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Austria keeps your pension in euros. Each year you’re insured, 1.78% of that year’s insured pay is credited to a personal account, the Pensionskonto (individual pension account), and at retirement age the balance divided by 14 is your monthly gross pension.
That’s the whole formula, and it’s federal: the same in all nine states, for employees and the self-employed alike. Movers from Germany often expect pension points and an average-earner benchmark. The Austrian account has neither, which makes it easier to read (a statement shows a euro amount you can divide by 14 yourself).
ARTICLE SUMMARY
Everyone born on or after 1 January 1955 who is insured in Austria’s general pension scheme has a Pensionskonto. Each calendar year adds a Teilgutschrift (annual credit) of 1.78% of the year’s insured pay, up to a yearly ceiling.
The running total, the Gesamtgutschrift (total credit), is revalued every January in line with average pay growth. At the standard retirement age of 65, the total credit is your annual gross pension, and one fourteenth of it is paid out 14 times a year.
You need at least 180 insurance months, 84 of them from work, to get an old-age pension at all. Retiring early through the Korridorpension (corridor pension) costs 0.425% for each month before 65; deferring adds 0.425% a month, up to 15.30%.
Years abroad in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland or a treaty country count towards qualifying, but Austria pays only for credit earned in Austria.
- Who has a Pensionskonto
- How a year's pay becomes a credit
- How the account keeps its value: revaluation
- The ceiling: where extra pay stops counting
- From account balance to monthly pension
- Qualifying: the minimum insurance period
- Retiring earlier or later
- Years without a salary: credited periods
- Pensionssplitting: moving credit between parents
- Years worked in other countries
- Official sources
Who has a Pensionskonto
Every insured person born on or after 1 January 1955 has one, according to the federal citizen portal’s page on the Pensionskonto (in German). It’s held centrally for the whole social insurance system, and it opens in the first calendar year you’re insured.
The same account and the same formula apply whether you’re an employee (insured through the ASVG, the general scheme), self-employed with the SVS, or a farmer. What differs is the contribution base each scheme reports onto the account, not the arithmetic that turns it into a pension. The PVA (Pensionsversicherungsanstalt, the pension insurance institution) is the carrier most employees will deal with.
People who were already insured before 2005 have a Kontoerstgutschrift (opening credit), a one-off sum that converted their pre-2014 entitlements into a starting balance on 1 January 2014. Most readers who arrived in Austria as adults after 2004 have no opening credit, and their account is built entirely from the annual credits described below.
CONTESTED – International organisation staff. Staff of the international organisations based in Vienna (the UN bodies, the IAEA and OPEC among them) are often outside the Austrian pension system altogether, with pension cover set by their organisation’s headquarters agreement and its own staff pension scheme. Which regime applies depends on the organisation and your staff category, so check with your organisation’s HR or legal office before relying on anything below.
Civil servants have their own rules, which depend on their employer and year of birth, and this article doesn’t cover them.
How a year’s pay becomes a credit
Each calendar year, the account takes your total Beitragsgrundlage (contribution base: the insured pay on which pension contributions were charged) and credits 1.78% of it as that year’s Teilgutschrift, according to the PVA’s page on how the pension is calculated (in German).
For an employee, the contribution base is gross pay including the Sonderzahlungen (special payments, the 13th and 14th salary), up to the yearly ceiling. Take-home pay, income tax and your contribution rate play no part in the credit. Two people with the same gross pay earn the same credit, whatever their tax position.
The percentage has been fixed in law since 2005, and it isn’t indexed. What makes it useful is how it reads in reverse: each year at a given pay adds roughly 1.78% of that year’s gross pay to your eventual annual pension, before revaluation and any early or late retirement adjustment.
ILLUSTRATION
Illustration: a hypothetical person employed full-time in Linz, paid EUR 3,500 gross 14 times a year (EUR 49,000 a year, below the contribution ceiling), in the 2026 tax year, not a US person and not on international organisation staff.
