Car insurance in Austria for newcomers: registering, importing and insuring your car (2026)

By Rudolf Adlmanninger, insurance broker (Versicherungsmakler) · Last updated 9 September 2026

In short: In Austria you cannot register a car without insurance: the registration offices are run by authorised insurance companies, and the confirmation of third-party liability cover is one of the documents you hand over. Insurance first, number plates second. Only liability cover is compulsory; Teilkasko, Vollkasko and add-ons such as motor legal expenses cover are optional and worth comparing. If your main residence is in Austria and your car is on foreign plates, it generally has to be registered here within one month of the day it first entered Austria — and a weekend trip home does not restart that clock. A car from another EU country may trigger the registration tax NoVA, so have the calculation checked first; one from outside the EU can add customs duty and import VAT. Your EU or EEA licence stays valid; with a licence from outside the EEA you may generally drive here for six months after establishing residence and must have exchanged it by then. We are an independent insurance broker, we advise in English by video call or telephone, and we can have your insurance confirmation ready before your car arrives.

How does POINTNER finanz help — in English, before you arrive?

1. A 15-minute callTell us which car you are bringing, from where, and when. We tell you whether NoVA applies, which documents the registration office wants and in which order — and if you need nothing from us, we say so.
2. We sort out your caseWe compare liability, Teilkasko and Vollkasko across the insurers we work with, check how your no-claims history from abroad is treated and prepare the insurance confirmation.
3. Confirmation and registrationYou receive a written quote and the confirmation of cover for the registration office; the policy can be arranged before your car enters Austria.

We are based in Austria and use Central European Time, switching to summer time in summer — roughly one hour ahead of the UK, six ahead of New York and three and a half to four and a half hours behind Delhi, depending on the season. Early-morning and evening slots exist for exactly that reason; please check the time zone shown when booking.

Why does the insurance come before the number plates?

Because in Austria the registration counter belongs to the insurance industry rather than to a government office. Registration takes place at “a registration office (VVO) in the district that is the main place of residence of the applicant” — offices run by insurance companies authorised for that district. The rule there is one sentence: the vehicle “must be covered by third-party liability insurance that is valid in Austria”.

Two consequences surprise people who have registered a car elsewhere. You do not have to use an office run by your own insurer: if yours has none in your district, another authorised insurer’s office takes it on, because these offices act in an official capacity. What you cannot do is pick any office anywhere — it must be one authorised for the district you live in. And you need not go at all: “A vehicle can also be registered by a third party holding a written proxy.” That is how we register cars for clients: at the counter for you in the districts around our office (Ried im Innkreis, Braunau am Inn, Schärding, Grieskirchen and Vöcklabruck), and elsewhere by sending the confirmation digitally to the office responsible for you.

One term is worth pinning down: the insurance confirmation (Versicherungsbestätigung) is not your policy document but your insurer’s confirmation for the counter that the compulsory cover exists for that vehicle.

Sources: oesterreich.gv.at: Registration of a motor vehicle and oesterreich.gv.at: Kfz-Zulassung (German) (accessed September 2026)

How much liability cover does Austrian law require?

More than most newcomers expect. Under section 9 of the Motor Third-Party Liability Insurance Act (KHVG 1994), an ordinary car — the category the law calls “alle anderen Fahrzeuge” — carries a combined statutory sum of €7,790,000 per insured event for personal injury and property damage together. Within it at least €6,450,000 must be available for personal injury and €1,340,000 for property damage, and a further €80,000 applies on top for pure financial loss. Higher statutory sums apply to specified categories rather than to size alone: coaches, lorries with more than eight passenger places besides the driver’s seat, bus trailers, and vehicles carrying dangerous goods. Every Austrian policy meets that minimum, and you can agree a higher sum — ask what it adds to the quote.

Source: RIS: § 9 KHVG 1994 (German) (accessed September 2026)

Which cover is compulsory, and which is optional?

