Employer of Record Austria: 6 Providers Compared

The first time I priced an Austrian hire, I built the model on twelve monthly salaries and a rounded-up allowance for payroll tax. Both halves were wrong. Austrian pay runs on fourteen payments a year, and the terms of the contract were largely written by a sector agreement I had never heard of, let alone read.

This guide covers what Austrian law imposes before any vendor gets involved, what a hire costs on top of gross salary, and six providers compared on the prices they actually publish. Every legal and contribution figure below was checked against Austrian government sources in October 2026.

An employer of record handles the mechanics of hiring in Austria. The provider employs your hire through an existing Austrian entity, registers them with the health insurance carrier, runs local payroll, and carries the employer obligations, while you keep the work, the salary decision, and the relationship. What it does not do is change the arithmetic underneath.

How an employer of record works in Austria

An employer of record employs your Austrian hire through an Austrian legal entity, its own or a local partner's, so you can put someone on a compliant local payroll without registering a company in Austria. You choose the person and the pay; the provider signs the contract and takes on the employer obligations.

The Austrian mechanics have one hard deadline that catches US employers. An employer must register a new employee with the health insurance carrier before work begins. The filing goes through ELDA, the electronic data exchange of the Austrian social insurance carriers, and a late one draws a surcharge or a fine.

Registration is therefore a before-the-first-day task, not a first-week task, which is why providers ask for signed paperwork earlier than a US onboarding process would.

The right-hand column is the part vendors underplay. A provider removes administration and legal exposure, not judgment. You still recruit, still decide, and still own whatever onboarding experience the person actually gets in their first month.

Collective agreements write most of your contract

Austria has no statutory minimum wage. Pay floors, working-time rules, bonus entitlements, and overtime premiums come from the sector collective agreement that binds your provider's Austrian entity, and that agreement is not something you negotiate.

The Federal Ministry of Social Affairs states the position directly: unlike other EU member states, there is no statutory minimum wage in Austria, and minimum pay for each occupational group or sector is regulated in collective agreements without the involvement of the state.

The ministry counts more than 800 agreements covering roughly 95 percent of employees, and the OECD puts adjusted bargaining coverage (the share of eligible employees covered by an agreement) at 98 percent for 2024.

Coverage is that high because membership in the economic chamber is compulsory for Austrian businesses, so the employer side of the table is close to universal. The result is a system with almost no uncovered ground, which is unfamiliar to a US founder used to treating a salary as a private negotiation.

One subtlety: the agreement that applies to your hire is the one for the provider's own business classification, not necessarily the one your industry would fall under if you had your own Austrian company. That mismatch is rarely a problem, but it is worth surfacing before it appears in a contract you have already signed.

Fourteen salary payments, not twelve

Almost every Austrian collective agreement grants two extra monthly payments a year, a holiday allowance usually paid around June and a Christmas payment usually made in November or December. An annual budget built on twelve salaries is therefore short by about 16.7 percent before anything else is added.

These payments are conventionally called the 13th and 14th salary, and Austrian employees think in those terms. A quoted monthly figure is a fourteenth of the year, not a twelfth, so a US offer expressed as an annual number has to be divided carefully before it goes into an Austrian contract. Get that wrong in either direction and the conversation is uncomfortable.

Austrian income tax treats these two special payments on a separate and lighter schedule than regular monthly pay, which is why employees regard them as untouchable rather than discretionary. Social insurance still applies to them, under its own annual ceiling of EUR 13,860 for 2026, and the payments accrue from the first day and are settled pro rata, by time worked, when someone leaves mid-year.

What an Austrian hire costs on top of gross

Employer costs add close to 30 percent to gross pay in Austria, and they arrive as five separate line items rather than one payroll tax. Social insurance is the largest at 20.98 percent, and the other four are small individually and material together.

Two rates in the table depend on where and when you employ. The City of Vienna raised its housing contribution to 0.75 percent each for employer and employee from January 2026, and the 2027-2028 budget act, as passed by the National Council (the lower house of the Austrian parliament), cuts the family fund contribution to 2.7 percent from 2028.

Only the social insurance component is capped. Contributions stop at a monthly ceiling, and the two special payments have an annual ceiling of their own. The family fund contribution, the provincial surcharge, the municipal tax, and the severance fund all run uncapped on the full wage bill.

Put together, a EUR 5,000 monthly salary is EUR 70,000 of annual gross once the two extra payments are counted. Add the employer load, roughly 28.5 percent from 2028 (29.5 percent through 2027), and the employment cost is about EUR 89,950 a year (EUR 90,650 through 2027), before the provider charges anything.

A $599 monthly platform fee adds a further $7,188 a year, quoted in dollars against a euro payroll, so currency conversion can add a cost on top of that.

This is why comparing providers on the headline fee alone misleads. Here the fee is well under a tenth of the story, and the true cost of employing someone is set by Austrian law long before you pick a vendor.

Leave, notice, and probation in Austria

Austrian statutory minimums are 25 working days of paid leave on a five-day week, a probationary period capped at one month for salaried staff, and employer notice that starts at six weeks and lengthens to five months with service. None of that is negotiable downward, and a provider cannot soften it for you.