Their year’s contribution base is EUR 49,000. The Teilgutschrift is 1.78% of EUR 49,000, which is EUR 872.20.
On its own, that one year adds EUR 872.20 ÷ 14 = EUR 62.30 to the monthly gross pension they’d receive at 65, before revaluation.
How the account keeps its value: revaluation
A credit earned at 30 would be worth little by 65 if it sat still. So on 1 January every year, the whole existing Gesamtgutschrift is multiplied by the Aufwertungszahl (revaluation factor), and the new year’s credit is then added on top.
The revaluation factor tracks the growth of average insured pay, and it’s the same factor that moves the contribution ceiling each year. For 2026 it’s 1.073, according to the same PVA page. There’s no revaluation in the year your pension starts.
The effect is that your account grows with wages, not prices. In practice, a year of work at average pay is worth roughly the same share of a future average wage whenever it happened, which is what makes the rule of thumb in the previous section hold up over a career.
ILLUSTRATION
The same hypothetical employee as above (Linz, EUR 3,500 gross 14 times a year, not a US person and not on international organisation staff). This example is pinned to the revaluation of 1 January 2026.
Their total credit at the end of 2025 is EUR 10,000. On 1 January 2026 it’s revalued by 1.073 to EUR 10,730.00.
Their 2026 credit of EUR 872.20 is added, giving a total credit of EUR 11,602.20. Were that their balance at 65, it would pay EUR 11,602.20 ÷ 14 = EUR 828.73 a month gross.
The ceiling: where extra pay stops counting
Pension contributions and pension credit both stop at the Höchstbeitragsgrundlage (maximum contribution base). Pay above it costs no pension contributions, and it earns no credit. The key values are published each year by the PVA in its overview of current values (PDF, in German).
| Value | Amount | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Annual ceiling on the Pensionskonto | EUR 97,020 | Pay above this in a calendar year earns no credit |
| Largest possible annual credit | EUR 1,726.96 | 1.78% of the annual ceiling |
| Pension contribution rate | 22.80% | Split between employee and employer |
| Employee’s share | 10.25% | Deducted from gross pay |
| Employer’s share | 12.55% | Paid on top of gross pay |
The annual ceiling is 14 times the monthly ceiling, so an employee paid 14 times a year hits it exactly at the monthly maximum. The ceiling rises every January with the revaluation factor.
ILLUSTRATION
a hypothetical person employed full-time in Vienna, paid EUR 9,000 gross 14 times a year (EUR 126,000 a year), in the 2026 tax year, not a US person and not on international organisation staff.
Without a ceiling, 1.78% of EUR 126,000 would be EUR 2,242.80. With it, the year’s credit is capped at EUR 1,726.96, the credit on EUR 97,020.
For a high earner, the state pension replaces a noticeably smaller share of pay than for someone below the ceiling. That’s the main reason the second and third pillars matter more to them.
From account balance to monthly pension
At the Regelpensionsalter (standard retirement age), your Gesamtgutschrift is your annual gross pension. Divided by 14, it’s the monthly gross amount, paid 14 times a year.
The balance that counts is the one on the Stichtag (reference date), which is always the first of a month. A pension is paid only on application, and according to the federal citizen portal’s page on the Stichtag (in German), an application made on the first of a month makes that day the Stichtag, while one made later in the month moves it to the first of the next month.
The gross amount then loses the health insurance contribution and any income tax before it’s paid. Pensions already in payment are adjusted each January by a separate mechanism, which doesn’t involve the Pensionskonto.
ILLUSTRATION
a hypothetical person employed full-time, paid EUR 3,500 gross 14 times a year throughout their Austrian career, retiring at 65, not a US person and not on international organisation staff. To keep the numbers readable, revaluation is assumed to keep pace exactly with their pay rises, so everything is in today’s euros.
