Calculation Method 2026: Formulas, BMF Check and Limits

Every legal value on this site sits in a single parameter file, last checked against the official sources on 5 October 2026. Each block names its source: the federal legal information system (RIS) for the Income Tax Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act, ÖGK for contribution rates and limits, AMS and the Federal Chancellery for benefits. Calculators and texts read only from that file, so a corrected figure changes everywhere at once.

Social insurance

Employee share of regular pay: health 3.87 %, pension 10.25 %, unemployment 2.95 % (reduced: 0% up to €2,225, 1% up to €2,427, 2% up to €2,630), Chamber of Labour levy 0.5 % and housing subsidy 0.5 %, in Vienna 0.75 % since 2026. Charged up to the ceiling of €6,930; nothing for employees up to the marginal limit of €551.10. Special payments: health, pension and unemployment insurance (scale applied to each payment), no Chamber levy or housing subsidy, up to €13,860 a year.

Wage tax on regular pay

The month’s taxable pay (gross minus insurance minus tax-free parts) times twelve, minus the €132 work-expense allowance and any commuter allowance, run through the scale of section 33(1) with the 2026 brackets (€13,539, €21,992, €36,458, €70,365, €104,859). Familienbonus Plus comes off first, limited to the month’s scale tax, then the transport credit (€496, up to €853 with a commuter allowance), the sole earner or single parent credit and the commuter euro (€6 per km). The result divided by twelve and rounded to the cent is the month’s wage tax.

Special payments and the annual sixth

Each special payment is checked in the month it is paid. The annual sixth is one sixth of the regular pay received so far, scaled to twelve months. The part inside the sixth is taxed at fixed rates after its share of insurance (€620 free, then 6 %, 27 % and 35.75 % under section 67(1)); if the sixth does not exceed €2,615, it is tax-free. The part above is added to that month’s regular pay and taxed on the scale. With the last regular pay of the year comes the check under section 77(4a): if more than one sixth of the regular pay actually received was taxed at fixed rates, the excess is re-taxed on the scale, except on leaving the job, parental leave, sick pay and the other statutory exceptions, which the calculator asks about. If less was taxed at fixed rates and part of a payment had gone above the sixth earlier, that part moves back to fixed rates up to the control sixth, which produces a refund.

Unemployment benefit and emergency assistance

Assessment under section 21 of the Unemployment Insurance Act: regular monthly gross plus one sixth for special payments, at most €6,825. A notional net income is derived from it; the basic amount is 55% of that per day. If it falls below the equalisation supplement reference rate of €1,308.39 divided by 30, a top-up raises it to at most 60% (80% with family supplements) of net; the family supplement is €0.97 per person and day. AMS does not publish its notional-net method in detail, so we tested our assumptions against the 102 rows of the Chamber of Labour Lower Austria table: average deviation 0.08 %, at most 0.43 %. Emergency assistance under section 36: 95% or 92% of the benefit, capped after six months except after 39 or 52 weeks of benefit.

Childcare allowance, severance, overtime, employer cost

Childcare account: €41.14 times 365 days (456 for both parents), spread over the chosen duration. Earnings-related: 80% of an estimated maternity pay (net plus ÖGK’s special-payment surcharge), at most €80.12.
New severance scheme: 1.53 % of 14 payments a year; the fund’s return is your assumption. Old scheme: months’ pay under section 23 of the Salaried Employees Act, monthly pay including one sixth for special payments. Both taxed at 6%.
Overtime: hourly pay = monthly gross divided by (weekly hours × 4.33); in 2026 the premiums for 15 hours are tax-free up to €170. Collective agreements may use other divisors.
Employer: employer insurance share, 1.53 % severance fund, 3.7 % family-fund contribution, state surcharge, 3 % municipal tax.

Tests that block every release

408 cases from the official BMF calculator, retrieved on 5 October 2026: 34 gross amounts from €600 to €20,000 across twelve profiles (no children, Vienna, one and two children, split Familienbonus, child over 18, sole earner with one and two children, small commuter allowance at 25 and 50 km, large at 15 and 70 km). Monthly insurance and wage tax, insurance and tax on both special payments: at most 1 cent apart; annual net: at most 13 cents.
102 rows of the AK unemployment benefit table (claims made in March 2026), at most 0.5% apart per row.
Individual limits: marginal-employment limit, each unemployment insurance band, contribution ceiling, the sixth’s exemption limit, commuter bands at their edges, benefit duration, the year-end check on leaving.
Every small calculator in both languages, with no empty value.

What the calculators leave out

Benefits in kind, works council levy, union dues, garnishments.
The annual tax assessment in detail (special expenses, extraordinary burdens), except where a page explicitly shows an estimate.
Apprentices, civil servants, freelancers on a free service contract, pensioners, people with several marginal jobs.
Collective-agreement specifics such as other overtime divisors or allowances.

Updates

A full review at least every 12 months and with every new regulation: the inflation adjustment of the tax scale (published in autumn), the social insurance values (December), AMS values (January). The 2027 brackets have already been published; the calculator stays on 2026 until year end. Report an error to contact@nettorechner.at; it is checked at the source, corrected and added as a test. See also the editorial policy.

All sources

Last checked: 5 October 2026.