Social security for the Self-Employed (GSVG)

You must have earned a minimum income from your self-employed activity over one year in order to be compulsorily insured ("minimum contribution base"). For the year 2026, your annual income must be higher than €6613.20 in order to be subject to compulsory insurance. See below for details.

Info: In the case of self-employed individuals, this is not referred to as the "marginal earnings threshold", but as the minimum contribution base. In both cases, however, it is a minimum income that is necessary for your compulsory insurance.

If you carry out another self-employed activity in addition to your artistic, self-employed activity and earn more than the marginal earnings threshold, you are already covered by commercial social insurance. In this case, it does not matter how much you earn as an artist, as you are already insured through your other activity. 

Example: You are a commercial photographer. You are regularly hired to take photos for advertising posters and corporate designs. Your income from this activity is above the marginal earnings threshold. You are therefore compulsorily insured with the commercial social security scheme for the self-employed. In addition to this activity, you also take artistic photos from time to time and sell them. These sales proceeds are also part of your total income and are subject to compulsory insurance.

The monthly insurance contribution you must pay towards your social insurance depends on your total income. The contribution rate for pension insurance is 18.50% and it is 6.80% for health insurance. Your accident insurance contribution is €12.95. 

However, your insurance contribution is at least €160.81 (as at 2026). In the following table you can see what types of insurance your payment goes towards:

Insurance class	Monthly contribution (2026)
Pension insurance	€101.95
Health insurance	€37.48
Accident insurance	€12.95
Provision for the self-employed (1.53%)	€8.43

 

Insurance premiums are higher for tradespeople.

The insurance premiums due are settled on a quarterly basis.

As neither you nor your social security provider can know in advance how much you will earn in a year, the final sum of insurance contributions you must pay will only be determined at the end of the year, after you have received your income tax assessment notice. If you have earned more than the social security provider has assumed, you will have to pay additional insurance contributions. 

To Do: At the start of your compulsory insurance, bear in mind that you may have to make additional payments at the end of the year and might want to consider setting part of your income to one side for this reason. 

Info: As a self-employed person, you can deduct business expenses from your taxes. This means that you can deduct expenses that you incurred for your professional activity from your income and thus reduce your income. In this way, you may pay less tax. Visit the chapter on tax law. However, keep an eye on whether you reduce your income in this way to such an extent that you fall below the insurance threshold.

Example: Operating expenses for artists include social security contributions, studio rent, art equipment, work-related travel expenses, etc. 

How do I register for social security for the self-employed?

Unlike employed people, self-employed people must register for social security themselves. How does the registration process work?

To do:

• If you believe that you will earn a self-employed income above the insurance threshold over a year, register with the Social Security Institution for the Self-employed (SVS). Register via their website.

• Submit an insurance declaration stating how much you expect to earn. 

• Your insurance coverage begins when you submit this declaration. 

• First, you will be charged the minimum level of social security contributions. These are due on a quarterly basis. At the end of the contribution year, a check is carried out to see whether you must pay additional insurance contributions.

Your social security provider knows exactly how much self-employed income you have generated because the tax office passes on all your income-related information. 

To do: You should keep a close eye on how high your income is and whether you are already obliged to register for social security. You must register for social security retroactively no later than 8 weeks after your income tax assessment notice has been issued. Otherwise, you will have to pay a penalty surcharge of 9.3% of your income. 

If, at the end of a year, it turns out that your actual income is below the insurance threshold and you had already registered, your insurance will remain in force. You will not get your contributions back. 

Example: You are a musician and regularly teach as an employee at two music schools in Vienna. At the same time, you play in several bands and groups and have around 20-30 gigs a year. As you expect your self-employed income to exceed the minimum contribution base, you register with the SVS for compulsory insurance.
At the end of the year, you notice that your self-employed income is below the minimum threshold of €6613.20 (as of 2026). You will not get the contributions you paid to the SVS back for that year. You should consider whether you want to deregister for the following year. 

If it turns out during the year that your self-employed income is below the insurance limit after all, you can terminate your insurance at the end of a month and stop paying any contributions. Your insurance coverage ends six weeks after your termination.

