Austria · Tax and reporting
Accounting Services in Austria
What the Law Requires, and Who May Do It
Updated 17 September 2026. Every figure below carries the paragraph it comes from and the date that version took effect.
Accounting in Austria is governed by two codes at once. The Unternehmensgesetzbuch says who must keep books and what the annual accounts look like. The Bundesabgabenordnung says how the records are kept, in what language, where they may sit, how late an entry may be and how long everything is retained. A third body of law, which almost nothing written in English mentions, says who is allowed to do the work at all.
Costing an Austrian company's first year also means knowing what the minimum corporate tax in Austria is when it has made no profit.
Table of contents
Two codes reach the same set of books
The commercial duty comes first. Book III of the Unternehmensgesetzbuch, which begins at UGB § 189, decides who keeps double-entry books and prepares annual accounts.
The tax duty is derivative, and one sentence creates it. BAO § 124 provides that whoever is obliged under the Unternehmensgesetzbuch or any other statutory provision to keep and retain books or records must discharge those obligations in the interest of tax collection as well. That is what pulls the Bundesabgabenordnung's machinery onto a company's bookkeeping, and why the rules below apply although they sit outside the commercial code.
A taxpayer the Unternehmensgesetzbuch does not reach is not free of records. Under BAO § 126 Abs. 2 a taxpayer who neither must nor does keep books has to record business receipts and business expenses and total them at each year end. EStG § 4 Abs. 3 then allows that record to be taken as the profit, and only where no duty to keep books exists and none are kept voluntarily.
| Who you are | What has to be kept | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| A corporation: GmbH, FlexCo, AG | double-entry books and annual accounts, with no threshold at all | UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 1 |
| A registered partnership with no natural person bearing unlimited liability, the GmbH and Co KG pattern | the same | UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 2 lit. b |
| Any other entrepreneur above EUR 700,000 of turnover per uniform business in a financial year | the same, once the timing rule below bites | UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 3 |
| A farming, forestry or non-profit business operation above EUR 700,000 in two consecutive calendar years | books and regular closings for income tax purposes, from the second following year | BAO § 125 Abs. 1 and Abs. 3 |
| Everyone else carrying on a business | a record of business receipts and business expenses, totalled at each year end | BAO § 126 Abs. 2 |
UGB § 189 in the version in force from 19 February 2026 (BGBl. I Nr. 6/2026), with BAO § 125 and § 126. The size classes that decide how much of the accounts is prepared and filed are on the annual accounts and audit page.
The EUR 700,000 line, and the year of grace behind it
The turnover threshold does not bite the moment it is passed. Two consecutive financial years above EUR 700,000 and the duty starts from the second following financial year, which is the grace year; it falls away again from the following year once the threshold has been missed twice in a row. Exceed it by EUR 300,000 or more in a single year and there is no grace: the duty starts the very next financial year. The same acceleration applies on taking over a business whose previous owner was already obliged to keep accounts (UGB § 189 Abs. 2 Z 1 and Z 2).
The tax-side threshold in BAO § 125 carries a relief the commercial one does not. Where the entrepreneur shows credibly that the limit was passed only temporarily and because of particular circumstances, the tax office responsible must lift the duty on application (Abs. 4). It is an entitlement on proof, not a concession.
How late an entry may be
BAO § 131, in the version in force from 1 January 2026 (BGBl. I Nr. 97/2025), sets the form the records take, and it is specific where the commercial code is general.
Entries are chronological, complete, correct and timely.
Timely has a number. An entry for a calendar month is timely if it is made no later than one month and 15 days after that month ends (§ 131 Abs. 1 Z 2 lit. a). Where the quarter is your VAT return period, the quarter replaces the month.
Cash is faster than that.
Where books are kept, all cash receipts and cash payments are recorded daily and individually, in the books or in the source records behind them (lit. b). A taxpayer who only records receipts and expenses under § 126 Abs. 2 records every cash transaction individually (lit. c).
An entry that has been made stays visible.
Nothing may be altered so that the original content can no longer be made out, or so that it is uncertain whether the change was made then or later. A system using a data carrier must not permit that either, and capture and later changes must be logged (Z 6 lit. a and lit. b).
BAO § 131 Abs. 1 Z 2 · how late an entry may be
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Strip 1 · a calendar month
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Strip 2 · a calendar quarter, where the quarter is your VAT return period
day zero, on both stripsCash is faster than either strip: where books are kept, all cash receipts and cash payments are recorded daily and individually, in the books or in the source records behind them (lit. b). A taxpayer who only records receipts and expenses under § 126 Abs. 2 records every cash transaction individually (lit. c).
