Austrian gross-to-net calculator 2026

How Austrian payroll gets from gross to net

An Austrian payslip runs on two tracks. Your regular salary arrives twelve times a year; the special payments, holiday pay and Christmas pay, are settled under their own rules. The calculator keeps those tracks apart and works through the year month by month, the way your employer’s payroll office does.

Step one: social insurance

From regular pay your employer deducts 3.87 % health insurance, 10.25 % pension insurance, up to 2.95 % unemployment insurance, the 0.5 % Chamber of Labour levy and the housing-subsidy contribution: 18.07 % in total outside Vienna. Low earners pay less unemployment insurance: nothing up to €2,225 gross, 1 % up to €2,427, 2 % up to €2,630 (ÖGK, 2026 scale). Above the contribution ceiling of €6,930 a month nothing more is charged, and below the marginal-employment limit of €551.10 employees pay nothing at all (ÖGK, 2026 values).

Step two: wage tax on regular pay

Gross minus social insurance is your taxable pay. The payroll engine scales it up to a year, subtracts the €132 flat allowance for work expenses and, if you have one, the commuter allowance, then applies the scale in section 33 of the Income Tax Act: nothing up to €13,539, 20% to €21,992, 30% to €36,458, 40% to €70,365, 48% to €104,859, 50% up to one million and 55% beyond. Credits come off that figure: first Familienbonus Plus, then the €496 transport credit that every employee gets, the sole earner or single parent credit and the commuter euro. One twelfth is the month’s wage tax.

Step three: holiday pay and Christmas pay

Special payments have their own annual contribution ceiling of €13,860 and a lower rate, because neither the Chamber of Labour levy nor the housing contribution applies. The tax is flat: the first €620 a year are free, then 6 %, rising to 27 % above €25,000 and 35.75 % above €50,000 (section 67 of the Income Tax Act). If the annual sixth is no more than €2,615, special payments are entirely tax-free, which covers monthly salaries up to about €1,308.

Why the month matters, not just the year

Most online calculators assume twelve identical salaries and two identical bonuses. Then both payments fit exactly into the annual sixth and the maths is simple. Real careers are messier. The sixth is worked out again at every payment: one sixth of the regular pay received so far, scaled to a full year (section 67(2)). Get a raise in July and your November sixth still partly rests on the old salary; if your Christmas pay already follows the new one, a slice sticks out above the sixth and is taxed on the normal scale, at 30 or 40 percent instead of 6.

With the last salary of the year, payroll runs a control calculation (section 77(4a)). If you got a raise in autumn, the slice of Christmas pay that went above the sixth usually comes back in December, because the sixth based on the whole year has grown by then. If you switched to part-time in summer but your Christmas pay still follows the old salary, you pay extra in December, because the control sixth is smaller than November’s. Leaving the job, parental leave or sick pay cancel that extra charge. Our holiday and Christmas pay calculator runs through every month with start date, leaving date, pay rise, bonus and regular overtime. The background is explained on the pages about the annual sixth rule and the 13th and 14th salary. Try the effect of a raise right here:

Does your Christmas pay still fit in the sixth?

Salary before the rise

€

Rise of

€

Rise from

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember

Part above the sixth (November)

€27.27

Sixth in November	€6,272.73
Extra scale tax	€6.78
Sixth at year end	€6,300.00

Holiday and Christmas pay calculator →

Commuter allowance and commuter euro inside payroll

Long commutes earn two tax breaks. The Pendlerpauschale is a deduction that lowers taxable pay: €696 to €2,016 a year when public transport is reasonable, €372 to €3,672 when it is not (section 16 of the Income Tax Act). The Pendlereuro is a credit worth €6 per kilometre of the one-way distance since 2026, three times the 2025 amount (Finance Ministry, 30 December 2025). Both apply in full with at least eleven commutes a month, two thirds with eight to ten and one third with four to seven. The official Pendlerrechner decides the distance and whether public transport counts as reasonable; our commuter allowance calculator then shows what each of the seven bands is worth to you in net euros.

Familienbonus Plus, sole earners and the Kindermehrbetrag

Familienbonus Plus cuts your wage tax by €166.68 a month for each child under 18 and €58.34 for older children who still receive family allowance. It can only bring your tax down to zero, so low earners use part of it. Sole earners and single parents whose tax is low receive a Kindermehrbetrag of up to €700 per child instead, paid out after the annual assessment. The sole earner or single parent credit itself is €612 with one child, €828 with two and €273 more for each further child. The Familienbonus Plus calculator shows how much of it works on your salary.

Vienna and the other states

For employees, payroll differs in exactly one place in 2026: in Vienna the housing-subsidy contribution is 0.75 % instead of 0.5 % since 1 January (City of Vienna). The calculator therefore asks for the state of your workplace; where you live does not matter. Everything else, from tax to health and pension insurance, is the same nationwide. A separate page shows the Vienna gross-to-net calculator with the difference in euros. Employers also pay a family-fund surcharge that ranges from 0.31 % to 0.40 % depending on the state.

Checked against the Finance Ministry calculator

Copying a formula is easy; applying it correctly is not. On 5 October 2026 we queried the official BMF gross-to-net calculator 408 times: 34 gross amounts between €600 and €20,000, each without children, with one and two children, with a split Familienbonus, with a child over 18, with the sole earner credit, with small and large commuter allowance, and for Vienna. Monthly social insurance and wage tax, both special payments and the annual net agree to the cent in every case. The cases run as automatic tests before each release; if a single cent differs, the update does not go live. Details are in the calculation method.

What the calculator does not know

• Benefits in kind such as a company car or flat, travel passes and other perks.
• Works council levy, union dues, wage garnishments, salary advances.
• The annual tax assessment (Arbeitnehmerveranlagung): extra work expenses, special expenses, the social insurance refund for low earners and the Kindermehrbetrag. The page on the employee tax assessment explains what it can bring.
• Apprentices, civil servants, freelancers on a free service contract and pensioners have their own rates.

Five ways to raise your net pay in 2026

1. Claim the commuter allowance with your employer using the Pendlerrechner printout; otherwise it only arrives with the tax assessment.
2. Split Familienbonus Plus sensibly: if one parent earns little, giving the full amount to the other often brings more.
3. Check overtime: in 2026 the premiums for the first 15 overtime hours are tax-free up to €170 a month (section 124b).
4. File the employee tax assessment even when it is optional; you can do it five years back.
5. If your raise comes in autumn, ask payroll how your Christmas pay will be calculated.