Mileage log requirements in Austria

What your records have to contain to survive a check by the Bundesministerium für Finanzen, and the rate DriveHub applies.

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Updated 25 Sep 2026

Country

The rate

€0.50 per km

In force from 1 January 2025.

The rule that governs it

The Kilometergeldverordnung, BGBl. II Nr. 289/2024 — and it governs both the rate and the record. § 1 does not set the rate: it points at the Reisegebührenvorschrift 1955, where the 0,50 €/km lives. § 4 Abs. 2 caps a sole trader at 30 000 km in the Wirtschaftsjahr and § 5 Abs. 1 caps an employee at 30 000 km in the Kalenderjahr; § 2 sets what the record must contain; § 6 applies the whole thing to trips from 1 January 2025.

And the two caps are two different windows, which is money. "30 000 km im Wirtschaftsjahr" for Betriebsausgaben against "30 000 km im Kalenderjahr" for Werbungskosten — one ordinance, two neighbouring sections, deliberately not the same year. A sole trader on an April business year who drives 20 000 km in November and 20 000 in February has driven 40 000 in one Wirtschaftsjahr: 10 000 km over the cap, that is €5 000 claimed that § 4 does not allow (10 000 km × 0,50 €).

What every trip has to record

§ 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.

Date
odometer reading
business kilometres that day
start and destination
purpose. § 2 Abs. 1 offers a choice of form — a Fahrtenbuch or "andere Aufzeichnungen" — and none of content: the alternative must be a record "aus denen jedenfalls die in Abs. 2 enthaltenen Informationen hervorgehen." Two uses of jedenfalls leave no de-minimis. Lohnsteuerrichtlinien 2002 Rz 290 was rewritten to match by the LStR-Wartungserlass 2024 (BMF 4.12.2024, 2024-0.859.433); the old list, and the VwGH citation behind it, are gone. Rz 290 additionally wants start and end times where tax-free Tagesgelder are claimed alongside

Prefer to keep it by hand? A blank log with these fields: CSV · PDF.

What form the records may take

Zeitnah. A record reconstructed weeks later is what the authority attacks first; in RV/0528-F/10 it argued the logbook had been "nachgestellt".

How long to keep them

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. BAO § 132 Abs. 1, unchanged since BGBl. I Nr. 28/1999. Seven, not Germany's ten, which is the trap for a reader who carries the number across a shared language. Austria also asks less of an electronic copy: § 132 Abs. 2 wants "vollständige, geordnete, inhaltsgleiche und urschriftgetreue Wiedergabe" and has no machine-evaluability requirement, so a rendered PDF goes further here than in Germany. An employee claiming Kilometergeld as Werbungskosten has no Aufzeichnungspflicht and so no § 132 period of their own; their horizon is the five-year assessment window (§ 207 Abs. 2). Failure to produce is a Schätzung (§ 184 Abs. 3).

What it costs to get wrong

The Kilometergeld is refused outright, as it was at first instance there.

Where this comes from

The requirements above are quoted from the Bundesministerium für Finanzen. DriveHub re-checks these, and the rate, against the authority's own pages; this page is built from that record.

DriveHub records this automatically. It tracks each drive in the background and keeps the start and end, the distance and the route. Tracking and the missing-drive check are free; the report in the shape a tax office expects is part of DriveHub Pro.