Austrian Holiday Rental Websites: Registration Taxes and Booking

A website for a holiday flat, a farm-stay apartment or a chalet looks simple: photographs, a calendar, a price and a booking button. Behind it sit rules that change depending on where in Austria the property stands. Tourism is a matter for the nine federal provinces, and the provinces and municipalities decide on tourist taxes, guest registers and, in some cities, whether you may let a flat at all.

This guide is written for owners who rent one or several holiday properties in Austria and want a direct-booking website next to the platforms. It uses the City of Vienna's official guidance as a worked example, because Vienna publishes the most complete overview, and the federal ministry's statement on the EU registration scheme for the national picture. If your property is in Tyrol, Salzburg, Carinthia or another province, the structure of the duties is similar but the details, rates and forms differ, so confirm them with your municipality or tourism office.

It is planning information, not legal or tax advice.

EU Regulation 2024/1028 on short-term rentals entered into force on 19 May 2024 and applies from 20 May 2026. It provides for registration numbers for rental units and a digital infrastructure through which platforms pass booking data to authorities. In some countries this has already led to hosts having to show a registration number in every advertisement.

In Austria the picture is different. The Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism explains that, because tourism is a provincial responsibility, each province decides independently whether and from when it will implement the regulation, on an opt-in principle. As of the date of application, 20 May 2026, it will initially not be implemented in any federal province, although some provinces may do so later. For the time being that means no registration requirement for short-term rental providers and no obligation to show a registration number in listings on online platforms.

What to do with that on your website:

• Do not invent a registration number field. Showing a number that does not exist helps nobody.
• Build the footer so one can be added. If your province opts in later, you want to add a line to the legal notice and the listing template, not redesign the pages.
• Re-check each quarter. The ministry says it will report any developments on its page, which makes it the first place to look.

The first question is not about the website but about the property. Vienna's guidance explains that the 2023 amendment of the building code (Bauordnung) restricted the use of flats for short-term lets across the whole city. In the following situations:

The same page adds civil-law limits. A rental contract may forbid subletting, subletting is not allowed in municipal housing, and an owner-occupied flat in a condominium may under a Supreme Court decision (OGH 5 Ob 59/14h) only be let for tourist purposes in some circumstances once the whole owners' community has agreed. Other cities and provinces have their own planning and zoning rules.

The website consequence is simple: do not publish a property until you have checked its legal status. A page for a flat that cannot lawfully be let exposes you to the authority, to your landlord and to the platforms that copy your listing.

Austrian accommodation providers, including private room letting, must keep a guest register. According to the Vienna guidance, every guest must be registered by an entry in the register no later than 24 hours after arrival, regardless of the length of stay, and deregistered on departure. For a stay longer than two months the guest must also register with a completed registration form and a travel document at the municipal registration service.

The register may be kept electronically or on paper. It must be numbered continuously and in a way that cannot be changed. A paper register must be signed by the registration authority before use. Registers must be kept for seven years from the last entry, and the registration authority and the police may inspect them at any time.

This has direct consequences for the booking system on your site:

1. Collect the data you need for the register at booking or pre-arrival check-in: names, dates, and the other details your municipality's form asks for.
2. Store the data securely and delete it after the seven-year retention period; do not use register data for marketing.
3. Explain on the form why you collect it. A short privacy notice at the point of collection avoids questions at the door.
4. Make sure every adult guest, not only the person who paid, can be recorded if your municipality requires it.

If you let several units, an electronic register built into your booking tool saves time. The details of the data fields are set locally, so ask the registration authority which fields apply to your municipality.

Tourist taxes are set by provinces and municipalities, and the names differ: Ortstaxe in Vienna, Nächtigungsabgabe or Tourismusabgabe elsewhere. In Vienna, the City explains that guests staying in paid accommodation must in principle pay Ortstaxe, and that the host must collect it from the guests and pass it on to the Magistrate. That includes owners of private flats offered through an internet platform. Anyone letting a flat for tourist purposes in Vienna must set up an Ortstaxe account, which needs a wien.gv.at user registration first.

The amounts are calculated by the host every month and paid by the 15th of the following month. The Ortstaxe account is an accounting tool, not a bank account. The city offers an online calculator, and online platforms must report registered Viennese accommodation units to the Magistrate, which does not release the host from collecting and paying.

