. If a required fil­ing is inten­tion­al­ly omit­ted, Aus­tri­an law allows sub­stan­tial fines; under Sec. 109b EStG, penal­ties can reach up to 10% of the unre­port­ed amount, capped at EUR 20,000. That is why fee pay­ments, com­mis­sions, advi­so­ry invoic­es and for­eign ser­vice provider pay­ments should not only be reviewed from an account­ing per­spec­tive, but also from the per­spec­tive of Aus­tri­an report­ing oblig­a­tions. For any com­pa­ny seek­ing long-term suc­cess in Aus­tria, this is a core com­pli­ance issue rather than an admin­is­tra­tive detail.

Tax Adviser in Austria: Support with reporting obligations

Heinz Kobled­er — Tax Advi­sors sup­ports inter­na­tion­al busi­ness­es with exact­ly these issues: review­ing indi­vid­ual pay­ments, design­ing inter­nal approval work­flows, and ensur­ing time­ly elec­tron­ic report­ing to the Aus­tri­an tax author­i­ties. For for­eign entre­pre­neurs, a strong Tax Advis­er in Aus­tria is not only a provider of tax returns and book­keep­ing, but a strate­gic part­ner for cross-bor­der tax com­pli­ance. Busi­ness­es enter­ing the Aus­tri­an mar­ket ben­e­fit enor­mous­ly from ear­ly review, clear doc­u­men­ta­tion and prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion. Heinz Kobled­er — Tax Advi­sors stands for reli­able, busi­ness-focused sup­port in this high­ly rel­e­vant area of Aus­tri­an tax com­pli­ance.