Austria Statutory interest (gesetzliche Zinsen)
Austria Statutory interest (gesetzliche Zinsen) is 4 percent, in force since 1 Jan 1812. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Austria's general statutory interest rate: a fixed 4% per annum under § 1000(1) ABGB, unchanged since the Civil Code took effect in 1812, and the measure of damages for late payment of a money debt under § 1333(1) ABGB.
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| Current value | 4 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1812-01-01 |
| Official source | ABGB § 1000 Abs. 1: 'An Zinsen, die ohne Bestimmung der Höhe vereinbart worden sind oder aus dem Gesetz gebühren, sind, sofern gesetzlich nicht anderes bestimmt ist, vier vom Hundert auf ein Jahr zu entrichten' (interest agreed without a stated amount, or owed by law, runs at four per cent a year unless the law provides otherwise); ABGB § 1333 Abs. 1: 'Der Schaden, den der Schuldner seinem Gläubiger durch die Verzögerung der Zahlung einer Geldforderung zugefügt hat, wird durch die gesetzlichen Zinsen (§ 1000 Abs. 1) vergütet' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Fixed 4% per annum — no reference rate, no periodic setter, no fixing calendar. It is the rate for interest owed by law or agreed without a figure, and § 1333(1) ABGB makes it the measure of the creditor's loss when a money debt is paid late, so it is Austria's civil default-interest rate. The 4% has stood since the ABGB entered into force in 1812; the current wording of § 1000 has been in force since 11 June 2010 (BGBl. I Nr. 28/2010) and that revision did not touch the figure. COMPOUNDING: § 1000(2) allows interest on interest only where the parties expressly agreed it; failing agreement, compound interest runs only from the day the action becomes pending (Streitanhängigkeit) and then also at 4%. § 1333(2) lets the creditor claim, on top of the statutory interest, other losses the debtor caused — in particular the necessary costs of proportionate out-of-court collection. Commercial invoices are a different product: § 456 UGB gives 9.2 percentage points over the Austrian base rate for money claims between entrepreneurs from business-related transactions where the debtor is responsible for the delay, reset each half-year and far above 4% — that regime, with its € 40 flat recovery charge, is served in our late-payment-interest product and is the one to use for an unpaid B2B invoice. Retrieval note: the RIS portal pages (ris.bka.gv.at/NormDokument.wxe, /GeltendeFassung.wxe and the ELI links) return HTTP 503 to automated fetchers; read the document store at ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Bundesnormen/NOR<id>/NOR<id>.html, whose ids come from the open-data API at data.bka.gv.at/ris/api/v2.6/bundesrecht.
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/at/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/at/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/at/statutory-interestOther Austria series: Policy interest rate · Value added tax (Umsatzsteuer / Mehrwertsteuer) · VAT registration threshold · Statutory national minimum wage · Public holidays · Consumer price inflation (VPI, year-on-year) · Corporate income tax (Körperschaftsteuer) · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (Einkommensteuer) · Statutory social-insurance contributions · ECB main refinancing operations rate (fixed rate) · Late-payment interest (EU Late Payment Directive)
The same figure elsewhere: Belgium · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus · Czech Republic · all 34