Special payments (13th/14th salary)

Holiday and Christmas pay (the 13th and 14th salary) are taxed favourably in Austria via the Jahressechstel. The calculation here is simplified and marks the assumption clearly.

€

Holiday or Christmas pay — the gross amount of the payout

Nationwide rates in force for 2026: an estimate, not an official calculation.

Net special payment

Net special payment: 2.732,70 €
  • Net (take-home)2.732,7078%
  • Social insurance (employee)632,4518%
  • Tax on the special payment134,854%
Special payment (13th/14th)
3.500,00 €

Simplified calculation: without year-to-date figures, the favourable rate (Jahressechstel) is approximated on this payout alone. For an irregular year the result may differ.

Two special payments a year — and why they are taxed lightlysonstige Bezüge

Employees in Austria typically receive not twelve but fourteen salaries a year: the running monthly pay plus two special payments — the holiday pay (Urlaubsgeld, the 13th salary, usually before the summer break) and the Christmas pay (Weihnachtsgeld, the 14th salary, usually in November or December). Whether and how much you are owed is set by the applicable collective agreement or your contract — not by this calculator.

For tax, these two payments are not ordinary wages but “sonstige Bezüge” (other payments). That is exactly why they are not taxed at the progressive wage-tax tariff that applies to regular pay, but — up to an annual limit — through their own, much flatter band table. That limit is called the Jahressechstel, and it is the heart of how Austria taxes special payments.

What the Jahressechstel is

The Jahressechstel is — as the name says — one sixth of a year’s running pay. Because the year is not over when a special payment lands, it is projected from the running total so far. The formula is:

regular pay to date ÷ months elapsed × 12 ÷ 6

Only the special payments that stay within this sixth receive the favourable rates. Anything beyond it is added to regular pay and taxed at the ordinary wage-tax tariff. For someone on the same monthly salary all year, the sixth works out very close to the sum of the 13th and 14th salary — which is why, for most people, both payments stay entirely inside the favourable range.

The favourable bands

The special payments within the Jahressechstel run through their own tiered table — ordered like the wage-tax tariff in structure, but with entirely different, much lower rates. A tax-free allowance at the bottom stays fully untaxed; only above it does the favourable rate begin.

Allowance (first 620 €)0%
above, up to 25.000 €6%
up to 50.000 €27%
up to 83.333 €35.75%
abovewage-tax tariff

For an average 13th and 14th salary, only the first row matters in practice: the allowance and the 6% rate. The higher bands only bite on very large special payments. Social insurance is also withheld from the special payments — up to their own annual maximum contribution base for special payments (13.860 €); above it no further social insurance is charged.

What this calculator simplifiesmodeling assumption

The real Jahressechstel is stateful across the year: it depends on how much running pay you have earned by the time the payment lands. This calculator does not (yet) ask for those figures. Without them it cannot build the live sixth or the year-end Kontrollsechstel true-up, so it applies the favourable rates approximately to this single payout.

For a regular monthly earner with nothing unusual, that is a good approximation. The moment the year turns irregular — a mid-year raise, a mid-year start, a spell of unpaid leave — the simplification drifts from the exact result. That is exactly what the calculator reports above as a visible note, rather than hiding it. It is a deliberate modeling assumption of the calculator, not a statement about your actual tax assessment.

The Freigrenze and the Kontrollsechstel

Two further rules complete the picture — and both are edge cases this calculator deliberately treats in a simplified way. If a year’s special payments stay below the Freigrenze (exemption threshold, 2.615 €), the favourable treatment is skipped entirely: the payment is then free of wage tax, though social insurance is still charged regardless.

The Kontrollsechstel is a year-end re-check: if the actual sixth turns out smaller than was assumed during the year, the over-favoured surplus is re-taxed as regular pay. Certain situations — parental leave, sick pay, the end of the employment relationship — carry their own exceptions here. The calculator does not model that true-up.

Every amount and rate shown here is taken from a named primary source and cited where it appears. The Freigrenze is re-indexed annually. The results are estimates — do not use them for tax decisions.

Frequently asked questions

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