Only one policy is compulsory: motor third-party liability (Kfz-Haftpflicht). It pays for the damage you cause to other people and their property, up to the sum insured in your policy, and without it the car cannot be registered. Everything on top is voluntary — and not all of the same kind: partial and comprehensive cover insure your own car, while motor legal expenses cover, breakdown assistance and passenger accident cover do something else.

Two things liability cover does not do. It does not pay for the injuries of the driver who caused the accident — that is what occupant accident cover or a private accident policy is for. And it does not simply settle every claim made against you: the insurer examines what is actually owed and defends claims it considers unfounded, at its own cost. Motor legal expenses cover is the other side of that coin — depending on the module, it pays when you are the one pursuing a claim or facing proceedings after an accident.

Cover	What it does	Compulsory?
Third-party liability (Kfz-Haftpflicht)	damage you cause to other people and their property, up to the sum insured	yes — no registration without it
Partial comprehensive (Teilkasko)	named perils affecting your own car: theft, fire, glass breakage, storm and hail, collision with specified wild animals, in many tariffs also damage caused by animal bite	no
Comprehensive (Vollkasko)	the perils Teilkasko covers in the same tariff, plus accidental damage to your own car — including a collision you cause yourself — and usually vandalism	no
Add-ons: motor legal expenses, breakdown assistance, passenger accident cover	legal costs after an accident, roadside help, benefits for injured occupants	no

Teilkasko is not the British “third party, fire and theft”. The insured perils are defined in the Austrian policy wording and differ from tariff to tariff: what counts as vandalism, whether a parking dent is covered, which animals count for a wildlife collision, how much glass cover you get, and whether the insurer waives its right to cut or refuse payment for damage caused by gross negligence. That is the part of a quote worth reading.

Whether comprehensive cover is worth buying is not settled by the car’s age alone: what matters is the replacement cost, the premium, the excess, and whether you could absorb a total loss yourself. A financed or leased car is a separate case — the contract normally obliges you to hold it even though no law does. Where the cover applies matters too: the geographical scope of Teilkasko, Vollkasko and breakdown assistance is set in the policy wording, so it is worth reading before a long drive outside Austria.

What moves the premium: the vehicle (power, value, model), the cover and excess you choose, your claims history and bonus-malus grade, your age, and how and where the car is used and kept. On top of it the insurer collects the motor-related insurance tax with your premium, working it out from the figures in your registration certificate and paying it to the tax office on your behalf — a tax rather than part of the insurer’s price, and the same wherever you insure. Since 1 April 2025 pure electric cars pay it too: the Budget Consolidation Act 2025 ended their exemption for cars already on the road as well as newly registered ones, and for an electric car the amount follows from the motor’s rated continuous output and the vehicle’s kerb weight rather than from CO2 emissions. We compare the Austrian motor insurers for your vehicle and work out the premium for you.

Sources: RIS: § 6 Versicherungssteuergesetz 1953 (German) and RIS: BGBl. I Nr. 7/2025, Budget Consolidation Act 2025 (German) (accessed September 2026)

What do I do after an accident?

The rules are short, and they are the same for everybody on the road here. Stop. Help anyone who is injured and call the emergency services if they are needed. Where people have been hurt, the police must be informed; where only property is damaged, the police need not be involved as long as everyone involved exchanges names and addresses — and if that is not possible, report the accident at the nearest police station.

Then document it while you are still there: photographs of the vehicles where they came to rest, the damage, skid marks, the names and addresses of any witnesses, and the other party’s insurer and policy number. The European Accident Statement form exists for exactly this and is worth keeping in the glove box. Tell your own insurer as soon as you can — the official guidance sets the outside limit at one week — and where the other side is at fault, their liability insurer needs the report as well as your own Kasko or legal expenses insurer. Settling the liability question is not your job at the roadside: describe what happened and leave the rest to the insurers. As your broker we make that report for you and stay with the file until it is closed.

