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Quick summary
A foreign broker doesn’t withhold Austrian tax, so for someone who is tax resident in Austria the whole job lands on the annual return. That means the yearly fund income from the figures funds report to OeKB (the official reporting office for fund tax data), dividends declared gross with the foreign tax credited, euro conversion, and an acquisition cost raised each year. The rates are the same as at an Austrian broker; what changes is who does the work. This covers people who are tax resident in Austria, and income tax on capital income is federal, so the answer is the same in every state.
Investing through a foreign broker doesn’t take the income out of Austrian tax. The broker withholds, if at all, under its own country’s rules, and Austria expects the resident to report the same income on the Austrian return, in euros, using Austrian rules.
This article covers the obligations, the calculations and the records. The article on the E 1kv line by line covers where each result goes on the form, and the article on KESt covers the rates and the Austrian-broker side. The comparison of Austrian and international brokers sets out the trade-offs, and the Investing & Wealth hub lists the rest.
Non-residents
Someone who has left Austria and is no longer tax resident is taxed only on Austrian-source income, so the self-declaration described here is a resident’s duty. The article on non-residents with Austrian income covers that position.
International organisation staff
Staff of an organisation with a headquarters agreement in Vienna can have a tax status set by that agreement, which may change how private investment income is treated. The organisation’s HR or legal office is the first stop, and the article on international organisation staff covers what applies where.
What a foreign broker leaves to you
Austrian KESt (Kapitalertragsteuer, the withholding tax on capital income) is collected at source by Austrian institutions. The income tax act names the Austrian securities-account provider or paying agent as the party that must withhold and pass on the tax (in German), and the only foreign institutions it mentions are in a narrow derivatives case that needs an Austrian tax representative.
A foreign broker therefore leaves four jobs to the investor. Each has its own section below:
- Taking each fund’s yearly tax figures from the official reporting office and declaring them.
- Keeping the acquisition cost of every holding, raised and reduced as the rules require.
- Declaring dividends in gross and claiming the foreign tax that can be credited.
- Converting everything into euros and keeping the records.
The finance ministry’s page on capital income (in German) says foreign dividends are not subject to KESt and have to go into the tax return, and they are taxed at the special rate of 27.50%. Fund income, dividends and sale gains at a foreign broker all use that rate.
Any tax report a foreign broker offers is usually built on its own country’s rules, which can differ from the Austrian ones on points such as which lots count as sold or whether order fees count towards cost. The sections below flag each place where that matters.
The duty to file
An employee with special-rate capital income that no Austrian institution taxed has to be assessed. That is its own ground in the income tax act’s assessment rules (in German), and it doesn’t wait for the limit on other income (EUR 730).
The notes to the E 1kv for 2025 (in German) say capital income is entered only if it exceeds EUR 22 in total (a Freigrenze, a threshold: once it’s exceeded, the whole amount counts). They also say that costs connected with the income can’t be deducted, so custody fees and platform charges don’t reduce it.
The return is due by 30 April of the following year on paper, or 30 June when filed through FinanzOnline (the finance ministry’s online portal), according to the ministry’s page on the income tax return (in German). Wage tax withheld through payroll never covers this income, so the tax comes out of the assessment as a payment due.
The same form’s notes add that foreign financial institutions in participating states send account and depot data to the tax office. The article on CRS and FATCA covers how that exchange works, and the overview of foreign income covers the wider picture.
Fund income: the yearly figures come from OeKB
The assumption that an accumulating fund isn’t taxed until it’s sold is wrong in Austria. The investment fund act’s rules on fund income (in German) treat income the fund keeps as ausschüttungsgleiche Erträge (deemed distributed income), taxable each year as if it had been paid out. The act extends the same rules to foreign funds, and a later payout of income already taxed this way is tax-free.
For a Meldefonds (reporting fund), the fund’s steuerlicher Vertreter (its tax representative, an Austrian tax professional) reports the tax figures per unit to OeKB (Oesterreichische Kontrollbank). The investor has to fetch them.
How the amount is worked out
The act counts the income as received when OeKB publishes the figures after a timely report. The finance ministry’s investment fund guidelines (in German) tell the investor to multiply the published per-unit amount by the units held at that moment.
Two consequences follow, and both are readings of that rule rather than quoted sentences. The units held on the publication day decide the amount, not the units held across the fund’s year. The report that goes into a given year’s return is the one published in that calendar year, which can describe a fund year that ended earlier.
Tip
OeKB lets anyone look up a fund’s tax data free of charge, and its tax data page also describes a list of all reporting funds in Austria and former ones. The lookup runs on my.oekb.at, and the finance ministry’s guidelines describe searching by the fund’s ISIN (its international securities code) and downloading the tax data file. This site states no fund’s status or figures, because they differ by fund and year. The lookup is the place to check, and the file for each fund and year is worth saving.
