Salzburg has a peculiarity that extends all the way to tax returns: whoever works legally here works in other people’s spaces. The Salzburg State Security Act (S-LSG) permits sexual services only in officially licensed brothels – street and apartment prostitution are prohibited. Which locations are even possible depends on land use zoning, the 300-meter protection zone, and municipal ordinances; we’ve broken this down in detail in the map of permitted locations in the state of Salzburg.
This leads to something that often comes up too late in counseling: between you and your clients there’s always a business. And the question of who the revenue is attributed to for tax purposes – you or the establishment – is not academic in Austria. It’s examined by tax authorities and decided by the Federal Tax Court.
This text deals with money: with mandatory insurance at the SVS, with income tax and sales tax, with receipts – and with the Salzburg special case that arises from the brothel requirement.
Three Registrations, Three Authorities – and Only One Cares About Your Income
Before the first invoice is written, several steps must be taken in Salzburg that have nothing to do with each other and must be handled separately:
Registration and health checks. Registration is handled by the Salzburg State Police Directorate, medical examinations are conducted by the health authority and documented on the control card. We’ve described the intervals, responsibilities, and practices behind this in a separate article on registration and control card in Salzburg. What matters here is this: this registration is a security and health matter of the state. It replaces not a single tax or social insurance registration.
Tax office. The start of self-employment must be reported to the tax office within one month. This is done using form Verf 24 – online or directly at the office. Counseling centers have been recommending the same thing for years: keep a copy of the stamped form and be able to show it during inspections. You’ll then receive a tax number.
SVS. The Social Insurance Agency for the Self-Employed also wants to know about the start of your business within one month. The notification goes online or in writing.
Three authorities, three procedures. Just because you’re registered with the State Police Directorate doesn’t mean the SVS knows about you – and vice versa. It’s precisely in this gap that the back payments appear two years later.
Not a trade, yet self-employed: the „New Self-Employed“
Prostitution in Austria is not covered by the Trade Act. There’s no trade license, no chamber of commerce membership, and therefore no business interest representation. Socially, you end up in the catch-all category: New Self-Employed under the GSVG.
This has two sides. The uncomfortable one: no chamber negotiating for you, no legal advice included in membership fees. The practical one: mandatory insurance doesn’t begin with a registration, but rather when you exceed an income threshold – and it’s determined retroactively when your income tax assessment arrives.
The Insurance Threshold 2026 – and the Bill That Comes Later
The insurance threshold in 2026 is €6,613.20 profit per year (equivalent to €551.10 per month). This means profit from self-employment – income minus operating expenses – not turnover.
If you exceed this, you’re mandatorily insured. The contributions for 2026:
- Pension insurance: 18.5%
- Health insurance: 6.8%
- Self-employed provision: 1.53%
- together 26.83% of the contribution base
- plus flat-rate accident insurance: €12.95 per month (€155.40 per year)
There are limits at the bottom and top: the minimum contribution base is €551.10 monthly, resulting in a minimum contribution of about €160.80 per month. The maximum contribution base is €8,085 monthly or €97,020 per year – earnings above that don’t increase contributions further.
The SVS issues quarterly invoices. As long as your tax assessment for the relevant year hasn’t arrived, the invoices are provisional. Once the assessment comes, it’s finally adjusted – and the difference is demanded. For new entrants, there’s an allowance that hardly anyone knows about: the payment from the adjustment can be requested to be spread over twelve rather than four quarters.
Also important for the first few years: in health insurance, the contribution base for new businesses is fixed at the minimum contribution base in the first two calendar years – with no later adjustment. This doesn’t apply to pension insurance: there it’s calculated provisionally and later adjusted. If you earn well in the first year, you’ll pay the pension contributions retroactively.
The Eight-Week Deadline and the 9.3 Percent Surcharge
The most expensive mistake in this system is a missed letter. If mandatory insurance is only determined after the tax office has submitted the income tax assessment, the SVS imposes a contribution surcharge of 9.3 percent on the contributions.
