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What we know so far about Austria’s new €2,000 grant for home improvements

Austria wants to heat up the real estate and construction sectors - and is offering grants to people who have had work done on their homes.

Published: 16 April 2024 16:26 CEST
What we know so far about Austria's new €2,000 grant for home improvements
Picture: An electrician installs an electrical box (Photo by Jimmy Nilsson Masth on Unsplash)

Austria’s federal government had announced plans to avoid a housing crisis in the country, with measures including cheap loans, new builds and tax deductions announced, as The Local reported in February.

One of the measures announced was a so-called Handwerkerbonus, or a “tradesperson bonus,” set up to incentivise people to do more construction work and renovations in their homes. It was announced that in 2024 and 2025, anyone commissioning tradespeople would be able to claim €2,000 in grants from the federal government. 

Even though the bonus was much publicised at the time, little was known about the application process. However, Austria’s Ministry of Economics has finalised the details and guidelines for the bonus, as Austrian media reported.

READ ALSO: How Austria’s new plans to avoid a housing crisis will affect residents

Online requests from July

From July 15th, people in Austria will be able to apply for the Handwerkerbonus online through a dedicated website that will be online “soon.” People will be able to submit invoices retroactively, and any work done by a craftsperson from March 1st will be eligible for reimbursement.

According to the daily Der Standard, the online application will be “quite simple.” For reimbursement, people will have to upload the worker’s invoice and fill in their details, such as name, address, and bank account number (IBAN). An ID-Austria registration or photo ID upload will be used for identification.

The federal government is earmarking €300 million for the bonus.

How much will be reimbursed?

Householders can claim up to a maximum of €2,000 – but you can only claim up to 20 percent of the total invoice amount, as the government had announced. People can apply twice, once in 2024 and once in 2025. 

The application is also per person, so a household with two people could apply for up to € 4,000, for example. Additionally, several smaller invoices can be combined into one – with a lower limit of €50. 

READ ALSO: How self-employed people in Austria can get a €100 bonus from social security

The grants can be claimed by anyone who has had work done, you do not need to own your own home – although tenants will need approval from their landlord for any major works.

What type of work counts for the bonus?

The applications are very broad, and many types of “craftmanship” work could be reimbursed. This includes new tiles on the terrace, renovation of the façade, or new paint in the children’s rooms, as Der Standard reported. 

Labour services in connection with house construction are also eligible for subsidies under the guidelines.

“The bonus is intended to support people who have manual work carried out and also to benefit the regional economy such as installation or electrician companies, roofing companies or builders”, said August WÖginger, a government parliament member. 

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For members

TAXES

Can you pay your Austrian taxes using a foreign bank account?

If you still use your old bank account in you home country - or an online bank with a non-Austrian IBAN number- as a resident in Austria, you can still pay your income tax without having to open a new account here. But it can be complicated.

Published: 8 April 2024 16:19 CEST
Can you pay your Austrian taxes using a foreign bank account?

It’s not uncommon for foreign residents in Austria to keep their old bank accounts abroad. With the rise in popularity of international online banks such as N26, Wise, and Revolut, even people who are from Austria can sometimes end up with an IBAN that does not start with AT. 

Does that mean once you need to deal with the government – for paying taxes, for example – you’ll need a brand new account created in an Austrian bank?

Usually, no. As we’ve written before, you can keep using your home country’s bank account as long as it is an EU bank or part of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), which includes the European Union and several non-EU countries, such as Switzerland and the UK. 

Since international online banks also usually offer bank accounts based in the EU, you’ll also have no trouble keeping them instead of having to open a new account with an Austrian lender. 

However in practice, you might face a few challenges with something known as “IBAN discrimination”. This is when an employer or company refuses to accept your SEPA IBAN for euro payments or direct debits. This is illegal under the SEPA agreement but happens often.

READ ALSO: Why it’s worth filling in your annual tax return in Austria

It’s not uncommon to find stories of people who have tried to sign up for a service or utility, such as paying for a mobile plan, but were denied because their IBAN identification, though it was from a euro country, did not start with AT—it was not from Austria.

But does Austria’s government discriminate against foreign IBAN?

No. If you go on the official financial portal, FinanzOnline, you will see that you can add a SEPA IBAN to your account. This way, you can receive any social benefits (including payouts such as the Klimabonus or family benefits such as the Familienbeihilfe) directly in your bank account as long as this bank is located in a SEPA country. 

It gets a little bit more complicated when it comes to paying your taxes, which you have to transfer yourself if you are, for example, a self-employed worker whose income tax is not automatically deducted from your salary. 

In those cases, you fill out your tax income assessment and receive information on how much money you owe to the government. Austria has comparatively high taxes to support its social system, and you might have to pay anywhere from 20 to 55 percent of your income in taxes depending on how much you earn (those earning below a threshold which was € 11,693 in 2023 don’t have to pay taxes at all). 

Actually making the transfer is more complicated for those without an Austrian bank account. If you have a local bank account, the payment is made with a few simple buttons since the banks’ systems are integrated with FinanzOnline. If not, you have to do it yourself. 

Austria’s government suggests you use the payment system on the FinanzOnline website, but when you try to use the “electric payment” method online, it leads to the EPS system that will ask you to choose your bank name – and accept only Austrian banks.

READ ALSO: What foreign residents in Austria should know about taxes

How do I pay using my foreign bank account, then?

You will have to make a bank transfer directly to the government office, as The Local has confirmed with Finanzamt, the country’s financial authority.

Once you make your tax income declaration, you should receive a form called “Anspruchszinsenbescheid”. That will have all the information you need. On the bottom of each page, you will find the bank account to which you need to send the money (Bankverbindung). On the top right, you will find your Steuernummer and your tax number, which you must add as a reference when you transfer. 

It can still take a few days for the office to process your payment. After you log in with your account details, you can check if it has been processed on the homepage of FinanzOnline.

If you don’t see a payment confirmation a few days before the tax payment deadline, you can call Finanzamt from Monday to Thursday from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm and on Friday from 7:30 am to 12:00 pm on 050 233 233 for private individuals and 050 233 333 for businesspeople.

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