Distributing funds, and funds with no report
A fund that pays out adds a second step. A distribution is taxable when it’s paid, and the guidelines separate two cases: with a timely distribution report only the taxable part counts, and without one the whole payout is taxable. Income the fund kept back still shows up as deemed distributed income in the annual report.
A fund with no timely annual report is taxed on a flat estimate instead. The deemed income is 90% of the difference between the first and last redemption price set in the calendar year, and at least 10% of the last price of the year, counted as received on 31 December. The same act, in the passage already linked, sets those figures.
The article on reporting and non-reporting funds covers the rules for funds in full, and the article on US-domiciled and other non-reporting funds covers the Austrian side of those. The comparison of accumulating and distributing funds covers the cash-flow difference.
Contested flag
How a particular foreign fund is classified, reporting or non-reporting, turns on the product’s terms and on what its tax representative reports, and no official page settles individual products.
OeKB’s lists and reports show whether tax data exists for a fund. Whether a given foreign product counts as a fund under the Austrian rules at all, and which category it falls into, is decided case by case, so this article states a treatment for no particular fund.
The finance ministry’s guidelines, linked above, describe both categories but name no fund. A tax adviser with the fund documents in front of them is the route.
US persons
US citizens and green-card holders carry a US layer on top of the Austrian one. A US person who owns a share of a foreign fund can face a separate US regime for passive foreign investment companies (PFICs), which creates its own reporting on Form 8621 (in English). That regime can reach non-US funds.
Foreign accounts also bring the FBAR once their aggregate value passes USD 10,000 at any time in the year, according to the IRS page on the FBAR. This site models none of it. The article on US persons and PFIC and the article on US persons in Austria set out what exists, and a US-qualified tax professional is the route for the US side.
Acquisition cost: raising it so the same income isn’t taxed twice
A gain is the sale price minus the acquisition cost, and the income tax act’s rules on special-rate capital income (in German) set that cost without ancillary costs. The order fee at purchase therefore stays out of the cost, even where a foreign broker’s own statement adds it in.
Units of the same security bought at different times in one securities account are valued at their gleitender Durchschnittspreis (moving average price). The act says “in one depot” and doesn’t tie the rule to an Austrian one. The finance ministry’s guidelines say an investor with units at a foreign institution works out the average price personally, and they apply the same moving average to units kept at a foreign or Austrian depot.
Deemed distributed income raises that cost, and tax-free distributions lower it, according to the investment fund act. The published tax data carries a separate Korrekturbetrag Anschaffungskosten (cost correction amount) per unit for private investors, which is the figure to use. The Illustration below assumes it equals the amount taxed.
Skip the step and the same income is taxed once in the year it’s declared and again, inside the larger gain, when the units are sold. The Illustration puts a number on it.
The article on investment losses covers losses, which at a foreign broker can offset gains only within the return of the same year. The article on moving securities to Austria covers the cost basis when a holding crosses into an Austrian securities account.
Dividends: declare the gross amount, then credit the foreign tax
A foreign broker usually credits the dividend after the source country’s withholding tax. The Austrian return needs the gross dividend, and the special rate applies to that gross amount. Declaring the net amount understates the income by the withheld tax.
The foreign tax then comes back as a credit. The notes to the E 1kv allow only tax that the source country may charge under the double taxation agreement, limit the credit to the Austrian tax on that income and exclude tax that can be reclaimed abroad. Tax withheld above the treaty rate is a claim on the foreign state instead, which the article on foreign withholding tax covers.
The ceiling of 15% on the finance ministry’s capital income page applies to an Austrian paying agent crediting foreign tax against KESt. In the assessment for a foreign broker’s dividends, the treaty rate governs instead. A foreign dividend taxed at the special rate also stays outside the income the tariff runs on, as the overview of foreign income explains.
Cash interest at the broker has its own rate rules, which the article on KESt covers.
Converting into euros
The return takes euro amounts. The finance ministry’s explanatory notes to the L 17 pay statement (2025 version, in German) set the method for foreign pay: convert at the rate of the payment day, with a deduction of 1.5% allowed for exchange and bank charges, using the ECB reference rates.
Those notes are written for pay. No official statement of its own turned up for dividends or gains, so for a described resident the same day-rate method applied to each leg is an editorial reading, not a rule:
| Amount | Rate date | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Gross dividend and tax withheld | Payment day | Same day, so the credit lines up |
| Purchase price | Purchase day | Sets the cost in euros |
| Sale proceeds | Sale day | Sets the proceeds in euros |
Each leg is converted at its own date, so a currency move between purchase and sale ends up inside the euro gain or loss. A tax adviser can confirm the method before a first filing, and the rate source and date belong in the records.
Records to keep
The E 1kv notes say to keep documents for at least seven years in case the tax office checks. For holdings, the cost trail has to outlast that, because the figures matter on the day of sale, which can be many years after the purchase.