BAO § 131 in the version in force from 1 January 2026, BGBl. I Nr. 97/2025.
Where the books may be kept
This is the question a foreign owner asks first, and BAO § 131 Abs. 1 answers it in four sentences.
Books and records may be kept abroad unless another statute provides otherwise. On the tax authority's demand they must be brought into Austria within a period reasonably fixed by the authority.
The source records behind them are treated differently. Grundaufzeichnungen, the underlying records the books are built on, must, if kept abroad, be brought into Austria within a reasonable period and retained in Austria. That duty falls away only for transactions attributable to a business, a permanent establishment or real property situated abroad. And one condition governs all of it: even with the books kept abroad, it must remain possible to investigate the facts material to the assessment of tax without impediment.
So a group running its accounting from a shared service centre outside Austria does nothing the statute forbids. What the statute does not allow is the Austrian company's own source records living permanently abroad.
What language the books may be in
The books should be kept in a living language and in the characters of one (BAO § 131 Abs. 1 Z 1). That is the whole of the positive requirement, and English satisfies it.
Two conditions sit behind it. Where the books and records are not in an official language admitted for that taxpayer in the tax procedure, the authority may require a certified translation of the books, the records, the vouchers belonging to them and the business papers. Where a translation is needed to carry out a tax audit under §§ 147 to 153, the taxpayer arranges it at his own cost, and providing a suitable interpreter is enough.
The annual accounts are a different instrument under a different rule: euro and German, which belongs to the commercial code.
If the company takes cash
Two duties switch on here, and both catch businesses that would not describe themselves as cash businesses, because a card payment counts as cash.
BAO § 131b requires a business to record all cash receipts individually, using an electronic cash register, till system or other electronic recording system. The duty arises from EUR 15,000 of annual turnover per business, provided that business takes more than EUR 7,500 a year in cash (Abs. 1 Z 2). Payment by debit or credit card, or another comparable electronic method, counts as cash, and so do bank cheques and the trader's own vouchers taken back in place of money (Z 3).
The system must be protected against manipulation: every cash transaction is made unalterable by a cryptographic signature or seal created by a unit assigned to that taxpayer, and the signature is recorded on the individual receipt so it can be checked (Abs. 2). The duty begins at the start of the fourth month following the VAT return period in which the limits were first exceeded (Abs. 3).
The second duty is the receipt. BAO § 132a Abs. 1 requires an entrepreneur to give the payer a receipt for a cash payment for a supply or service; an electronic receipt available immediately after payment counts. The customer must take it out of the business premises (Abs. 5), and a duplicate is kept for seven years from the end of the calendar year of issue (Abs. 6).
| # | What the receipt must show | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | an unambiguous designation of the supplying entrepreneur | BAO § 132a Abs. 3 Z 1 |
| 2 | a sequential number, from one or more number series, issued once to identify the transaction | Z 2 |
| 3 | the day the receipt was issued | Z 3 |
| 4 | the quantity and customary description of the goods, or the nature and extent of the service | Z 4 |
| 5 | the amount of the cash payment, and it is enough that it can be worked out from what the receipt shows | Z 5 |
BAO § 132a Abs. 3. Items 1 and 4 may be given as symbols or codes where the trader's documents fix their meaning unambiguously (Abs. 4), and a receipt from a § 131b system carries further particulars on top of these five (Abs. 8).
How long the records are kept
BAO § 132 Abs. 1 sets seven years for books and records and for the vouchers belonging to them, and then keeps them longer: beyond the seven years they are retained for as long as they matter to pending proceedings about the levying of tax in which the person they were kept for has party status.
Electronic retention is expressly allowed. Vouchers, business papers and other documents may be held on data carriers where complete, ordered, content-identical and original-faithful reproduction is guaranteed at any time until the period ends; where a document exists only on a data carrier, the original-faithful requirement falls away (Abs. 2). The price is Abs. 3: whoever retains in that form must provide, at his own cost and within a reasonable period, the means needed to make the documents legible.
One consequence is easy to miss when a company changes hands: buying an existing Austrian company brings its retention obligations with it, which is worth checking before how buying a ready-made Austrian company works turns into a signature.
| What | For how long | Counted from |
|---|---|---|
| Books and records | seven years, and longer while relevant to pending proceedings | the end of the calendar year for which the entries were made |
| Vouchers, business papers, other documents | seven years | the end of the calendar year to which they relate |
| Either, where the financial year is not the calendar year | seven years | the end of the calendar year in which the financial year ends |
| The duplicate of a cash receipt | seven years | the end of the calendar year in which the receipt was issued |
BAO § 132 Abs. 1 and § 132a Abs. 6 Z 1. UGB § 212 imposes its own seven-year period on the commercial side; the two run in parallel and neither displaces the other.
