Leaving Austria

Tax residence in Austria rests on two facts — a domicile or a habitual abode — and it ends only when both are gone. A domicile is any dwelling you keep and can use, regardless of legal title, as the tax residence page explains in detail. That symmetry has teeth on the way out: selling the family home but keeping a pied-à-terre, an empty flat, or even permanent access to a relative's apartment can preserve a domicile, and with it unlimited Austrian tax liability. Deregistering with the municipal authority is an indication, nothing more; the tax office looks at the facts.

Giving up a domicile means giving it up in substance — selling, terminating the lease, or letting the property on terms that genuinely remove it from your own use. Where residence continues in Austria and begins somewhere else, a double residence arises, and the tie-breaker of the applicable treaty decides which state may tax comprehensively; the double taxation treaties page walks through that chain. A treaty can shift the balance abroad even while Austrian domestic residence persists — useful, but no substitute for a clean break where a clean break is intended.

What applies to your portfolio applies, separately, to your company. If an Austrian company's place of management — or assets, or functions — migrates abroad so that Austria loses its right to tax the hidden reserves, a corporate exit tax is triggered at the company level, again with instalment relief on EU/EEA migrations. A founder leaving Austria who intends the business to follow should plan the two departures together: the personal move and the corporate one have different tests, different reliefs and different timing levers. The relocating your company page covers the corporate side, including formal cross-border conversions under EU law.

The departure year is a split year in substance: worldwide income until residence ends, Austrian-source income thereafter — and the two periods are assessed separately, so the departure year produces two assessments rather than one, both on the ordinary timetable described on the income tax rates page. Where the exit-tax deferral has been requested, the duties run for years. The later sale of the deferred assets must be notified, and since 1 July 2026 a deferred gain of more than EUR 100,000 in an assessment year must also be confirmed annually: proof that no event triggering the charge has yet occurred, in writing or through FinanzOnline and giving your current address, by the end of the following year. Missing that proof counts as an actual sale, so the deferred tax falls due. Deferrals dealt with in assessments issued before 1 July 2026 where the amount left unassessed exceeds that threshold need a one-off confirmation by 31 December 2026 — diarise both. Ongoing Austrian-source income means ongoing Austrian returns, and pre-payments should be adjusted so that money is not left on deposit with the tax office. Social insurance deregistration follows its own rules, sketched on the social security page, and gift notification duties can still apply while either party to a gift retains an Austrian domicile. The system these obligations sit within — residence, rates and the flat-taxed asset classes — is mapped on the tax hub.