Austria has one of the more generous approaches to professional education deductions in Europe. If you spend money on training that relates to your current job or a future career in a related field, you can deduct the full amount with no upper limit. A software developer who spends €3,000 on certifications, a nurse who attends a medical conference, or a marketing manager who does an MBA — all can deduct their costs in full as Werbungskosten (work-related expenses).
The key is understanding the distinction between what qualifies and what doesn't, because the rules hinge entirely on the connection between the education and your professional activity.
Fortbildungskosten: Professional Development in Your Current Field
Fortbildungskosten are costs for training that deepens or updates your skills in your existing profession. These are fully deductible, no cap, no threshold.
What this covers in practice:
- Courses and seminars: Industry conferences, professional workshops, evening classes linked to your work. A tax consultant attending an update seminar on the latest tax reform: deductible. A project manager taking a PMP certification course: deductible.
- Books, journals, and subscriptions: Professional literature related to your field. Coding books for a software developer, legal commentaries for a lawyer, architectural standards for a civil engineer.
- Online learning platforms: Subscriptions to LinkedIn Learning, Udemy courses in your field, Coursera professional certificates. The platform subscription is deductible if you actually use it for professional courses. A general curiosity subscription that mostly serves personal interests is harder to defend.
- Professional certifications: Exam fees, study materials, and preparatory courses for certifications directly applicable to your role.
- Language courses: If your employer or your job genuinely requires proficiency in a specific language — say, English for an international role or Italian for a trade representative working with Italian clients — the course is deductible. If the language is simply useful or nice to have, the case is weaker.
- Work-related software training: Getting trained on software tools used in your job (SAP, AutoCAD, specific medical software).
Umschulung: Career Retraining
A different but equally important category is Umschulung — training for a completely different occupation than your current one. This is deductible if the retraining is aimed at generating future income from the new career.
The logic: the Austrian tax system looks forward. If you're retraining as a nurse after a career in hospitality, and you can credibly show that the goal is to earn income from nursing, the costs are deductible even while you're still in hospitality. If you're simply curious about nursing with no realistic path to working in the field, the costs won't pass scrutiny.
Practical example: Klaus is a machinist who decides at age 42 to retrain as a network technician. He enrols in a part-time IT programme costing €4,800/year. Because he intends to work in IT after completing the programme, the full €4,800 is deductible as Umschulung. He doesn't need to have a job offer yet — the intent and the realistic prospect of future income suffice.
Vocational Training Away from Home: €110/Month Lump Sum
If you attend training at a location where staying overnight is necessary (or commuting daily would be unreasonable), you can claim a lump sum of €110 per month for accommodation and subsistence, without needing individual receipts. This is a flat-rate allowance specifically for vocational training situations — attending a full-time course in another city, a residential training programme, and similar.
If your actual costs are higher than €110/month, you can claim actual documented expenses instead.
Travel to Training
Getting to your training location is also deductible. The same mileage and per-diem rules that apply to business travel apply here:
- Mileage: €0.50/km for your own car, up to 30,000 km/year across all professional travel
- Public transport: Actual ticket costs
- Per-diem: If the training keeps you away from home for 12+ hours, you can claim €30/day; for 3–12 hours, €15
If the training institution is close to your regular workplace, the commuting rules apply (no mileage deduction for the standard commute). But if training takes you to a different city or outside your normal commute zone, the travel is fully deductible.
What Is NOT Deductible
The rules on non-deductibility are equally important:
General personal interest courses: Cooking classes, art history, fitness courses, music lessons, photography for personal use. The test is whether the course serves professional purposes — not whether it might arguably make you a better professional person in some abstract sense.
Primary and secondary schooling: Completing a Hauptschule or Matura as an adult is generally not deductible unless there's a direct, traceable professional need (very rare).
Education for a completely different career with no income link: If you're a full-time accountant taking law school classes with no realistic prospect of ever practising law or using the knowledge professionally, the deduction is hard to sustain.
Employer-reimbursed costs: If your employer pays for your training, you can't also deduct the same amount. Only your out-of-pocket costs are relevant.
A Comprehensive Example
Lisa is a marketing manager earning €56,000 gross. In 2025, she spends:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Google Ads certification course | €450 |
| LinkedIn Learning annual subscription (professional use) | €360 |
| Marketing industry conference (registration + travel) | €1,200 |
| Two business books | €65 |
| English business writing course (required for international role) | €380 |
| Total | €2,455 |
She claims €2,455 as Werbungskosten (professional development) on her tax return. After the standard Werbungskostenpauschale of €132 is already included in her payroll tax, she can claim the excess amount above this threshold. Her total Werbungskosten including other work expenses well exceed €132, so essentially the full €2,455 reduces her taxable income.
At her marginal rate of 42%, the tax saving on these €2,455 of deductions is approximately €1,031.
Documentation Tips
You don't need to submit receipts with your tax return — Austria uses a self-assessment system where documentation is kept and produced on request. Store:
- Receipts and invoices for courses, books, registration fees
- Confirmation of attendance (Teilnahmebestätigung) for seminars
- The course or training programme description showing its professional relevance
- Your employment contract or job description if the relevance isn't obvious from the invoice alone
The Finanzamt can request these within 5–7 years, so keep them organised.
Use our income tax calculator to see how adding professional development costs to your Werbungskosten affects your annual refund.