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ARTICLE SUMMARY
Most foreign residents in Austria will deal with one of four major banking groups: Erste Bank und Sparkassen, UniCredit Bank Austria, the Raiffeisen Bankengruppe, and BAWAG P.S.K. (whose direct-banking brand is easybank); bank99, the Austrian Post’s banking subsidiary, is a fifth widely accessible option. Account-opening documents are broadly similar everywhere: proof of identity, and for third-country nationals, a valid residence document. Separately, anyone lawfully resident in the EU has a statutory right to a low-cost basic account, regardless of nationality, credit history, or whether the Meldezettel (Austria’s address-registration form) has come through yet. Deposits are protected up to EUR 100,000 per depositor per bank.
Austria’s four major banking groups
Erste Bank und Sparkassen. Erste Bank and the regional savings banks (Sparkassen, savings banks) share a brand and a digital banking platform, George. Erste Bank itself is based in Vienna; the Sparkassen (for example Steiermärkische Sparkasse in Styria, or Tiroler Sparkasse in Tyrol) are separately organised regional banks that set some of their own pricing within the shared product range.
UniCredit Bank Austria. Bank Austria is Vienna-headquartered and nationally organised as a single bank, unlike the federated Erste Bank und Sparkassen and Raiffeisen groups. Its standard current account is the Privatgirokonto (personal current account).
Raiffeisen Bankengruppe. The Raiffeisenbanken (Raiffeisen banks) are independently owned regional cooperative banks, federated under the Raiffeisen Bankengruppe rather than operated as one company.
BAWAG P.S.K. BAWAG P.S.K. is Vienna-headquartered and nationally organised. Its direct-banking brand, easybank, offers a current account run fully online.
bank99. A fifth option: bank99 is a subsidiary of the Austrian Post with its own full banking licence, built around post office branches. It took over ING’s Austrian retail-customer business (in German) at the end of 2021, when ING exited Austria’s private-customer market.
Every licensed bank in Austria, these five groups included, answers to the FMA. The largest groups (Erste Group, Raiffeisen Bank International and BAWAG Group among them) also sit under the European Central Bank’s direct supervision as part of the EU’s single supervisory mechanism; smaller banks stay with the FMA alone. All of them, large or small, participate in Austria’s deposit guarantee scheme.
What opening an account involves
| Requirement | EU/EEA citizens | Non-EU/EEA nationals |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of identity | Passport or national ID card | Passport, plus a current residence document |
| Proof of Austrian address | Meldezettel or equivalent, where asked | Same; see the basic account below |
| Proof of income/employment | Sometimes requested | Same |
| In person vs. remote | Branch or video ID; some fully online | Same, confirm accepted permits |
Which of these a given bank actually asks for, and whether it will accept a rental contract or booking confirmation in place of a Meldezettel while registration is pending, is that bank’s own policy, not a rule set by law, and it changes. A full walkthrough is covered separately in “Opening an Austrian bank account without a Meldezettel yet.”
International organisation staff in Vienna are generally issued a standard Meldezettel as part of their organisation’s accreditation process. Staff who instead hold a Legitimationskarte, issued by the Foreign Ministry (BMEIA) to accredited diplomatic and international-organisation staff in place of a Meldezettel, should confirm with the specific bank and their organisation’s protocol office whether it is accepted.
This is the same everywhere in Austria; no federal state sets its own bank account-opening rules.
The basic account: guaranteed access regardless of your situation
Austrian law gives almost everyone the right to open a Zahlungskonto mit grundlegenden Funktionen (payment account with basic features), generally called the Basiskonto, under the Consumer Payment Accounts Act (Verbraucherzahlungskontogesetz) (in German). Access doesn’t depend on nationality, employment status, or an existing credit history: anyone lawfully resident in the EU can open one, provided they don’t already hold another usable payment account in Austria. This includes people without a fixed address, asylum seekers, and people with Duldung (tolerated status).
A bank can turn down a Basiskonto application only for specific reasons set out in that law, such as an unresolved money-laundering concern or the applicant already holding a usable account elsewhere in Austria. It can’t refuse someone simply for being a foreign national or having no Austrian credit history.
The fee is capped by law: at most EUR 83.45 a year for most applicants, or EUR 41.73 for people in defined vulnerable groups. The cap is meant to be recalculated periodically by regulation, but official sources haven’t published a change since 2019, so the exact review timetable is worth treating as unconfirmed rather than fixed.
ILLUSTRATION
Illustration: a hypothetical person, a non-EU national who has just arrived in Vienna on a Red-White-Red Card, employed by a small Austrian company, with no prior Austrian bank history and their Meldezettel still weeks away. They’re not a US person, and not on the staff of an international organisation. They apply for a Basiskonto at a Raiffeisenbank, using their passport, residence permit and rental contract as a delivery address. The bank can’t turn them down for lacking Austrian credit history or a completed Meldezettel, and the most it can charge them is EUR 83.45 a year. If that Raiffeisenbank later failed, EUR 100,000 of their balance would be protected under the deposit guarantee scheme; a Vienna civil servant banking with Erste Bank would have the identical protection, just through a different scheme (Sparkassen-Haftungs GmbH rather than the Raiffeisen one).
Fully digital accounts, and where EU fintech providers fit
Each of the four groups offers a route into an account that doesn’t require a branch visit. For readers who mainly need to hold or move money in more than one currency, EU-passported providers such as Wise, N26, and bunq operate under banking or e-money licences issued elsewhere in the EU.
What happens to your money if a bank fails
Every credit institution taking deposits in Austria must belong to a deposit guarantee scheme under the Deposit Guarantee and Investor Compensation Act (Einlagensicherungs- und Anlegerentschädigungsgesetz) (in German). Deposits are protected up to EUR 100,000 per depositor per bank.
| Banking group | Deposit guarantee scheme |
|---|---|
| Erste Bank und Sparkassen | Sparkassen-Haftungs GmbH |
| Raiffeisen Bankengruppe | Österreichische Raiffeisen-Sicherungseinrichtung eGen |
| UniCredit, BAWAG P.S.K., bank99, others | Einlagensicherung AUSTRIA Ges.m.b.H. |
Reporting to your home tax authority
Opening an account in Austria triggers information-sharing with tax authorities elsewhere, under Austria’s Common Reporting Standard law (the Gemeinsamer Meldestandard-Gesetz) (in German) and, for US persons, FATCA.
For us persons; Austrian banks identify US persons at account opening and report specified account information to the US Internal Revenue Service under FATCA. See the IRS’s FATCA overview for what it requires, and consult a US-qualified tax professional for a specific filing.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The account-opening paperwork is broadly similar across Austria’s major banking groups, but pricing and English-language service can differ noticeably within Raiffeisen and Erste Bank und Sparkassen. Anyone lawfully resident in the EU has a fallback: the Basiskonto, at a fee capped by law.