This can be avoided with the threshold declaration: you notify the SVS – either during the current year or at the latest within eight weeks of receiving the income tax assessment – that the insurance threshold has been exceeded. Then the surcharge is waived. The contributions themselves are not.
How harshly this mechanism can strike when income fluctuates and the business operates across state borders, we’ve calculated in the example of SVS adjustment in Burgenland. The rules are the same nationwide – the SVS is a federal matter, unlike prostitution law.
Below the Threshold: Exception or Voluntary Insurance
If you stay below €6,613.20 profit, mandatory insurance doesn’t apply. Two paths are available:
The micro-enterprise exception. On request, you can be exempted from health and pension insurance if profit doesn’t exceed €6,613.20 and total revenue from all business activities doesn’t exceed €55,000. Additional condition: you weren’t mandatorily insured under the GSVG for more than twelve months in the last 60 calendar months. Accident insurance remains in place in any case. And the SVS checks retroactively using sales and income tax assessments – if the condition wasn’t met, the exemption lapses retroactively and contributions are recalculated.
Opting-in. If you stay below the threshold but want insurance coverage, you can voluntarily register with the SVS for health and accident insurance. For many sex workers, this is the real situation: no mandatory insurance, but voluntary coverage.
There’s a difference in benefit levels from the employee world that you should know about: in SVS health insurance, a self-deductible of 20 percent generally applies, which reduces to 10 percent if you meet the health goals of the „Self-Employed Healthy“ program. Sick pay is not automatic – you need a separate supplementary insurance for that. For an illness that keeps you out of work for weeks, this is the decisive point. Ask the SVS directly about the exact contributions for this.
Income Tax: When It Really Starts to Hurt
In 2026, self-employed income up to €13,539 is tax-free. Above that, the graduated tariff applies: 20 percent up to €21,992, 30 percent up to €36,458, 40 percent up to €70,365, then 48 and 50 percent. The brackets have been increased annually by two-thirds of inflation since 2023.
Calculation is based on income and expense accounting: all revenue, all operating expenses, keep receipts for seven years. In Salzburg, the largest expense item for almost everyone is the same – the room rental or fee to the establishment. This is precisely the consequence of the brothel requirement: whoever works legally here necessarily has ongoing space costs. Typically, there are also travel costs, advertisements and online marketing, hygiene and consumables, phone and internet – and: SVS contributions themselves are operating expenses.
Two allowances are worth a closer look:
- Profit allowance (basic allowance): 15 percent of profit up to €33,000, so maximum €4,950, completely without investments. You get this even with flat-rate profit calculation.
- Basic flat-rate system: From 2026, 15 percent of revenue can be deducted flat-rate as operating expenses if prior-year revenue didn’t exceed €420,000. There’s also the small business flat-rate system.
Whether the flat-rate pays depends heavily on the room rental in Salzburg. If you pay 40 or 50 percent of revenue to the establishment, you’ll almost always do better with actual expenses than with 15 percent flat-rate. Calculate both options before you commit.
Sales Tax: the €55,000 Line
Sexual services are subject to the standard tax rate. This only becomes relevant above the small business threshold: since 1.1.2025, it’s been €55,000 gross revenue per calendar year and applies in 2026. Below that, you issue invoices without sales tax, with a note on tax exemption – and in return can’t claim input tax.
There’s also a tolerance threshold of 10 percent: up to €60,500, the exemption remains in place during the current year but lapses from the following year. If the tolerance is exceeded, the exemption ends immediately – from the revenue that breaks the threshold, this and all further revenue for the year is taxable. Those earned before remain tax-free.
This threshold is achievable with full-time work in a successful Salzburg establishment. If you’re approaching it, don’t wait until year-end.
Receipts and Cash Registers – the Most Inconvenient Obligation
Since 1.1.2016, the receipt issuance requirement applies in Austria: every customer must be issued a receipt. A simple cash receipt book from a stationery store fulfills this in practice.