Leave is where the counting confuses people. The Austrian business service portal puts the entitlement at 30 working days for a six-day week or 25 for a five-day week, rising to 36 and 30 respectively after more than 25 years with the same employer. In the first working year the entitlement builds proportionally across the first six months and is available in full from the seventh.

Employer notice periods run six weeks in the first and second year, two months after the second year ends, three months after the fifth, four months after the fifteenth, and five months after the twenty-fifth, on rules that have applied to blue-collar and salaried staff alike since 1 October 2021. Employees themselves owe one month.

The default termination date is the sharper detail. Unless the contract specifies the fifteenth or the end of a month, employer notice runs to the end of a calendar quarter, so six weeks of notice given in early April runs to the end of June rather than to mid-May. Ask your provider which date its Austrian contract template uses, because that single clause moves the cost of an exit by weeks.

Employer of record providers for Austria compared

Six providers, compared on the fees they publish rather than the fees a salesperson mentions. All six carry an employment rate on their own pricing page, though for three of them that rate is a starting or country-adjusted figure rather than a fixed number.

Two patterns show up immediately. The published band is wide, running from $199 to $699 per employee monthly, which is a spread of $6,000 a year on a single Austrian hire. And the more useful differentiator in Austria is not price at all but whether the provider will tell you, in writing, which entity employs your hire and which collective agreement it applies.

The six providers reviewed

Deel publishes its employment rate as a flat $599 per employee monthly, which puts it in the middle of the published figures here rather than at either end. For a US company making a first Austrian hire, the practical draw is that contractor management and employment sit in one account, so the common shape of two contractors elsewhere and one employee in Vienna does not need two vendors.

What to press on is Austria specifically. Deel says it owns entities in more than 130 countries without listing them, and neither its pricing page nor its Austria page says whether the Austrian entity is its own or a partner's. The answer decides who is accountable when a registration is late or a grading is challenged.

Ask for the Austrian contract template as well, and read its intellectual property clause closely, because your hire contracts with the provider rather than with you.

Remote is the only provider in this group that says outright it owns its Austrian entity rather than working through a local partner, and in Austria that claim buys something specific. Someone has to choose the collective agreement, file the registration before day one, and defend a grading if it is questioned, and a single named entity shortens that chain considerably.

The trade is price, unless you commit for a year. Month to month, Remote charges $699 per employee, the joint highest published rate in this group and roughly $1,200 a year more than the $599 tier on one Austrian employee. Annual billing brings it down to $599, level with Deel.

Remote also publishes a separate payroll product at $29 per employee monthly for companies that already hold a local entity, which is the product you move to if you eventually incorporate in Austria.

Oyster publishes a rate, gives contractors their first 30 days free before charging $29, and states that setup, onboarding, talking to its HR experts, and processing terminations are all included in the fee. That suits a founder who wants one Austrian employee and no standing relationship to manage.

Oyster's Austria material is unusually specific about the things that trip US buyers up: it dates the 13th payment to the end of June and the 14th to the end of November, sets out the notice ladder by length of service, and states plainly that the probationary period is one month and cannot be extended.

The hourly advisory rate marks where the included service stops. Project-based HR advisory, the hands-on help a complicated case needs, costs $300 an hour, so price that in if you expect to lean on the provider through a difficult exit. Ask what escalation looks like before you sign, because an Austrian termination is exactly the moment you want a person rather than a ticket.

Multiplier publishes its rates by plan: Core costs $459 per employee monthly on annual billing and $499 month to month, and Growth costs $519 and $559 respectively. On annual terms that sits below every published figure in this group except RemoFirst, and month to month it matches the starting rate of Papaya Global.

The fine print is where the number moves. Multiplier prices about 11 percent of the countries it serves differently, and both plans can carry compliance-mandated add-ons and, where one applies, an implementation fee, so ask for the Austrian figure in writing.

Multiplier's annual commitment is easier to justify for three or four people in Austria, which is roughly where the economics of this whole category start to move anyway.

Papaya Global was founded in 2016 to put finance, HR, payroll, and payments on one platform, and its employment plan lists automated statutory payments. That matters more in Austria than in most markets, because the employer load is not one number.

Social insurance, the family fund contribution, the provincial surcharge, municipal tax, and the severance fund are five levies with different bases and different caps, which is a lot of moving parts for one payroll. For finance teams, Papaya Global's Payroll Plus plan lists standardized gross-to-net reports, which trace each salary from gross down to net pay.

Papaya Global's published starting rate of $499 per employee monthly undercuts Deel, Remote, and Oyster and matches the month-to-month rate of Multiplier, which is not where this vendor sits in most buyers' heads.

The catch is that Papaya Global's reporting depth only earns its keep when there is something to report on. One Austrian employee does not need a multi-country cost dashboard. Several countries, several currencies, and a finance lead asking why the Austrian figure moved add up to a different situation entirely.