Example: You are a director and expect to be accepted for a major project. You therefore register with the SVS for compulsory insurance at the beginning of 2027. However, you receive a rejection in May and now expect that your self-employed income will not exceed the minimum limit of €6613.20 in 2026. You therefore deregister from compulsory SVS insurance. Instead, you can apply for voluntary (much cheaper) self-insurance with the SVS ("opting in") or—if you have been self-employed long enough in the past—apply for unemployment benefits. 

If you realise in the course of the year that your self-employed income is above the insurance threshold after all, you will be subject to compulsory insurance. You must therefore register. Your insurance contributions will be calculated and charged retroactively from your registration for the current year. However, you are only fully insured from the time you register for compulsory insurance.

To do: Don't forget to register in good time—otherwise, you will have to pay a penalty. This amounts to 9.3% of your self-employed income.

Example: You are a director and initially only have one theatre project in April 2024. You receive a fee of €5,000. You also deduct your business travel expenses from your taxes and think that you will remain below the marginal earnings threshold. Then, in June, you receive an offer for a larger job with a fee of €8,000. You accept the offer and register for compulsory insurance with the SVS at the end of June. You will now be subject to compulsory insurance retroactively from the time of the first project in April (i.e. you will have to pay contributions from April). However, your insurance coverage with the SVS only begins when you register—i.e. at the end of June or beginning of July.

If your self-employed income is below the insurance threshold, you can take out voluntary self-insurance with the SVS ("opting in"). If you opt in, you are covered by health and accident insurance. 

Attention: You are not covered by pension insurance if you opt in. 

Example: You are an author and have been compulsorily insured with the SVS for several years. In the current year, you are concentrating on writing your new novel in seclusion. For this reason, you will probably have an income below the minimum contribution base. In order to still be covered by health and accident insurance during this time, you can take out voluntary self-insurance by opting in. Unfortunately, you are not covered by pension insurance during this time. 

Your monthly insurance premium is around €55 (as at 2025).

Self-employed people with compulsory insurance are obliged to pay monthly contributions of 1.53% of their self-employed income into a pension fund. 

These contributions are invested for you by the pension fund. As soon as you retire or cease your self-employed activity, you are entitled to have this accumulated amount paid out to you as a severance payment. Prerequisites for this severance payment:

• You have paid contributions for at least three years;
• You have been self-employed for at least two years or have retired. 

Your pension fund will inform you of your current account balance every year. Your settlement amount depends on the amount you pay in as well as your pension fund’s investment performance.

To do: You must select a pension fund and conclude a membership contract within 6 months of the start of your compulsory insurance. There are nine pension funds to choose from. If you do not make your choice in time, you will be assigned to one. 

The Artists' Social Insurance Fund (KSVF) is not a separate insurance provider, but a state institution that provides financial support to self-employed artists (note: not cultural workers) when needed. This is because, unlike employed artists, self-employed artists bear the risk of not having a regular income. 

The Artists' Social Insurance Fund offers the following support measures:

• Financial support
  • The KSVF provides subsidies for artists' social security contributions;
  • If artists find themselves in special emergencies, the KSVF supports them in temporarily covering their necessary living expenses. You can find detailed information on this in the subchapter on social emergencies in the section on the KSVF insurance fund.
• Notification of suspension of artistic activity
  • Artists who are registered with the fund can apply to suspend their artistic, self-employed work so that they do not have to pay insurance contributions during this time and—if they meet the requirements—can receive unemployment benefits. 

In the following sections, you will find information on social security contributions and the suspension of artistic activity. 

Under certain conditions, you will receive financial support from the Artists' Social Insurance Fund for the current calendar year, and retroactively for the four previous calendar years.

You must fulfil the following requirements:

• Personal application to the Artists' Social Insurance Fund 
  (if you submit it to the SVS by mistake, the SVS will forward it);
• In your application, you prove that you are an artist, i.e. that you pursue an artistic activity professionally;
• You have valid compulsory insurance coverage with the Social Security Institution for the Self-employed (SVS);
• Your income from your self-employed artistic activity reaches a certain minimum level;
• Your total income does not exceed a certain maximum limit.

The recognition of your artistic activity is an important hurdle and can take several months. 

To do: It is recommended that you contact the Artists' Social Insurance Fund before submitting your application and discuss whether you meet the requirements. 