Why the form matters
Everything above is a soll provision, and read alone it looks advisory. It is not: two other paragraphs give it teeth from opposite directions.
The reward. Books and records complying with §§ 131 and 131b carry the presumption of proper keeping and are to be taken as the basis of the tax assessment, unless there is founded occasion to doubt their substantive correctness (BAO § 163 Abs. 1).
The consequence. Where the authority cannot establish the bases of assessment, it must estimate them (BAO § 184 Abs. 1), and Abs. 3 makes an estimate mandatory where the taxpayer does not produce books he is obliged to keep, or where they are substantively incorrect, or show formal defects apt to cast doubt on that correctness.
And separately, a penalty. Intentionally breaching a duty under tax law to keep or retain books or other records, or to install technical security arrangements, is a Finanzordnungswidrigkeit; so is intentionally breaching a duty to issue or retain vouchers. Both are punishable by a fine of up to EUR 5,000 (FinStrG § 51 Abs. 1 lit. c and lit. d, with Abs. 2).
BAO §§ 163 and 184, and the separate track in the FinStrG
startThe books as kept
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Complies with §§ 131 and 131b
form, timeliness and the technical security arrangements
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Presumption of proper keeping
BAO § 163 Abs. 1
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Taken as the basis of the tax assessment
unless there is founded occasion to doubt their substantive correctness
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Not produced, or substantively incorrect, or formally defective
defects apt to cast doubt on substantive correctness
- →
The authority must estimate the bases of assessment
BAO § 184 Abs. 3, with Abs. 1
A penal track of its own: FinStrG § 51
Intentionally breaching a duty to keep or retain books or records, to install technical security arrangements, or to issue or retain vouchers, is a Finanzordnungswidrigkeit: a fine of up to EUR 5,000 (§ 51 Abs. 1 lit. c and lit. d, with Abs. 2).
The estimate sits in the assessment procedure and the fine in fiscal penal law. Neither replaces the other.
Bookkeeping in Austria is a licensed profession, and there are four of them
This is the part a founder arriving from outside the German-speaking world does not expect. In Austria, keeping a business's books for it is not an open trade. It is reserved, by two professional acts, and they create not one licence but four, with four different scopes.
WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1, in the version in force from 19 February 2026 (BGBl. I Nr. 6/2026), reserves to the Steuerberater advice and assistance in tax law and financial reporting (Z 1), business bookkeeping including payroll (Z 2), advice on accounting and the closing of a business's books (Z 3), and representation in tax and fiscal penal proceedings before the tax authorities, the Amt für Betrugsbekämpfung and the administrative courts (Z 4).
The Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz 2014 then creates three further professions in its § 1: the Bilanzbuchhalter, the Buchhalter and the Personalverrechner. The distinction between the first two is a single phrase. BiBuG § 2 Abs. 1 Z 1 and § 3 Abs. 1 Z 1 are the same sentence, except that the Buchhalter version has the words einschließlich der Lohnverrechnung, including payroll, removed. A Buchhalter may keep your books and may not run your payroll. A *Personalverrechner* may run payroll and essentially nothing else on this list.
| Authorisation | Reserved by | Bookkeeping | Payroll | Closing the books | Before the tax authorities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steuerberater | WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1 | yes, Z 2 | yes, Z 2, einschließlich der Lohnverrechnung | yes, Z 3, at any size | yes, Z 4, in full, and before the administrative courts |
| Bilanzbuchhalter | BiBuG 2014 § 2 Abs. 1 | yes, Z 1 | yes, Z 1, the same words | yes, Z 2, but only within the UGB § 221 Abs. 1 small-company criteria | Z 4, but not before the federal tax authorities, the administrative courts or the VwGH |
| Buchhalter | BiBuG 2014 § 3 Abs. 1 | yes, Z 1 | no. The same sentence with the payroll words removed | no | no reserved right. VAT advance returns and recapitulative statements sit in the additional-entitlement list, § 3 Abs. 2 Z 3 |
| Personalverrechner | BiBuG 2014 § 4 Abs. 1 | no | yes, Z 1, and in substance only this | no | Z 2, payroll taxes only, not the joint payroll audit and not an appeal |
Two points a reader can check in the acts. Each separates a reserved list in Abs. 1 from things the holder is additionally entitled to do in Abs. 2, and only the first creates a monopoly. And a Bilanzbuchhalter may close the books only inside the UGB § 221 Abs. 1 small-company criteria, so the size classes decide not only what a company files but who may prepare it.
WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1 and BiBuG 2014 §§ 1 to 4, read at source on 17 September 2026. Tax advice itself appears in none of the three BiBuG rows: WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1 Z 1 reserves it to the Steuerberater alone. Auditing the annual accounts is a fifth, separate reservation and belongs to the Wirtschaftsprüfer.
Offering the work is itself the offence
The enforcement provision is the reason this page is written as it is. WTBG 2017 § 124 Abs. 1 Z 1 makes it an administrative offence, punishable by a fine of up to EUR 20,000, for a person who is neither an authorised professional nor an authorised service provider under § 6 Abs. 1 and 2 to practise a Wirtschaftstreuhandberuf independently or to offer, anbietet, any of the activities listed in §§ 2 and 3 without holding the necessary authorisation. The district administrative authorities are the penal authorities (Abs. 2).
Anbietet is the load-bearing word. Advertising the activity is the offence in its own right, whether or not anybody is ever engaged to perform it.
The act also says whom it does not touch: WTBG 2017 § 4 Abs. 1 leaves nine groups untouched, among them lawyers, notaries, trade licence holders and anyone practising one of the Bilanzbuchhaltung professions. And the reservation in each act attaches to the independent practice of the profession, die selbständige Ausübung, which is the wording to start from when the question is about an arrangement inside a company rather than a service bought from outside.
What the first year actually looks like on a calendar
The month is shorter than it sounds. A company filing VAT monthly has its bookkeeping deadline one month and 15 days after each month ends, so January's books are due in the middle of March. The register of dates is set by BAO § 131 Abs. 1 Z 2 lit. a, not by whoever does the work.
A dormant company still keeps books. UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 1 has no threshold. A GmbH incorporated and left idle until a licence or a bank account arrives is keeping books, retaining vouchers and running the seven-year clock throughout, on figures that are mostly zero.
The cash rule catches shops that take no notes. A business taking payment only by card is inside BAO § 131b, because Abs. 1 Z 3 counts card payments as cash. The two limits are reached by a small card-only counter long before anyone thinks of running a cash business.
Planning an Austrian company and want the formation handled properly from the start? Tell us what you want built and we will set out what forming and administering it involves, and which parts of running it are reserved by Austrian law to a licensed professional: write to us, or start the client questionnaire if you already know what you want built.
What this page is, and what we do
This page states what the Unternehmensgesetzbuch, the Bundesabgabenordnung, the Wirtschaftstreuhandberufsgesetz 2017, the Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz 2014 and the Finanzstrafgesetz provide, with the paragraph for each and the date the version cited took effect. It does not tell any reader what to do about their own books or their own tax position, and it cannot: Austrian law reserves that to a licensed professional.
We are not a Steuerberater, a Bilanzbuchhalter, a Buchhalter or a Personalverrechner. We do not keep books, do not prepare or close annual accounts, do not run payroll and do not represent anyone before the Finanzamt, and nothing on this page is an offer to do any of those things. What we do is form and administer the company those duties attach to: the incorporation itself, the registered office and address for service, the register filings and later amendments, and the coordination of the licensed Austrian professional who performs the reserved work. Tell us what you are building and we will tell you what the formation involves and where a licensed Austrian professional has to be brought in.
Two things are deliberately absent. No price, ours or anybody else's. No processing time, because no Austrian authority publishes one for anything described here.
Sources
- Unternehmensgesetzbuch § 189, who keeps books and the EUR 700,000 threshold. Cited in text with their paragraph: § 190, § 193 Abs. 4, § 212, § 221 Abs. 1.
- Bundesabgabenordnung § 124, the derivative tax duty; § 126, records without books; § 131, form, language, timing and keeping books abroad, in force from 1 January 2026; § 131b, the electronic cash register; § 132, retention; and § 132a, the receipt duty. Cited in text: § 125, § 163 and § 184.
- Wirtschaftstreuhandberufsgesetz 2017 § 2, what is reserved to a Steuerberater, and § 124, the offence of offering. Cited in text: § 4 Abs. 1 and § 6.
- Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz 2014 § 2, § 3 and § 4. Cited in text: § 1.
- Finanzstrafgesetz § 51 and Einkommensteuergesetz 1988 § 4 Abs. 3, cited in text with their paragraph.
Frequently asked questions
Does an Austrian GmbH have to keep double-entry books?
Yes, with no threshold at all. Book III of the Unternehmensgesetzbuch reaches every corporation, so a GmbH that has never traded still keeps books (UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 1). BAO § 124 then makes the same duty owed in the interest of tax collection, which is what brings the Bundesabgabenordnung rules on form and retention into play.
