Austrian USt at 20%, 13% and 10%

What this works out

Austrian Umsatzsteuer, in both directions. Netto in, brutto out — or a brutto price in and the tax worked back out of it, which is a division rather than a subtraction.

The table underneath applies the same amount in every band at once, with the VAT fraction for each.

Two reduced rates, which is the thing about Austria

Most European systems have one reduced rate. Austria has two, and they are both called ermäßigter Steuersatz, so “the reduced rate” is genuinely ambiguous here in a way it is not in Germany.

Normalsteuersatz, 20%. The default, in force since 1984.

Ermäßigt, 10%. The older and broader reduced band: food, books, newspapers, medicines, residential rent, passenger transport, hotel accommodation.

Ermäßigt, 13%. Introduced in 2016: domestic flights, cultural and sporting admissions, live animals, plants, firewood, and wine sold direct from the producer.

Both are published lists rather than principles. A supply that sounds like it belongs in one frequently sits in the other, and there is no way to reason it out — it has to be looked up.

The 19% rate in Jungholz and Mittelberg

The most unusual entry in this catalogue, and it is real rather than a curiosity.

Jungholz is a village in Tyrol connected to the rest of Austria at a single mountain-top point. Mittelberg, in Vorarlberg, sits at the head of a valley that opens into Germany. No Austrian road reaches either of them. Everyday life — shopping, deliveries, commuting — runs through Germany, and both were customs-exclusion areas long before the EU.

So section 10 paragraph 4 of the Umsatzsteuergesetz sets their standard rate at 19%, matching Germany, so that a shop there is not permanently undercut by one a few hundred metres away.

Two things worth knowing. Only the standard rate changes — the 10% and 13% reduced rates apply there exactly as everywhere else in Austria. And the rate follows the place of supply, so it is about where the transaction happens rather than where a business is registered.

This is modelled as a band rather than a separate tool, and that is the same test the catalogue applies to countries: is it a row in a table, or does it need a branch? One rate in the same statute is a row.

Before you read on

A shop in Jungholz charges the 19% standard rate rather than Austria's 20%. What decides whether that rate applies to a given sale?

• AWhere the business is registered.

  A business registered elsewhere in Austria still charges 19% on a supply that takes place there — and one registered in Jungholz charges 20% on a supply that does not.

• BWhere the supply takes place.

  Yes. It is a place-of-supply rule, like the rest of the system.

• CWhether the customer is German.

  The customer's nationality has never decided a VAT rate anywhere in the EU.

Where the supply takes place. Section 10 paragraph 4 of the Umsatzsteuergesetz sets the standard rate in Jungholz and Mittelberg to 19% to match Germany, because no Austrian road reaches either village and everyday trade there runs through Germany. It follows the transaction rather than the registration, and only the standard rate moves — the 10% and 13% reduced rates apply there exactly as they do everywhere else in Austria.

The method

Adding is a multiplication. Removing is a division: a brutto of €120 including 20% is 120% of the netto, so the netto is €120 divided by 1.2 — or the tax is one sixth of the brutto.

One sixth is the only tidy Austrian fraction. 10% gives 1/11, which is usable. 13% gives 13/113 and 19% gives 19/119, and neither reduces, because 113 is prime and 119 is 7 × 17 with no factor shared with 19.

Only the USt is rounded, and the third figure follows from the other two, so netto and tax always add back to the price actually charged.

Rounding is half up to the cent with no option, as on every country tool here except UK VAT — that one offers a round-down choice because HMRC grants invoice traders a concession, and there is nothing Austrian to cite.

The arithmetic is decimal rather than binary floating point. 13% of €4.50 is exactly €0.585 and rounds to €0.59, but the nearest double sits fractionally below it, so a naive implementation reports €0.58.

A worked example

Adding. €100 netto at the Normalsteuersatz:

USt	€20.00
Netto	€100.00
Brutto	€120.00
VAT fraction	1/6

Removing, in Jungholz. A brutto price of €119 at the enclave rate:

ust   = 119 x 19 / 119
      = 19.00

netto = 119.00 - 19.00
      = 100.00

The same €119 anywhere else in Austria would be €99.17 netto and €19.83 of tax, because the standard rate there is 20%. That gap is the whole reason the enclave rate exists.

The cent case. €4.50 at 13% is €0.59 of tax — not the €0.58 a floating-point calculation reports.

These are the same figures asserted in this tool’s test file, so the page and the formula cannot drift apart without the build going red.

What it does not do

It does not decide which of the two reduced bands a supply falls in, and that is the hard part of Austrian VAT rather than the arithmetic. It holds no historic rates, so an invoice from the 2020–21 window when food and culture were temporarily at 5% needs the rate typing into “Another rate”, which starts there. It does not handle the reverse charge, the Kleinunternehmerregelung, One Stop Shop filings, margin schemes or import VAT.

For a country with no tool of its own, a VAT calculator with no rate table is the right page. The neighbouring country most often confused with this one is covered by German VAT; Swiss VAT provides the other German-language comparison.

Adding USt to a netto price:
  ust    = round(netto x rate / 100)
  brutto = netto + ust

Removing USt from a brutto price:
  ust   = round(brutto x rate / (100 + rate))
  netto = brutto - ust

Austrian bands and their VAT fractions:
  Normalsteuersatz   20%     1/6
  ermäßigt           13%   13/113   does not reduce
  ermäßigt           10%    1/11
  Jungholz and
  Mittelberg         19%   19/119   does not reduce

round = to the nearest cent, half up. No round-down
        option: that concession is British.

Only the USt is rounded. The third figure is derived
from the other two, so netto + ust = brutto to the cent.