The Artists' Social Insurance Fund recognises you as an artist if you are artistically active in one of the following fields and create works of art:

• Fine arts
• Performing arts
• Music
• Literature
• Cinematography
• Contemporary forms of art (e.g. media art)

Your artistic income must exceed a certain limit in order for you to receive benefits from the Artists' Social Insurance Fund. Your artistic income must be a minimum amount for each year for which you wish to apply for benefits:

Value 2019: €5,361.72

Value 2020: €5,527.92

Value 2021: €5,710.32

Value 2022: €5,830.20

Value 2023: €6,010.92

Value 2024: €6,221.28

Value 2025: €6613,20

Value 2026: €6613,20

If your income from self-employed artistic activity does not reach the minimum limits listed above, you can add the following income:

• Income from employment as an artist from 2008 onwards can be taken into account if you have not acquired any statutory pension insurance contribution periods as a result of this income or if this income is not subject to statutory pension insurance (e.g. income below the marginal earnings threshold).
• Scholarships and prizes can be counted as income since 2008 (in accordance with § 3 (3) of the Arts Grants Act, insofar as they serve as a substitute for income).
• Income from self-employed secondary artistic activities can be added—up to 50% of your total income—if this activity only took place from 2014 onwards. Secondary activities are preparatory activities for your later professional activity or activities that have served to promote, disseminate, or make your artistic work accessible (e.g. teaching, art mediation).

Example: You are a visual artist and apply for subsidies for your social security contributions for 2023. However, your income from your work as a freelance artist in 2023 was only €2,000 and is therefore below the minimum threshold of €6,010.92. In the same year, however, you were employed as a drawing teacher at the adult education centre for 10 months and received a salary of €400 per month. In addition, an artist-to-be completed a private coaching course with you, for which you charged €350. In total, you have therefore reached the minimum income threshold for social security contributions.

To make it easier to reach the minimum income, you can flexibly offset your entire artistic income from a three-year period from your first application to the Artists' Social Insurance Fund. Therefore, if you have earned well in certain years, but only below the minimum income threshold in other years, you can "spread" the income from the "good year" over the other years ("flexible calculation period").

Example: You submitted your first application to the KSVF in 2022. In 2022, you had income from artistic activities of €20,000. In 2023 it was only €5,000 and in 2024 only €2,000. As you can offset your income flexibly, you can divide your income over a period of 3 years: e.g. 2022: €9,000, 2023: €9,000 and 2024: €9,000. This means you have reached the minimum income threshold in each year and can apply for grants. 

To make it even easier for you to reach the minimum income threshold, your income may be below the minimum limit in 5 different years—which do not have to be consecutive—without this having an impact on you receiving a grant ("joker years").

At the same time, your total income—artistic and non-artistic—must not exceed a certain maximum limit. This is because the KSVF would then assume that you do not need its financial support. 

The maximum income limit is adjusted annually: 

Value 2020: €29,942.90

Value 2021: €30,930.90

Value 2022: €31,580.25

Value 2023: €32,624.80

Value 2024: €33,698.60

Value 2025: €35.821,50

If you receive a pension but still work as a self-employed artist, you will still receive for a subsidy towards social security contributions if you meet the other requirements.

Attention: The maximum limit applies to the total amount of all income—e.g. from self-employed and employed work, income from renting and leasing—regardless of the length of time you were actually insured in the relevant calendar year due to self-employed artistic activity.

Info: The following applies to artists with children: if you have a child and you or the other parent received family allowance in a calendar year, your maximum income limit is increased by six times the marginal earnings threshold per child applicable in that year. 

If you meet the requirements, the KVSF will pay you a contribution towards your social security. It will transfer this subsidy directly to the social security provider, which will then only charge you the remaining contributions (minus your subsidy).

The amount granted depends on your income, and totals a maximum of €158 per month and €1,896 per year.

If your application is rejected (e.g. because the fund is of the opinion that you are not an artist), you can lodge an appeal. Other KSVF employees will recheck your application and consider whether the requirements have been met. If the same application is rejected a further time, you can lodge an appeal with the Federal Administrative Court.

Alternatively, you can wait until you think you fulfil the missing requirements and submit a new application. 

Reclaiming contribution subsidies

The KSVF is obliged to check each application to ensure that the financial subsidy requirements are fulfilled. If it turns out that subsidies have been paid even though you do not meet the requirements, the KSVF can reclaim the subsidies paid. This is particularly possible if you have fallen below the minimum income limit or exceeded the maximum income limit. 

You do not have to repay the entire allowance, but only the amount that falls below the minimum income limit or exceeds the maximum income limit ("sliding scale"). 

