Country guide · Austria

Austria's two 30 000 km caps are two different years — and since 2025 the odometer is compulsory

The ordinance everyone cites for the rate does not contain it

BGBl. II Nr. 289/2024, the Kilometergeldverordnung, is the right citation for a great deal and the wrong one for the figure most people are looking up. § 1 sets no euro amount at all: it says the pauschale Berücksichtigung happens "durch den Ansatz des Kilometergeldes … das gemäß Reisegebührenvorschrift 1955 … vorgesehen ist". The 0,50 €/km lives in the RGV 1955.

What the ordinance does set is the part that decides whether the claim survives — § 2, the record — and the caps in § 4 and § 5. Both halves are in the same four pages, and it is routine to read one of them.

What the record must contain, since 1 January 2025

§ 2 Abs. 2, verbatim: "Die Aufzeichnungen müssen jedenfalls beinhalten: Datum, Kilometerstand, Anzahl der betrieblich oder beruflich zurückgelegten Tageskilometer, Ausgangs- und Zielpunkt sowie Zweck der jeweiligen betrieblichen oder beruflichen Fahrt."

• The date
• The odometer reading
• The business kilometres driven that day
• The start point and the destination
• The purpose of the journey

§ 2 Abs. 1 offers a choice of form — a Fahrtenbuch or "andere Aufzeichnungen" — and no choice of content: the alternative must be a record "aus denen jedenfalls die in Abs. 2 enthaltenen Informationen hervorgehen." Two uses of jedenfalls in one paragraph leave no de-minimis. Lohnsteuerrichtlinien 2002 Rz 290 was rewritten to match by the LStR-Wartungserlass 2024, and asks for start and end times as well where tax-free Tagesgelder are claimed alongside.

The advice saying the odometer is not required was correct until 2024

It is easy to find, and it was right. UFS Feldkirch, GZ RV/0528-F/10, reading Rz 290 as it then stood, said that "darüber hinausgehende Angaben, wie der jeweilige Kilometerstand vor und nach der Reise … sind … nicht erforderlich". That holds for tax years up to 2024 and is dead letter from 2025: a 2010 tribunal decision reading an administrative guideline does not survive a 2024 Verordnung, and § 6 applies the new list to trips from 1 January 2025.

If you are reconstructing an older year, the older rule is the one that applies to it.

The two caps are two different years, and that is real money

§ 4 Abs. 2 caps a sole trader at "30 000 km im Wirtschaftsjahr". § 5 Abs. 1 caps an employee at "30 000 km im Kalenderjahr". Neighbouring sections, one ordinance, deliberately not the same window.

A sole trader on an April business year who drives 20 000 km in November and 20 000 km in February has driven 40 000 km inside one Wirtschaftsjahr. That is 10 000 km over the cap: €5 000 claimed where €4 000 is allowed.

The other figures are 0,25 €/km for a motorcycle — half the car rate, and quoting the car rate for a motorcycle doubles every claim — and 0,15 € per carried passenger in a Pkw or Kombi, which reaches a sole trader through EStR 2000 Rz 1571 and an employee through RGV 1955 § 10 Abs. 4.

Seven years, not Germany's ten

BAO § 132 Abs. 1: seven years from the end of the calendar year the entries were made for, or, on a non-calendar business year, the calendar year in which it ends — plus as long as a pending proceeding needs them. The ten-year figure is German, and carrying a number across a shared language is exactly how it gets quoted here.

Austria also asks less of an electronic copy than Germany does: § 132 Abs. 2 wants a "vollständige, geordnete, inhaltsgleiche und urschriftgetreue Wiedergabe" and imposes no machine-evaluability requirement, so a rendered PDF goes further here than across the border. An employee claiming Kilometergeld as Werbungskosten has no Aufzeichnungspflicht of their own and so no § 132 period; their horizon is the five-year assessment window of § 207 Abs. 2.

If the employer provides the car, there is nothing to claim

RGV 1955 § 10 Abs. 6, imported by § 26 Z 4 lit. a EStG: "Bei Benützung eines dem Beamten unentgeltlich zur Verfügung gestellten Kraftfahrzeuges gebührt keine Reisekostenvergütung." No Kilometergeld is payable while the car is the employer's.

That case has its own document and its own ordinance — the Sachbezugswerteverordnung, whose § 4 Abs. 3 per-kilometre benefit demands "sämtliche Fahrten lückenlos in einem Fahrtenbuch", private trips included. Different purpose, different record: a business-only log does not answer it.

Why an app rather than a notebook

Nothing above requires software; a notebook with those five columns satisfies § 2. What software changes is the failure mode. Nobody loses the kilometres. What goes missing is the odometer reading for a Tuesday in March, the exact destination of one visit among two hundred, and the word zeitnah — a record assembled later is the first thing the authority attacks, and in RV/0528-F/10 it argued precisely that the logbook had been "nachgestellt".

DriveHub records each drive in the background with both endpoints, the distance and the times, and asks afterwards which were business. The report prints the date, the odometer at the start and end of each trip, the route from and to, the kilometres and your own wording for the purpose, and it counts the 30 000 km against the business year for a sole trader and the calendar year for an employee — which is the distinction § 4 and § 5 draw and the one a single running total cannot express.

This page states what the Verordnung itself says, and names the paragraph so you can check. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where money is involved, ask your Steuerberater — and bring the Aufzeichnungen.