Source: oesterreich.gv.at: Conduct in the event of a traffic accident (accessed September 2026)

How long can I drive on my foreign number plates?

That depends on where your main residence is — and that is not simply the form you hand in. In Austrian law it is the accommodation you intend to make the centre of your life, judged on your actual professional, economic and social ties. The registration slip (Meldezettel) documents that, it does not create it. You must still register your address within three days of moving in, an omission “punishable by a fine of up to 726 Euro” — and that registration starts the six-month clock for a non-EEA driving licence further down this page.

Your situation	How long foreign plates are allowed	What has to happen next
Main residence stays outside Austria	up to one year	no Austrian registration, as long as the main residence genuinely stays abroad and the car is permanently located there — the foreign registration and insurance have to stay valid, and customs rules can still apply
Main residence in Austria	one month from the day the car first entered Austria; a further month only on convincing grounds	Austrian registration, which requires Austrian liability cover
Period expired	—	registration certificate and foreign plates are handed in

The official wording rules out the most expensive misunderstanding here: “The one-month period begins when the vehicle is first brought into Austria. Temporarily moving the vehicle outside Austria does not suspend this period.” Driving home for a weekend does not reset the clock. The extension is discretionary — possible “if convincing arguments are provided as to why it was not possible to have the vehicle registered in Austria” — and once the period runs out, “the vehicle registration certificate and foreign number plates must be handed in”.

Special cases turn on where the vehicle is permanently located and on what you can show, not on the registration slip alone. For the ordinary case — you move here, you bring your car — one month is the deadline we would put in your calendar first, because the approval database, the tax office and, for a car from outside the EU, customs are all ahead of you in the queue.

One practical point costs money when it goes wrong: handing in the foreign registration certificate and number plates in Austria is not the same as de-registering the car in the country it came from, and neither step ends the old policy by itself. Ask the previous authority and the previous insurer what each of them needs, and keep the old cover running until the Austrian cover is confirmed in writing — a single uninsured day is the wrong place to save money.

Sources: oesterreich.gv.at: Foreign number plates, oesterreich.gv.at: Hauptwohnsitz (German) and oesterreich.gv.at: Registration and deregistration of residence (accessed September 2026)

What do I need at the registration office, and what does it cost?

The core documents are the same for everybody: official photo ID, the insurance confirmation, proof of approval for the vehicle, and proof of ownership such as a purchase contract or invoice. A leased car needs the leasing confirmation, a company car proof of the company’s seat, a used car a valid inspection report if one is due. The fees are set nationally, so nobody quotes you a better price:

Item	Amount
Fee charged by the authorities	€178.00
Administration fee of the registration office	€65.60
Central register enquiry	€1.10
Inspection sticker	€2.30
Number plates: car or lorry / motorcycle / moped / trailer or tractor	€23.00 / €13.00 / €8.50 / €11.50
Registration certificate as a chip card (optional)	€31.10

One detail is friendlier than it looks: the €178.00 is a flat fee that also covers later steps such as deregistering the car or replacing a lost registration certificate — though not every additional service.

Sources: oesterreich.gv.at: Registration of a motor vehicle and oesterreich.gv.at: Kfz-Zulassung — Kosten (German) (accessed September 2026)

What do I pay when I import the car?

From another EU country

A tax, sometimes a second one, and a database.

The first tax is the Normverbrauchsabgabe (NoVA), the Austrian standard fuel consumption tax — a one-off charge due when a vehicle is registered here for the first time, however you came by it. Moving house is not a ground for exemption: the ministry’s list contains no relief for relocation, and the customs relief below is a different tax in a different law.