A cash register only becomes mandatory when both thresholds are exceeded: more than €15,000 annual revenue and more than €7,500 cash revenue. Pay attention to the term „cash revenue“ – payments with debit or credit card on site count toward it, transfers and PayPal don’t. If you take a lot of card payments, you’ll hit the cash register requirement faster than the word „cash“ would suggest.
From October 1, 2026, there’s a relief: the receipt can be provided electronically, for example via QR code on display. A paper receipt must still be issued on request.
The receipt must contain the legally required minimum information. How you describe the service on it is a question you should sensibly clarify with a counseling center or tax consultant, rather than improvise yourself.
The Salzburg Special Case: Who the Revenue Is Attributed to
Now for the point that distinguishes Salzburg from federal states allowing apartment or studio work.Because legal work here takes place practically exclusively in the licensed premises, the question arises every time: Are you an independent businesswoman renting space – or are you integrated into the operation of the establishment? This is not a question of wording. Austrian tax law has a well-established position on this: If the operator appears to the public not merely as a landlord, but if the overall picture shows a unified business in which he provides the service in his own name with the help of integrated persons, then prostitution revenues are attributed to the operator – with all the VAT consequences for him. The Federal Tax Court has also confirmed this attribution for a brothel (BFG 2.7.2024, RV/7100324/2015).
Indicators include, among others: Who organizes advertising, cleaning, security, and operations? Who sets the prices? And – a frequently cited criterion – is a time-dependent rental fee charged, or does the operator retain a share of customer revenue? A profit-sharing arrangement whose amount depends solely on the number of customer contacts is not, according to this case law, a rental fee.
A second point affects you directly: Since July 1, 2014, the tax authorities and establishments can no longer handle the taxation of sex workers in a lump-sum manner via the withholding tax under § 99 EStG. Each person must be classified individually – as a businesswoman or as an employee. The classification as an employee is supported by the absence of business risk, binding working hours, and instruction-bound work.
What you can take from this in practice: Everything that demonstrates your independence is worth its weight in gold in case of doubt. Own price setting, own advertising, own receipts, a usage contract with time-dependent fees instead of revenue sharing, free choice over presence and services. And if a house tells you it will „take care of taxes“ – ask them to explain exactly what that means. Since 2014, lump-sum handling no longer exists, and a business claiming otherwise is either calculating incorrectly or calculating in its own favor.
The Annual Calendar in Brief
- Within one month of starting: Registration with the tax office (Verf 24) and with the SVS.
- Ongoing: Issue receipts, keep income-expense records, retain receipts for seven years.
- Quarterly: SVS contributions; income tax prepayments are typically due on February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15.
- Annually: Income tax declaration – in paper form by April 30, via FinanzOnline by June 30 of the following year.
- After receiving the tax assessment: eight weeks to file an excess declaration with the SVS.
A useful rule of thumb for reserves: SVS contributions and income tax together quickly approach one-third of profit at average income levels. Those who don’t set aside funds are hit hard by subsequent assessment – often in a year when less is earned than in the year for which additional taxes must be paid.
Where to Ask When It Gets Concrete
In Salzburg, PiA – Information & Beratung für Sexarbeiterinnen (Sterneckstraße 31, 5020 Salzburg, Tel. +43 664 254 44 45) is the competent contact point; consultation is free and anonymous. For health questions and anonymous tests, there is Aidshilfe Salzburg (Innsbrucker Bundesstraße 47). Counseling centers like LEFÖ publish annually updated information packages on taxes and insurance, also in multiple languages. Saving these numbers before rather than after a problem applies here just as it does for security planning in Burgenland.
Binding information on contributions comes exclusively from the SVS, on taxes from the Austrian tax office, on registration and the S-LSG from the Salzburg State Police Directorate. On the attribution question in an establishment, tax consulting is not a luxury expense but risk management – the amounts at stake regularly exceed the consultant’s fee.
And one more thing to note: Tax and social insurance law is uniform nationwide, prostitution law is not. Other federal states handle the location question completely differently – Tyrol, for example, has a permission zone that practically doesn’t exist. Those who rotate between federal states face nine sets of regulations for the workplace, but only one SVS and one tax office. That’s the good news in this text.