Example: You are a visual artist and have a self-employed artistic income. After the unexpected sale of a painting, your income is higher than expected and you exceed the maximum income limit by €500. You do not have to pay back the entire grant, but rather the excess amount of €500 at most.

The KSVF has the following options for responding to your repayment obligation: 

• Deferral of payment: the KSVF allows you to make the repayment at a later date, e.g. because you expect higher earnings;
• Agreement on payment in instalments;
• Waiver: the KSVF can waive repayment if you can prove that repayment is unreasonable for you for social, health, family, or financial reasons. 

In many cases, the fund waives repayments, especially if artists are unable to reach the minimum income threshold from self-employed artistic work.

To do: If your name, address, income situation, employment, or insurance relationship have changed, you must inform the KSVF immediately by e-mail or using the form on the website. 

If artists have been self-employed for a sufficient period before becoming self-employed, they can receive unemployment benefits under certain conditions. However, they can only do this if they are not registered with the SVS as self-employed in the reference period concerned. 

For this reason, the KSVF offers artists the opportunity to suspend their self-employed artistic activity and thus also their compulsory insurance with the SVS. In this way, artists can receive unemployment benefits even if their self-employed income in the year in question is above the insurance threshold. During this time, they also do not have to pay social security contributions to the SVS. 

Attention: You can only report your self-employed, artistic activity as dormant. 

This dormancy registration can only be requested in advance and not for past periods. 

Example: You are a performer, have been predominantly self-employed since last year, and are therefore compulsorily insured with the SVS. At the same time, you submitted an application to the KSVF in the year in question and they have recognised you as an artist. As you previously earned your living in an employment relationship for 2 years, you have sufficient insurance periods to receive unemployment benefits. In April, you realise that you won't be earning money from a new project until September at the earliest. To bridge the gap until then, you register your self-employed artistic activity as dormant at the end of April (valid from May). This interrupts your compulsory insurance with the SVS, and you can draw unemployment benefits until September. At the end of August, you report that your self-employment is no longer dormant and deregister with the authority that pays your unemployment benefits (AMS). This year, you will only receive subsidies from the Artists' Social Insurance Fund (KSVF) for the months in which you were not dormant.

Requirements for reporting your self-employed activity as dormant:

• Application to the KSVF (if you have submitted your application to the SVS by mistake, the SVS will forward it);
• You are registered and compulsorily insured with the SVS at the time of application;
• The Artists' Social Insurance Fund has recognised your artistic activity;
  • If you already receive benefits from the Artists' Social Insurance Fund, you are already recognised as an artist.
  • If you are not yet receiving benefits from the Artists' Social Insurance Fund, you must submit an application for recognition of your status as an artist.
• You are not actually allowed to pursue any self-employed, artistic professional activity during your period of dormancy;
• You are allowed to do non-artistic work during your period of dormancy, but you may not earn more than the marginal earnings threshold (€518.44 per month). 

Your self-employed artistic activity is only considered dormant if you are not actually working as a self-employed artist during this period. You may not declare any self-employed income from artistic activity in your income tax return for this period and may not claim any business expenses for this period. Continuous depreciation is also not possible.

To do: If you also work as a self-employed non-artist in addition to your self-employed artistic activity, it is advisable to clearly distinguish between these activities in consultation with the social security authorities. This ensures that there is no doubt that you have actually ceased your artistic activity.

Example: You are a media artist and decide to register your work as dormant in order to make use of your entitlement to unemployment benefits acquired through previous employment. At the same time, however, you continue to receive a fee as a freelance IT consultant unrelated to your work as an artist. Since this fee is above the minimum contribution base, you are still compulsorily insured with the SVS. Therefore, although you have registered your artistic activity as dormant, you are still obliged to pay insurance contributions and may not receive unemployment benefits.

It is advisable that you first have yourself recognised as an artist by the Artists' Social Insurance Fund and only subsequently submit your application for suspension of registration.

Theoretically, you can submit both applications at the same time. However, this can be problematic: if the KSVF immediately declares your activity dormant but later does not recognise your status as an artist, your registration of dormancy will be invalidated retroactively. This means that your compulsory insurance with the SVS will be revived retroactively. If you were already receiving unemployment benefits whilst your self-employed artistic activity was registered as dormant, you will have to pay them back.