For a car (class M1) the 2026 rate follows from the combined WLTP CO2 figure: “(CO2 Emissionen in g/km – 91 g) / 5 = Steuersatz” in per cent, commercially rounded and capped at 80 per cent. That percentage is applied to the taxable value, €80 per gram above 155 g/km is added and €350 deducted. A used car already registered in another EU member state is assessed under “der Rechtslage, die im Zeitpunkt der erstmaligen Zulassung in Österreich anzuwenden gewesen wäre” — the law that would have applied when it was first registered — which is why two apparently identical cars produce very different bills. For a privately bought used car the office compares your purchase price with the Austrian valuation lists, so a bargain does not automatically cut the bill. Electric cars emitting 0 g CO2 per kilometre — “insbesondere Elektro oder Wasserstoff” — are exempt; hybrids expressly are not. So an import may trigger NoVA rather than always doing so — have the calculation checked before you register. And exempt is not tax-free: since 1 April 2025 pure electric cars pay the ongoing motor-related insurance tax.

The second tax catches people who buy a car on the way rather than bringing their own: buying a new vehicle privately in another EU country attracts Austrian acquisition tax, VAT at 20 per cent. “New” is a tax term with two alternative tests — first registration not more than six months ago or no more than 6,000 km on the clock. The “or” surprises people: a two-year-old car with 3,000 km is still new here. Moving with a car you have owned for years is a different case.

Then there is the Genehmigungsdatenbank: every imported vehicle has to be entered in it, new or used, EU or third country — “ohne diese Eintragung eine Zulassung in Österreich nicht möglich”. The tax office releases the entry only once the NoVA is paid, so you pay first and register second.

Sources: BMF: NoVA-Steuersatz, Rechtslage ab 1. Juli 2025 (German), BMF: NoVA-Befreiungen (German), BMF: Fahrzeugerwerb aus EU-Mitgliedstaaten (German), BMF: Fahrzeugeigenimport (German) and BMF: Verfahren beim Fahrzeugimport (German) (accessed September 2026)

From outside the EU

Then customs comes first, and it is worth doing the arithmetic before you ship anything. Imported into free circulation as an ordinary purchase, a passenger car attracts “a 10% duty on the value of the motor vehicle” plus “a 20% import turnover tax … based on the value of the motor vehicle free to destination (purchase price + delivery costs + customs duty amount)”. Those are standard rates for the standard case rather than an unavoidable bill: preferential origin and the relief below can change the result — for Switzerland and Norway the ministry notes that no duty is charged if proof of preferential origin can be supplied. The United Kingdom has been a non-EU country for customs purposes since 1 January 2021, so a car shipped from Britain goes through exactly the same procedure as one from the United States or Switzerland; Northern Ireland is still treated as though it were in the EU.

There is a relief, and it rewards planning the move. Under Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009 a private car counts as part of your personal property — article 2(1)(c) names private motor cars expressly — so it can come in free of customs duty, and the exemption from import VAT follows from section 6 para. 4 no. 4 of the VAT Act (UStG). Four conditions have to hold together: your normal residence was outside the EU customs territory for at least twelve consecutive months (art. 5(1)); you owned and used the car for at least six months before giving that residence up (art. 4(a)); it is declared to customs within twelve months of establishing your residence in Austria (art. 7(1)); and for twelve months after clearance it may not be sold, lent, hired out or pledged without notifying customs first (art. 8(1)). Only used goods for your own use qualify, and commercial vehicles are excluded (art. 6).

One procedural step decides whether any of this works: where the personal property includes a vehicle, customs issue an assessment notice (Grundlagenbescheid) that you have to apply for on form ZBefr 2a before the car is imported, at the customs office for your Austrian residence — or, if you have none yet, at any customs office. Bring the paperwork that proves both halves: registration and de-registration abroad, the Austrian registration of residence, employment or tenancy contract on the one side, purchase or lease contract, invoice and the foreign vehicle documents on the other.