Each year adds EUR 872.20 of credit. After 40 years, the total is EUR 34,888.00, a monthly gross pension of EUR 2,492.00, or about 71% of their monthly gross pay.
Someone with the same pay who arrived at 35 and worked 30 years reaches EUR 26,166.00, a monthly gross pension of EUR 1,869.00, about 53% of pay.
The same arithmetic scales to a full career: 45 years at 1.78% a year comes to about 80% of average insured pay at 65. For a hypothetical mover who starts in Austria at 35, the pension from Austria alone lands well short of that, which is why years worked elsewhere (see below) and private provision decide most of their retirement income.
Qualifying: the minimum insurance period
Credit on the account doesn’t turn into an old-age pension until you’ve met the Mindestversicherungszeit (minimum insurance period). According to the PVA’s overview of pensions and the Pensionskonto (PDF, in German), you need at least 180 insurance months (15 years) by the Stichtag, and at least 84 of them (7 years) must come from work, whether employed or self-employed.
The other 96 months can come from credited periods such as child-raising, unemployment benefit or military service. Some care-related periods also count as work towards the 84 months.
Periods in other EU and EEA countries, Switzerland and treaty countries count towards the 180 months too (see the section on years abroad). Without them, a mover with fewer than 15 years of Austrian insurance has a balance on the account and, on Austrian periods alone, no pension to draw from it.
Retiring earlier or later
The standard retirement age is 65. For women it’s rising in half-year steps: 60 for those born up to 31 December 1963, reaching 65 for those born on or after 1 July 1968.
The account’s value is then adjusted for every month you retire before or after that age, according to the same PVA overview.
| Route | Earliest age and condition | Adjustment |
|---|---|---|
| Korridorpension (corridor pension) | 62 with 480 insurance months for those born up to 31 December 1963; rising to 63 with 504 months for those born on or after 1 October 1966 | Minus 0.425% per month before 65 (5.10% a year) |
| Most other early pensions, including the Langzeitversicherungspension (long-insurance pension); the Schwerarbeitspension (heavy-work pension) has a lower rate | Their own conditions | Minus 0.35% per month (4.20% a year) |
| Deferring past the standard age | Any month after it | Plus 0.425% per month, up to 15.30% (3 years) |
Retiring early costs twice over: the deduction, and the years of credit you didn’t earn. Deferring works the same way in reverse.
Since 2026 there’s also a Teilpension (partial pension) for employees who qualify for an old-age or early pension and cut their working hours by 25% to 75%. Depending on the size of the cut, 25%, 50% or 75% of the total credit is paid out as a pension, and the rest of the account keeps growing while they work.
ILLUSTRATION
a hypothetical man born in 1970, employed in Graz, with 504 insurance months by 63, a Gesamtgutschrift of EUR 30,000 on each Stichtag considered below (for simplicity, ignoring the credit extra years would add), not a US person and not on international organisation staff.
At 65, his monthly gross pension is EUR 30,000 ÷ 14 = EUR 2,142.86.
Taking the Korridorpension at 63 is 24 months early: 24 × 0.425% = 10.2%, so he’d receive EUR 1,924.29. Deferring to 68 is 36 months late: plus 15.30%, or EUR 2,470.71.
In reality the gap is wider both ways, because the balance at 63 would be two years’ credit smaller and the balance at 68 three years’ credit larger.
Years without a salary: credited periods
Several periods without pay still put credit on the account. Each has its own contribution base, which is then credited at 1.78% like pay.
| Period | Contribution base credited | Counts as work for the 84 months |
|---|---|---|
| Kindererziehungszeiten (child-raising periods), up to 48 months per child | EUR 2,468.01 a month | No |
| Military or civilian service | EUR 2,468.01 a month | No |
| Unemployment benefit | 70% of the benefit’s calculation base | No |
| Sickness benefit (Krankengeld) | 30 times the benefit’s daily calculation base, a month | No |
Child-raising periods deserve a closer look. According to the federal citizen portal’s page on child-raising periods (in German), they run for up to 48 months from the month after the birth (60 for multiple births), and end early if another child is born within the four years.