What turnover forces double-entry bookkeeping in Austria?
EUR 700,000 of turnover per uniform business in a financial year (UGB § 189 Abs. 1 Z 3). Two consecutive years above it and the duty starts from the second following year. Exceed it by EUR 300,000 or more and it starts the very next year, with no grace year (§ 189 Abs. 2).
Can we keep our Austrian company's books outside Austria?
The books and records may be kept abroad unless another law says otherwise, and the authority may require them in Austria within a reasonable period. The source records behind them are different: kept abroad, they must be brought to Austria and held here, except for what belongs to a foreign business, permanent establishment or foreign land (BAO § 131 Abs. 1).
Can the books be kept in English?
The Bundesabgabenordnung asks only for a living language and its characters. Where the books are not in an official language admitted for you, the authority may demand a certified translation, and for a tax audit you pay for the translation yourself (BAO § 131 Abs. 1 Z 1). The annual accounts are a separate question, governed by the UGB.
How soon does a month have to be entered?
An entry for a calendar month is timely if it is made no later than one month and 15 days after that month ends (BAO § 131 Abs. 1 Z 2 lit. a). Where the quarter is your VAT return period, the quarter replaces the month. Cash movements are separate: those go in daily and individually.
When does an Austrian business need an electronic cash register?
From EUR 15,000 of annual turnover per business, provided that business takes more than EUR 7,500 a year in cash (BAO § 131b Abs. 1 Z 2). The duty begins at the start of the fourth month following the VAT return period in which both limits were first passed (Abs. 3).
Does a card payment count as a cash transaction?
Yes. For the cash register and for the receipt duty alike, payment by debit or credit card or a comparable electronic method counts as cash, and so do bank cheques and vouchers the trader issued and takes back in place of money (BAO § 131b Abs. 1 Z 3, § 132a Abs. 1). A card-only shop is inside the rule.
Do we have to issue a receipt for every cash payment?
Yes. An entrepreneur must give the payer a receipt for a cash payment for a supply or service, and an electronic receipt available to the payer immediately after payment counts (BAO § 132a Abs. 1). It carries five particulars, the customer must take it outside the premises, and a duplicate is kept seven years.
How long must the books and the receipts be kept?
Seven years, and longer while they matter to pending proceedings in which you are a party (BAO § 132 Abs. 1). Three clocks run: from the end of the year of the entry for books, from the end of the year a voucher relates to, and from the end of the calendar year in which a non-calendar financial year closes.
Can the records be kept only in electronic form?
Yes, where complete, ordered and content-identical reproduction is guaranteed at any time until the retention period ends; and where a document exists only on a data carrier, the requirement of a faithful copy of the original falls away (BAO § 132 Abs. 2). You supply the means of reading them, at your own cost (Abs. 3).
Who may lawfully keep the books of an Austrian company?
Four authorisations reach this work: a Steuerberater under WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1, and a Bilanzbuchhalter, a Buchhalter or a Personalverrechner under BiBuG 2014 §§ 2, 3 and 4. Each has a different scope. The reservation attaches to the independent practice of the profession, die selbstaendige Ausuebung.
Can a Buchhalter run our payroll?
No. BiBuG 2014 § 3 Abs. 1 Z 1 is the same sentence as the Bilanzbuchhalter's § 2 Abs. 1 Z 1 with the words einschliesslich der Lohnverrechnung removed. Payroll is reserved to the Steuerberater, the Bilanzbuchhalter and the Personalverrechner, and a Buchhalter is not one of the three.
Who may file our VAT advance returns and recapitulative statements?
A Steuerberater, whose representation right before the tax authorities is general (WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1 Z 4). For a Bilanzbuchhalter it is a reserved activity in its own right (BiBuG 2014 § 2 Abs. 1 Z 6). For a Buchhalter it sits in the additional-entitlement list rather than the reserved one (§ 3 Abs. 2 Z 3).
What happens if the books do not meet the statutory form?
Two things, on separate tracks. Books complying with BAO §§ 131 and 131b carry a presumption of proper keeping and are the basis of assessment; without it the authority must estimate the bases (BAO § 163, § 184 Abs. 3). Separately, intentionally breaching a duty to keep, retain or issue receipts is punishable by up to EUR 5,000 (FinStrG § 51).
Related
- Company Registration Austria: Annual Accounts and Audit Requirements in Austria: the size classes, the audit and the filing.
- Company Registration Austria: Payroll in Austria: the duties that start with the first employee.
- Company Registration Austria: Tax Advisory in Austria: where an Austrian licensed adviser is required.