Even with the relief in full, NoVA still applies. It is not an import duty: section 3 of the NoVA Act lists the exemptions and relocation is not among them, and the charge is triggered by the first registration — or the use of a car that ought to be registered — in Austria, payable to the tax office before the plates are issued. For a third-country import it is calculated “nach der Rechtslage im Zeitpunkt der Zulassung des Kraftfahrzeuges zum Verkehr im Inland”, the law in force when the car is registered here, not that of the year it was first registered abroad. A car without EU type-approval may also need an individual vehicle approval, and its data still have to be entered in the approval database; the provincial technical inspection authority (Landesprüfstelle) handles both. For an American or Japanese-market car that is the slowest step, so start early.

The clock is the part that catches people out. Under section 82 para. 8 of the Motor Vehicles Act (KFG) a car on foreign plates brought into Austria by someone whose main residence is here is presumed to be permanently located here; it may be used without Austrian plates for one month from the day it first entered the country, extended by a single further month only if you can show that registration was impossible in that time. Customs relief helps with the import. It does not stop that month running. We advise on insurance, not on customs — the customs office (Zollamt Österreich) gives binding information on your case, and the tax office does the same for the NoVA.

Sources: EUR-Lex: Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009, art. 2 to 8, BMF: Importing a vehicle for personal use, BMF: form ZBefr 2a (PDF, German), RIS: § 6 UStG 1994 (German), RIS: § 3 NoVAG 1991 (German), RIS: § 82 KFG 1967 (German), BMF: Zoll und Brexit (German), BMF: Transferring your normal place of residence from a non-EU country and BMF: Fahrzeugimport aus Drittstaaten (German) (accessed September 2026)

Can I keep driving on my own licence?

From the EU or the EEA: yes, and for ordinary categories you need do nothing. “Within the EEA, driving licences issued by a competent authority in another EEA country (EU Member States, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway) are deemed equivalent to national driving licences.” They still have to be valid in the issuing country, and one limit catches professional drivers: categories C/C1 and D/D1 are recognised here until they expire there, but for a maximum of five years after you move your residence to Austria. Exchanging the ordinary categories is voluntary.

From outside the EEA — the UK, the US, India, Canada, Pakistan: you have six months. After establishing residence here you may generally keep driving on a valid non-EEA licence for that long, counted “within six months of the holder first registering Austria as their place of residence”. After that you must have exchanged it to go on driving in Austria — which does not mean the licence stops being valid where it was issued. Start the exchange early: applying is not the same as being allowed to keep driving. Check what you have to carry alongside it: Austrian guidance states that a foreign licence not issued in German is valid only together with a translation or an international driving permit — neither of which replaces the licence itself. And because you have to register your address within three days of moving in, the six-month clock is not one you can postpone by leaving the paperwork undone.

Whether you sit a practical test depends on the issuing country. None is required for any category for licences from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and a few small European jurisdictions. For the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South Korea, South Africa, Hong Kong, the UAE, Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia the exemption covers category B only — an American car licence converts without a test, an American motorcycle licence does not. The fee is €90, excluding the medical certificate and any test, and a licence can usually only be converted while it is still valid.

For British readers: Brexit changed the route, not the outcome. A UK licence is now a third-country licence, so it stops entitling you to drive here six months after you establish residence — but the UK is on the no-test list.

Sources: oesterreich.gv.at: Foreign driving licences — conversion and oesterreich.gv.at: Driving licences in the EU (accessed September 2026)

Will my no-claims record count in Austria?

Austrian motor insurance uses a bonus-malus system, and where you enter that scale on day one follows you through several renewals.

If you are coming from another EEA state, the law helps — and it is the EEA, not only the EU. Section 16 KHVG obliges an Austrian insurer to issue a claims-history statement within two weeks of the request, covering claims “innerhalb der letzten fünf Jahre der Vertragslaufzeit” or confirming there were none; the EU directive sets the outside limit at 15 days, which is why you sometimes see both figures. Five years means the last five years of the contract that actually existed. And an Austrian insurer that uses such statements to set premiums must treat those from other EEA states “genauso … wie diejenigen, die von einem Versicherer im Inland ausgestellt wurden, und zwar auch bei der Anwendung etwaiger Rabatte” — discounts included — and may not treat you less favourably because of your nationality or your previous country of residence.

