SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

RENTING

Reader question: How does Vienna’s rent control system work?

Vienna has some of the cheapest rents in European capitals, and a lot of it has to do with the strict rental controls in the Austrian city.

Reader question: How does Vienna's rent control system work?
Around half of Vienna residents live in social, subsidized, or cooperative housing. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER KLEIN (Photo by ALEXANDER KLEIN / AFP)

Austria’s capital often shows up near the top on lists of cities with a high standard of living – and the affordable rents in the imperial city is one of the reasons why.

Vienna has a high share of its residents, some 60 percent, living in municipal housing estates or homes subsidised by the city, according to the government.

Besides the more than 220,000 city apartments (also known as gemeindewohnung), many residents also live in genossenschaftswohnungen, cooperative housing built by non-profits with large deposits for apartments but reduced rents.

READ ALSO: The downsides of Vienna you should be aware of before moving there

The city’s subsidised apartments are part of a highly active policy from 1920 to 1938, during the period known as “das rote Wien“, with the Socialist Party ruling the city, and after the Second World War, until 1969.

However, there are other reasons for the lower rents in Vienna, especially since some private residences also have extremely affordable prices in the capital. 

One such factor is laws regulating how much landlords can raise rents, known as rent control. 

Rental controls in Austria

Austria has a history of more than 100 years of rental control, first established during World War I as protection of widows and orphans of soldiers against exorbitant rents.

READ ALSO: Property: How to find a rental flat when you arrive in Austria

The first regulations to curb rentals and restrict evictions were set in 1917. Still, they got stricter after the Second World War, when the Friedenskornenzins policy was instituted during times of peace, setting a maximum rent of 1 Shilling per square metre per month.

Incredibly, there are still some people living in apartments from those times, when 1 Schilling was the same as €0.072 – and yearly rental increases were also kept very low. Most of the famous cases of apartments in downtown Vienna costing tenants less than €400 a month can be traced back to “peace times” contracts.

Benchmark rent in Austria

Since 1994, though, a new system for capping rent was introduced in Austria, known as Richtwertmiete, or benchmark rent, as Immowelt explains.

This benchmark is valid only for apartments built before 1945 (in Vienna, a large share of the buildings are from before the war, known as Altbau) or, in some cases, before 1953, and they cannot be larger than 130 square metres. The rules can be quite specific, and you can check whether your apartment falls under rental protection in several administrative bodies and rental associations in your city.

In Vienna, the benchmark rent for old apartments that fall into the value protection agreement from 1994 is € 6.15 per square metre, a low value that was recently increased from € 5.81 on April 1st. This means that a 100-square-metre apartment would cost € 615 per month without additional costs such as VAT and living expenses if governed by the protection agreement.

The capital has the second-lowest benchmark rent in Austria, only higher than Burgenland (€5.61). Vorarlberg has the highest at €9.44 per square metre, followed by Salzburg (€8.50), Styria (€8.49), and Tyrol (€7.50).

Some apartments with rental contracts from before 1994 still follow previous rules, with even lower rents. They are put in different categories depending on appliances, location, size, and other factors and could be capped at as high as €3.80 per square metre in Vienna.

Austria also has a “right to succession” established in its Tenancy Law, stating that tenants who benefit from these low rents have a right to pass on the apartment to close relatives, such as children, grandchildren or partners. In those cases, rent can only be slightly increased – keeping prices low for decades on end.

What if my apartment does not fall into the benchmarked rent?

New buildings (Neubau) do not benefit from the capped rents in Austria. There are not many restrictions on rents for private properties. However, Austrian law has a provision covering “usury” or overcharging. Several rental associations can help you check if you are paying too much.

If an arbitration board finds that the rent was excessively high, tenants could claim retroactively.

READ ALSO: Tenant or landlord: Who pays which costs in Austria?

When it comes to rental costs, it is also essential to realise what each cost relates to and whether or not the property owner or the renter should be paying for it.

Most operating costs can be passed on to the tenant, including insurance, operational costs (such as electricity for lifts), and sewer clearing. However, some are not covered by Austrian law, and property owners need to pay for themselves, including repair work for burst pipes or damaged chimneys and connection to the public water supply network, for example.

Useful links

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

RENTING

Austrian students move back in with parents amid rising rent costs

Rising rents are hitting students hard in Austria, and some of them need to move back home to afford their living expenses, according to a new study.

Austrian students move back in with parents amid rising rent costs

Austria offers high-quality education through its many universities and other educational institutions, which are famous for their generally low tuition fees. However, inflation has significantly affected many of the country’s around 400,000 students.

According to a recent survey conducted by the social research institute on behalf of the Chamber of Labour (AK), the increase in rent has forced many of the students to move back home with their parents.

Almost half of the student’s income goes to rent

A total of 1,644 students participated in the survey carried out in January, which revealed that students have to spend an average of 43 percent of their income on their housing costs, which is more than double the amount spent by the rest of the population.

In student dormitories, students spend even more, with over half of their income going towards housing. This is because students in halls of residence often come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and have more limited resources.

“We have seen that many students have had to move or look for a roommate due to inflation,” Dora Jandl, consultant for higher education policy at the Vienna Chamber of Labour, told the Kurier.

Many depend financially on their parents

A huge 59 percent of Austrian students financially depend on their parents, which can be psychologically challenging and create pressure for them to complete their studies as early as possible. At the same time, almost two-thirds of Austrian students are employed while studying.

“If you’re tired of working all the time and have money worries, you can’t fully concentrate on education,”  Austrian student Katharina told Austrian newspaper, der Standard.

READ ALSO: What kind of discounts can you get as a student in Austria?

Sometimes students pay more than they should

Another point is that Austrian students sometimes have to pay more rent than they should. The majority of students participating in the survey did not know that landlords in old buildings have to deduct certain costs from fixed-term contracts as per the Tenancy Act. Some landlords do not amend the charges on their own, and instead need prompining.

With this background, the Chamber of Labour now wants to see more transparency in the calculation of surcharges and discounts. Additionally, they want to limit the use of fixed-term contracts and suggest that larger apartment owners, like real estate or insurance companies, should only be allowed to rent out their properties on an unlimited basis. 

Measures to improve the current situation

Rents in Austria increased sharply during 2023, mainly because of the high inflation that skyrocketed in the country during that year. The average monthly rent (excluding running costs) was 7.1 euros per square meter in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of 9.2 percent compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

To help students, the Chamber of Labour and the Austrian Student Union (ÖH) want the government to bring back the subsidy for student dorms, which was stopped in 2010. They would also like to see rent controls, more affordable dorms being built, greater government support for affordable housing, and an end to fixed-term leases.

READ NEXT: How can I move into affordable cooperative housing in Vienna?

SHOW COMMENTS