Only the parent who actually and mainly raised the child gets them. If that parent works at the same time, the child-raising base is added on top of their pay’s contribution base (still subject to the ceiling), so a parent returning to work early doesn’t lose the credit.
Pensionssplitting: moving credit between parents
Parents can also shift credit directly. Under Pensionssplitting (pension splitting), the working parent can transfer up to half of their annual credit to the parent raising the child, according to the PVA’s leaflet on Pensionssplitting (PDF, in German).
The transfer can cover each calendar year from the child’s birth until the year the child turns 7, for at most 14 years across all children. The application is informal but must be made in writing by the child’s 10th birthday.
Once the PVA has issued its decision on the transfer, it can’t be reversed or changed. For a couple where one partner has stepped back from work, it’s the one lever in the system that moves credit from one account to the other, and it’s permanent.
TIP – You can look at your Pensionskonto at any time online, with ID Austria or through FinanzOnline, and the PVA will send a Kontomitteilung (account statement) on request. The statement shows the total credit to the end of last year, last year’s contribution base and credit, and what your pension would be if you’d already reached the standard retirement age. The quickest sense-check is to divide the total credit by 14: that’s roughly the monthly gross pension your record so far would pay at 65, in today’s money. Gaps (a missing year of employment, child-raising months not recorded) are easier to fix while employers and records still exist than at retirement.
Years worked in other countries
Austria calculates its pension from Austrian periods and Austrian contribution bases only, according to the PVA’s page on cross-border pensions (in German). Credit you earned in another country stays in that country’s system and is paid from there.
Where foreign periods matter is qualifying. Insurance periods in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland and the countries with a social security agreement with Austria are added together to test whether you meet the 180-month minimum, so a mover with 10 years in Austria and 20 elsewhere can qualify for an Austrian pension based on those 10 years.
Each country then assesses and pays its own pension under its own rules. One application, in the country where you live, is enough to start the process in all of them.
US PERSONS – Austria and the US have a social security agreement, set out on the Social Security Administration’s page on the US-Austria agreement. It lets credits from both countries be combined to qualify, and each country pays its own benefit. How an Austrian pension is taxed and reported in the US is a separate question for a US-qualified tax professional.
What happens to the Austrian account if you leave Austria for good is its own question: the credit stays on the account, and the rules on qualifying and drawing it from abroad decide what it’s worth to you.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The Pensionskonto turns each year of insured pay into euro credit at 1.78%, revalues it with average wages, and pays one fourteenth of the total, 14 times a year, from 65. Early retirement and deferral adjust that amount month by month, and credited periods such as child-raising fill some of the gaps.
For a hypothetical mover who arrives mid-career, the account alone will usually replace well under the roughly 80% of pay that a 45-year Austrian career produces, and qualifying may depend on counting years worked elsewhere.
Where the answer turns on your own record (which periods are on your account, whether foreign periods will be counted, when you can retire), the PVA or your own pension carrier decides, and a Kontomitteilung is the starting point for that conversation. Where the pension’s tax treatment in Austria or another country is the question, a licensed Steuerberater (tax adviser) is the right route; the Chamber of Tax Advisers and Auditors (Kammer der Steuerberater:innen und Wirtschaftsprüfer) keeps the register of who’s authorised.
Official sources
- PVA: Pensionshöhe (how the pension is calculated) (in German)
- oesterreich.gv.at: Pensionskonto (in German)
- PVA: PV im Überblick, Pensionen, Voraussetzungen, Pensionskonto (PDF) (in German)
- PVA: Aktuelle Werte 2026 (PDF) (in German)
- oesterreich.gv.at: Kindererziehungszeiten und Pension (child-raising periods) (in German)
- PVA: Zwischenstaatliche Pensionsversicherung (cross-border pensions) (in German)