What the law does not fix is the conversion: how many claim-free years an Austrian insurer credits you with is set in its own rules, and insurers differ considerably. Since 24 July 2025 those statements follow a harmonised EU template (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1855), which makes a Spanish or an Irish one easier for an Austrian insurer to read. Ask your old insurer for the statement before you cancel; inside the EU that statement is normally all it takes. From outside the EEA — the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and so on — there is no equivalent rule: it has to be agreed with the insurer case by case, and what is possible depends on the confirmation your previous insurer will issue. We arrange that with the insurer rather than guess, because over the first three years it is worth real money.

Once you are insured here, three points decide whether a later switch works: the main renewal date of the contract (Hauptfälligkeit), the notice period, and whether a special right of cancellation applies — after a claim, for example, both sides usually have one. Never cancel before the new cover is confirmed in writing, because an uninsured car may not be used at all. And the bonus-malus scale runs in both directions: a claim your insurer has to pay normally moves you back down it at the next renewal, which is why a small dent is sometimes cheaper out of your own pocket. We do that arithmetic with you first.

Sources: RIS: § 16 KHVG 1994 (German) and EUR-Lex: Article 16 of Directive 2009/103/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2021/2118 and EUR-Lex: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1855 (accessed September 2026)

Vignette and Pickerl: what else applies once you drive

The motorway vignette. Cars, motorbikes and camper vans up to 3.5 tonnes technically permissible maximum laden mass (TPMLM, shown on the registration certificate) generally “must properly display a toll sticker or have purchased online in time a digital vignette when they drive onto a motorway or expressway”. The 2026 car tariffs are €106.80 for the year, €32.00 for two months, €12.80 for ten days and €9.60 for one day. Timing is the trap: a two-month or annual digital vignette bought online is, for consumer-protection reasons, “valid from the 18th day after the online purchase” at the earliest, while one-day and ten-day digital vignettes can be set to start immediately in ASFINAG’s toll shop. A few alpine routes and tunnels carry a separate route toll instead, and you may still need a vignette to reach them.

The §57a inspection, universally called the Pickerl. The Austrian equivalent of the MOT or TÜV, and nothing to do with the vignette even though both are stickers. The intervals today are three years after first registration, two years after that inspection, then annually, with a window of “one month before and 4 months after the month in which the inspection is due”. Good news for an imported car: the interval runs from the month of first registration wherever that happened, so a two-year-old German car does not start again from zero. The Austrian tolerance after the punched month is not recognised everywhere abroad, though.

Under the 42nd amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act (BGBl. I Nr. 79/2026) the intervals become 4–2–2–2–1 from 19 May 2027, the inspection may then be done up to four months before the due month, and the four-month grace period afterwards falls away. The transitional rules in § 132 para. 37 matter more than the headline: an existing vehicle does not get the longer interval automatically — until you obtain a replacement sticker punched for the new date, the date on your current one applies. Due dates from February to July 2027 keep the old deadlines for the 2027 inspection, and those from August to October 2027 are extended to the end of November. Until 18 May 2027 today’s rules apply unchanged.

Winter tyres. Austria does not require them all winter; it requires them when it is wintry. Between 1 November and 15 April a car up to 3.5 tonnes may be driven in wintry conditions — snow, slush or ice on the road — only with winter tyres, marked M+S or carrying the snowflake symbol, on all four wheels. Snow chains on at least two driven wheels are the alternative, and only where the road has a continuous covering of snow or ice. A dry road in January and summer tyres are legal; the first snow in November and they are not. Lorries over 3.5 tonnes and buses follow stricter rules that apply regardless of the weather.

Sources: ASFINAG: Vignette, oesterreich.gv.at: Vehicle inspection, oesterreich.gv.at: Winter tyres and RIS: BGBl. I Nr. 79/2026 (German) (accessed September 2026)

Frequently asked questions

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