Technical article

What Household Help Costs in Austria

What would a few hours of help a week cost?

By Neil Solomon · 4 min read

Picture a couple named Helen and Paul. Both are 64. At home they do all the cleaning and cooking themselves, and they have wondered whether a move would let them hand some of it to someone else. Before they look at Vienna or Graz, they ask a plain question. What would a few hours of help a week cost?

Austria answers part of that with a published minimum wage for household workers. It covers the whole country. The tariff is a government regulation (from the federal arbitration office) and it took effect on 1 January 2026.

The hourly minimum for help who live elsewhere

The tariff has three levels. Level a is the starting level. Level b is for a person with relevant training. Level c is for a two-year vocational qualification or an apprenticeship. The pay also rises with years in the job. All figures are gross hourly wages in EUR.

I read these through a summary of the regulation, so please check the exact row against the official text before relying on it.

What a few hours could add up to

This is my arithmetic. Four hours a week is about 17.3 hours a month. At EUR 12.23 an hour that is about EUR 212 a month. At EUR 15.53 an hour it is about EUR 269 a month. That is the wage only. With a service voucher (next section) the employer's cost is 2% above the wage, but the voucher has an earnings limit.

Someone who lives in the home

For a household helper who lives in, the same tariff lists a monthly gross wage based on 238 hours. For a helper with no cooking at level a, it is EUR 1,766 a month in the first five years, EUR 1,776 from year six, and EUR 1,783 from year eleven.

The service voucher for small jobs

Austria also has a service voucher for household work. The government page, last updated 8 January 2026, says the monthly earnings limit is EUR 755.01 per employer for 2026. That is the EUR 551.10 marginal-employment limit plus holiday pay and a share of special payments. The page says the helper is accident-insured from the first day. Voluntary health and pension insurance costs EUR 83.49 a month for 2026, and the helper pays it. The page lists cleaning, shopping, light gardening and similar household support as the kind of work it covers.

The Austrian health insurance fund (ÖGK) page on vouchers, marked "Stand: 01.01.2026", says the value of a voucher can be chosen up to EUR 160.00. Its examples are a EUR 10.00 voucher that costs the employer EUR 10.20, and a EUR 5.00 voucher that costs EUR 5.10. The 2% difference covers accident insurance (1.10%) and an administration share (0.90%), and the page says all employer charges are in the price. An extra employer levy of 19.40% applies only if monthly pay goes above EUR 1,132.51 in 2026. https://www.oegk.at/cdscontent/?contentid=10007.904693&portal=oegkdgportal

What is left open

• What an employer pays in social insurance on top of the wage when the helper is hired outside the voucher system.
• Agency prices, and prices for 24-hour live-in carers.
• Whether prices in Vienna differ from those in smaller towns. The tariff covers the whole country, but market rates could be higher.