The set that supports the return usually includes:
- Purchase and sale confirmations, with date, units, price, fees and the currency rate used.
- Dividend notices showing the gross amount and the tax withheld.
- The broker’s year-end statement.
- The OeKB tax data for each fund and year, saved as a file.
- A running sheet per holding with the moving average cost, the cost correction each year and the units held.
A year at a foreign broker, worked through
Illustration
A hypothetical single employee, tax resident in Vienna all year, holds one accumulating reporting ETF and one foreign share at a foreign broker in the tax year.
Assumptions: salary is irrelevant here, because this income never touches payroll. Not a US person, not international organisation staff, no sole-earner or child credit involved (the E 1kv notes add a minimum taxation for those cases), no other capital income and no losses. All numbers are hypothetical and are not any real fund’s or company’s data.
The ETF is euro-based. 200 units are held, at an average cost of EUR 100.00 a unit after earlier years (the EUR 10 order fee at purchase isn’t in that cost). The fund’s report, published during , shows deemed distributed income of EUR 1.80 per unit, and the cost correction per unit is assumed to equal it. The foreign share paid a gross dividend of FC 2,000, with FC being an invented foreign currency, on a day when EUR 1 = FC 1.25 (an assumed rate, with no 1.5% deduction). The source country withheld 15%, an assumed treaty rate.
The fund income. 200 units at EUR 1.80 gives EUR 360.00 of deemed distributed income. At 27.50%, that is EUR 99.00 of Austrian tax, and the cost per unit rises to EUR 101.80, or EUR 20,360.00 for the 200 units.
The dividend. FC 2,000 at 1.25 is EUR 1,600.00 gross. The withheld FC 300 is EUR 240.00, and the broker paid out FC 1,700, which is EUR 1,360.00. Austrian tax on the gross amount is EUR 440.00. The credit is EUR 240.00, within both the treaty rate and the Austrian tax, so EUR 200.00 is left to pay.
The year’s tax. The return carries EUR 1,960.00 of capital income, well above the threshold, and EUR 99.00 plus EUR 200.00 makes EUR 299.00 of Austrian tax due through the assessment.
Later, the sale. The 200 units are sold soon after, before any further report, at EUR 112.00 each, so EUR 22,400.00. With the cost raised, the gain is EUR 2,040.00 and the tax is EUR 561.00. With the cost left at EUR 20,000.00, the gain is EUR 2,400.00 and the tax is EUR 660.00.
| Error | What happens | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Cost not raised | Gain taxed on EUR 360.00 already taxed | EUR 99.00 too much |
| Deemed income missed | The year’s tax is never paid | EUR 99.00 short |
| Net dividend declared, credit claimed | Income understated by EUR 240.00 | EUR 66.00 short |
Missing the deemed income and also leaving the cost alone ends at the same total tax, EUR 660.00, but a year late and with the income undeclared in the meantime. A different rate for the dividend moves the result a little. At an assumed year-end rate of 1.30, the gross dividend would read EUR 1,538.46, which is EUR 61.54 lower and EUR 16.92 less tax.
If a year has been missed, the amount is not the only issue. Under the finance penal code, someone who discloses an offence personally becomes exempt from punishment to the extent of what is disclosed, which is the voluntary disclosure rule (in German). The conditions are strict, and the route for a missed year is a Steuerberater (licensed tax adviser), before anything is sent.
Bottom line
A foreign broker leaves Austrian tax to the investor: the fund income from the OeKB figures, the gross dividends with the credit for foreign tax, the raised acquisition cost and the euro conversion all go into the return. Skipped, the steps cost a double tax on the cost side or an unpaid year on the income side, as the Illustration shows. Whether a given fund counts as reporting, and how a first filing should look, is where a tax adviser earns the fee.
Getting help
Once fund classification, the treaty rate or a missed year is involved, the answer depends on individual facts. A Steuerberater (licensed tax adviser) can advise and prepare the return, and the member directory of the Chamber of Tax Advisers and Auditors shows who is licensed, with a search by location and by Steuerberater or Wirtschaftsprüfer. The directory has no language filter, so English support is a question for the first contact.
To check that a broker is licensed, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) runs a company database that shows whether a firm holds an FMA licence, and a warnings list for unauthorised offers. A broker supervised in another country is checked with that country’s regulator.
Official sources
- Capital income in the narrower sense (Kapitalerträge im engeren Sinn), Federal Ministry of Finance (in German)
- Investment funds: the fund income rules, Legal Information System of the Republic (in German)
- Investment fund guidelines 2018, Federal Ministry of Finance (in German)
- Tax data for funds, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (in English)
- Form E 1kv for 2025, supplement for capital income, Federal Ministry of Finance (in German)
- Income tax act: special rates and acquisition cost, Legal Information System of the Republic (in German)