RemoFirst publishes the lowest fee in this group by a wide margin, starting at $199 per employee monthly, and states that it charges no setup, onboarding, or termination fees and sets no employee minimum. On one Austrian hire that gap is roughly $4,800 a year against the $599 tier and $6,000 against the $699 tier, which is real money at small headcount.

Read the words in front of the number: a starting rate is not an Austria quote. Austria is not a cheap market to serve, with five separate employer levies and a collective agreement to administer, so ask for the Austrian figure in writing.

Ask what the deposit is as well, because a low fee paired with a large deposit is not a low-cost arrangement. RemoFirst also says it works through vetted in-country partners rather than entities of its own, so ask which partner would employ your Austrian hire before the fee decides anything.

A provider or your own Austrian company

Use a provider while your Austrian headcount is small, and model your own company once it is not. An Austrian GmbH, the local form of limited liability company, needs only EUR 10,000 of minimum share capital, of which at least EUR 5,000 must be paid in cash, but the capital is just the start.

The contractor row deserves a warning rather than a recommendation. Engaging someone in Austria as a contractor while directing their hours and methods is the fastest route to a misclassification finding, because the test looks at how the work is actually controlled rather than at the label on the agreement. The product you buy does not decide the classification; the relationship does.

On the entity side, corporate income tax runs at 23 percent of taxable profit, a flat rate rather than a graduated one. Worth raising with your tax adviser separately: whether the way your Austrian hire works could create a taxable presence for your US company regardless of who employs them. That question is about your business, not about the provider you choose.

What to ask before you sign

Put these five questions to every provider on your shortlist, in writing, before you sign. The answers cover what a price list leaves out: the collective agreement, who owns the entity, the all-in cost in euros, the termination date, and how you leave the arrangement later.

Before you choose

FirstHR covers the part of an Austrian hire that stays with you whichever provider employs the person: the first-week onboarding, the signed documents, the training, and the records. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so the Austrian contract, the euro payroll, and the employer obligations come from the providers above.

The provider decision and the HR decision are separate, and people conflate them. Several providers here include onboarding support and HR tools for the people they employ, so a separate layer earns its place when you want the first-week experience, the training your role requires, and employee records in one home across your whole team.

That layer stays yours whichever route you take, and it is what we built FirstHR for: onboarding with e-signature, document management, training with completion tracking, and an employee record that holds together for a small business without a dedicated HR person, at a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an employer of record in Austria?

The party named as employer on the contract, the payslip, and the social insurance file, while the person works for you in every practical sense. It signs the Austrian contract, files the registration, remits wage tax and the local levies, and carries the legal exposure that a US company with no Austrian presence cannot carry itself.

How much does an employer of record cost in Austria?

Published fees among the six providers here run from $199 to $699 per employee monthly, and three of them are starting or country-adjusted rates. Add the Austrian employer load of roughly 28.5 percent on gross from 2028 (29.5 percent through 2027). Then allow for a refundable deposit, which Deel, for one, sets at 1 to 1.5 times all monthly charges, and for any currency conversion cost, since the fee is billed in dollars against a euro payroll.

Does Austria have a minimum wage?

No. The Federal Ministry of Social Affairs confirms there is no statutory minimum wage and that minimum pay is set sector by sector in collective agreements. More than 800 agreements cover around 95 percent of employees, so the floor for your hire depends on the applicable agreement, the job grade, and years of relevant experience.

What are the 13th and 14th salaries in Austria?

The two extra monthly payments that make Austrian pay a fourteen-part year: a holiday allowance in early summer and a Christmas payment late in the year. They come from the sector agreement rather than the statute, accrue from day one, are settled pro rata on exit, and carry social insurance under a separate annual ceiling of EUR 13,860 for 2026.

What are employer social security contributions in Austria?

The employer share is 20.98 percent of gross: health 3.78 percent, pension 12.55 percent, unemployment 2.95 percent, accident 1.10 percent, housing 0.50 percent (0.75 percent in Vienna from 2026), and the insolvency fund surcharge 0.10 percent. Contributions stop at the ceiling of EUR 6,930 a month for 2026. The family fund contribution, provincial surcharge, municipal tax, and severance fund are all separate and uncapped.

How much notice do I have to give an employee in Austria?

Anything from six weeks to five months, set entirely by length of service: six weeks in the first two years, two months after year two, three after year five, four after year fifteen, and five after year twenty-five. Notice normally expires at the end of a calendar quarter, which lengthens the real timeline, unless the contract sets the fifteenth or the end of a month.

How much annual leave do employees in Austria get?

Five weeks, which comes to 25 working days on a five-day week, and six weeks once service passes 25 years with the same employer. The statute itself counts on a six-day basis, where the same entitlements read as 30 and 36 days, and public holidays sit outside the allowance entirely.

Should I use an employer of record or set up an Austrian company?

A provider first, and a company once the fee per head costs more than running one. An Austrian GmbH needs EUR 10,000 of share capital with at least EUR 5,000 in cash, a notarial deed, a register filing, local accounting, and ongoing administration, against a fee that scales with every head you add.