City of Vienna is examining additional options for mobilizing living space with a steering effect | City of Vienna

In April 2024, the National Council passed a constitutional amendment that grants the states the authority to collect taxes in the area of ​​public housing. The aim of the constitutional amendment is to curb the non-use or underuse of living space and thus achieve a steering effect on the housing market. This shift in competence towards the states opens up new opportunities for the city of Vienna. For this reason, the new competence situation is being comprehensively examined by the city’s specialist departments in order to define all possible courses of action and clarify their feasibility. The originally planned second home tax in Vienna will also be included in this review process and will therefore not come into force on January 1, 2025.

Vienna is the federal state with the largest and most complex housing market in Austria. This makes it all the more important to bring all relevant aspects such as proportionality, data protection and enforceability into an appropriate balance when it comes to housing mobilization. The mobilization of living space, which has been the subject of much political debate, is proving to be highly complex. Austria is therefore partly like a “patchwork carpet”, as the federal states have designed different forms of second home tax and vacancy tax. In addition, it is now known that the states and municipalities are struggling with the enforcement of such taxes and the desired steering effect is not being achieved.

This makes it all the more important for the City of Vienna to examine the expanded scope for action seriously and comprehensively.