Design points for the website:

• Show the tax at booking. A line "Local tax: calculated at checkout" avoids the "hidden fee" complaint. If you collect it online, show the amount per person and night.
• Separate the room price from taxes and fees. Guests compare totals, but your accounting needs the split.
• Keep a monthly export. A report of nights, guests and tax collected per month makes the filing a ten-minute job.
• Rates change. Store the rate in the booking settings, not in page text.

Income from letting is subject to Austrian tax law and may be liable to income tax and VAT, according to the City of Vienna; the Finanzamt gives the answer for your case. The EU's table lists Austria's standard VAT rate at 20 % and reduced rates of 10 % and 13 %, so ask your adviser which treatment applies to your accommodation and any extras such as breakfast.

Whether you need a trade licence depends on what you offer. The City of Vienna says that letting more than 10 beds or offering a wider selection of food and drink points to the regulated hospitality trade, which requires proof of qualification. A breakfast guesthouse with up to 10 beds falls under the free hospitality trade, which needs a licence but no proof of qualification.

No trade licence is needed for "private room letting as a domestic side activity". According to Vienna, that means mainly letting no more than 10 beds, in rooms inside your own household that you use yourself, with the work done by the people who normally live in the household, and as a comparatively minor earning activity.

Separately, all commercial and private accommodation providers, including private flats let for tourism, must report the number of guests and overnight stays to the municipality every month, broken down by country of origin, and report the number of available beds once a year. The platforms' reports to the Magistrate do not replace this.

Put these facts into a simple internal calendar linked to your booking system: monthly report, monthly tax, annual bed count. A website that makes the numbers easy to export is worth more than one with an extra gallery.

For direct bookings, your terms should be written for the guest. State the price per night and what it includes, the deposit and balance, the local tax treatment, the arrival and departure times, the cancellation conditions, the maximum number of guests and the house rules (quiet hours, smoking, pets, parking).

On cancellation, Your Europe lists the exceptions to the 14-day cooling-off period for online purchases, and these include hotel bookings, car rental reservations and catering services for specific dates. Whether your lettings fall under this depends on the contract, so write cancellation terms as an explicit part of the booking process and have them reviewed. Show them before payment and repeat them in the confirmation email.

The website operator in Austria must also provide a legal notice. A chamber guide for doctors summarises the E-Commerce Act duties that apply to website operators generally: name, address of establishment, contact details, register data where relevant and VAT number if available, kept permanently and easily accessible, with an administrative fine of up to EUR 3,000 for failure. A media-law disclosure comes in addition and can be combined on the same page. Build both into the footer from day one.

Search and listings

A direct-booking site competes with platforms that dominate the results. The most reliable gains for a single property come from a precise local page (the town, the valley, the ski region), a Google Business Profile that matches the website details and an availability calendar that works on a phone. See our local SEO and Google Business Profile services.

1. Legal status of the property confirmed: zoning, tenancy terms and, in condominiums, owners' consent.
2. Trade licence position checked against beds, services and breakfast.
3. Guest register built into booking or check-in, with seven-year retention and a privacy notice.
4. Local tax shown at booking, rate stored in settings, monthly export available.
5. Monthly statistics report and annual bed count scheduled.
6. Footer ready for a registration number if your province opts in to the EU scheme.
7. Price, deposit, extras and taxes shown separately and in total.
8. Cancellation terms shown before payment and in the confirmation.
9. House rules, arrival instructions and parking explained clearly.
10. Legal notice and media-law disclosure in the footer.
11. Calendar and booking form tested on a phone.
12. Same address, phone and photos on the website, Google profile and platform listings.

A simple one-property website starts from EUR 300 excl. VAT (see our pricing); a site with a booking calendar, several units and languages is quoted after a scoping request.

• Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism – EU Regulation 2024/1028 (STR Regulation)
• Stadt Wien – Vermieten von Wohnungen für touristische Zwecke
• Your Europe – Returns and cooling-off period, with exceptions for dated services
• Ärztekammer für Kärnten – Arzthomepage (summary of ECG section 5 website duties)
• Your Europe – VAT rates applied in EU member countries