Employment contract in Austria: Template, Key Clauses and Local Law (2026)

The short answer An employment contract in Austria (Arbeitsvertrag or Dienstvertrag) is mainly governed by the Civil Code (ABGB), the White-Collar Employees Act (Angestelltengesetz) for salaried staff, and a web of protective statutes on working time, holidays and parental leave. Above all of these sits the collective agreement (Kollektivvertrag) for your sector, which is set through the Economic Chamber (WKO) and usually fixes minimum pay, working hours and bonuses. The contract itself does not have to be in writing to be valid, but the employer must give the employee a written statement of the key terms (a Dienstzettel), and in practice a written contract is standard. Any term that is worse for the employee than the collective agreement or the law is simply replaced by the better statutory or collective minimum. ## What law governs the contract The core sources are the ABGB, the Angestelltengesetz for white-collar employees, the Working Time Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz), the Holiday Act (Urlaubsgesetz), the Maternity Protection Act and the Act on the staff provision fund. Blue-collar and white-collar notice rules were harmonised from 2021, so most employees now share the same framework. The decisive document for pay and conditions is often not the contract but the applicable Kollektivvertrag. Austria has no single statutory national minimum wage. Instead, minimum pay is set collective agreement by collective agreement, sector by sector, and most agreements set a gross monthly minimum in the region of 1,500 to 2,000 euros, with many sectors higher. Confirm the current figure for your sector, since it changes each year. ## What the contract and the written statement must cover The employer must hand over a written statement of terms (Dienstzettel) early in the relationship, reflecting the EU transparent working conditions rules. Whether you put these into the contract or the statement, the following should be clear: - the names of the parties and the start date, and for fixed-term work the end date

• the place of work and a description of the role
• the applicable collective agreement
• gross pay, pay date and any bonuses, including the customary 13th and 14th month payments
• normal working hours
• annual leave entitlement
• the length of any probation period and the notice periods that apply ## The clauses that matter most Probation (Probemonat). Austrian law allows a probation period of at most one month. During it, either side may end the employment at once, with no notice and no reason. Anything longer than a month is not a valid probation. Working time. The statutory norm is 40 hours per week and 8 hours per day, but many collective agreements cut this to 38 or 38.5 hours. Overtime rules and premiums are set by the Working Time Act and the collective agreement. Annual leave. Employees are entitled to five weeks of paid leave a year (25 working days on a five-day week), rising to six weeks after 25 years of service. Pay, including the 13th and 14th salaries. Most collective agreements provide two extra annual payments, a holiday bonus and a Christmas bonus, often described as the 13th and 14th monthly salaries. These are so common that employees expect them, so be explicit about whether and how they are paid. Notice periods. For an employer ending the contract, statutory notice rises with length of service, from six weeks in the early years up to five months after long service, and often takes effect at the end of a calendar quarter unless the contract agrees month-end dates. The employee generally gives one month. The parties can agree more favourable terms but not strip the statutory floor. Severance (Abfertigung neu). For employment relationships that began after 2002, the employer pays a monthly contribution of 1.53 percent of gross pay into an employee provision fund (Vorsorgekasse). The accrued amount belongs to the employee and is portable between jobs, which replaced the old lump-sum severance for most workers. Post-contract non-compete (Konkurrenzklausel). A clause restricting the employee after they leave is tightly limited. It can last at most one year, is only valid above an income threshold, must relate to the employer's line of business, and can be unenforceable if it unfairly burdens the employee. ## A simple template outline A workable Austrian employment contract usually runs in this order: parties and start date; role, place of work and reporting line; reference to the applicable collective agreement; probation; working hours; gross pay, pay date and 13th and 14th salaries; annual leave; sick pay; confidentiality and, where lawful, a limited non-compete; data protection; notice periods; and a closing clause confirming that the collective agreement and mandatory law prevail where they are more favourable. Keep it in German, or bilingual, since German is the working language of the courts and authorities. ## Common mistakes and red flags The most frequent error is ignoring the collective agreement and setting pay or hours below its floor, which does not save money because the better term applies anyway. A probation period longer than one month is a second common slip. Treating a worker as an employee on paper while running them like a contractor, or the reverse, invites reclassification, because Austrian authorities look at the real working relationship, not the label. Finally, an overreaching non-compete is often simply struck down, so a narrow, lawful clause protects you better than an aggressive one that fails. ## Ending the contract and what happens on exit Austrian law offers several routes out of an employment relationship, and the contract should anticipate them. The cleanest is a mutual termination (einvernehmliche Aufloesung), where both sides agree the end date in writing and avoid notice periods altogether. Ordinary termination (Kuendigung) by either side follows the statutory notice rules above. Summary dismissal for cause (Entlassung) is reserved for serious breaches, such as a grave breach of trust, and carries a high bar, so an employer who dismisses summarily without solid grounds risks having to pay as if proper notice had been given. Employees can challenge a termination as socially unjustified or as motivated by a prohibited reason, and where a works council exists it plays a role in the process. On exit, the employee is owed their final salary, any accrued but untaken leave paid out, the pro-rata share of the 13th and 14th salaries, and a written reference (Dienstzeugnis) describing the role and duration. The staff provision fund balance (Abfertigung neu) stays with the employee. Setting out the exit mechanics in the contract, including the reference and the handling of company property and confidential material, makes a departure far smoother than leaving it to be argued at the end. This page is general information, not legal advice. Laws change and the right answer depends on your facts, so confirm the current position with a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction before you sign. ## Keeping the paperwork in one place Step back from the clauses and the real problem is organisational. An employment contract is not a one-off document. It sits beside the collective or sector agreement, the written statement of terms, later amendments on pay and role, policies, and a running record of who agreed what and when. When those live across inboxes, shared drives and signed PDFs, the current version becomes hard to trust and the obligations inside, such as a notice window or a review date, slip out of view. The drafting, the review for risky or non-compliant clauses, the version history and the tracking of key dates are all the same body of work, and it is far easier when it lives in one workspace rather than five disconnected tools. That single-workspace idea is what Adira is built around: draft, understand, edit, track and govern a contract in one place, tuned to how your company works. Adira is India-first today, with other jurisdictions on its roadmap, so for Austrian-specific employment law you should still rely on local counsel and local templates. The direction worth taking from this page is the simple one: contracts you can trust are the ones that stay in one place, in step, with their deadlines in view.