Service contract between businesses — Dienstleistungsvertrag (Austria)
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This document is in German
The PDF you download is in German — that is the language it has to be filed in, so it is not translated. Everything on this page is here to tell you what it says.
A contract between two businesses in Austria for ongoing or one-off services — consulting, IT support, bookkeeping, marketing — where careful performance is owed rather than a particular result. It covers the scope, independent performance, term and notice to the end of a month, the fee with an invoice under § 11 of the Austrian VAT Act (UStG 1994) and the late-payment rules of §§ 456 and 458 of the Austrian Business Code (UGB), re-performance, confidentiality, data protection, rights in work results and liability. Both parties are named with their FN and UID numbers. In German.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Client
- Client's address
- Client's register court and commercial register number (if registered)
- Client's VAT number (UID-Nummer, if any)
- Client's representative
- Contractor
- Contractor's address
- Contractor's register court and commercial register number (if registered)
- Contractor's VAT number (UID-Nummer, if any)
- Contractor's representative (or “in person”)
- Services
- Outside the scope
- Term from
- End of the contract (leave empty if it is open-ended)
- Notice period
- Remuneration
- Basis of pricing
- Payment term (days)
- Kind of usage right: non-exclusive (Werknutzungsbewilligung) or exclusive (Werknutzungsrecht)
- Fields of exploitation of the work
- Liability cap
- Additional terms
- City
- Date
Preview
This document is produced for you. Your answers are typed into it and the finished PDF is yours to keep.
Common questions
- When does a service contract fit better than a contract for work in Austria?
- When the contractor owes no particular result but careful work over a period — ongoing consulting, IT support, bookkeeping or marketing. The services rendered are paid for, not a result. If a defined result is owed, such as a finished website, a Werkvertrag fits (§ 1151 ABGB). If a single individual performs the services mainly in person and without substantial business assets of their own, the relationship may be a free service contract (freier Dienstvertrag, § 4(4) ASVG), which has a contract of its own.
- How is a service contract validly terminated in Austria?
- Under this contract, with the notice period entered, to the end of a calendar month, and in writing: signed by hand or with a qualified electronic signature, for instance with ID Austria. A plain e-mail is not enough. Notice takes effect only when it is received, so hand it over against a dated receipt or send it by registered post early enough to arrive before the period starts to run. Either party may end the contract without notice for good cause.
- What default interest applies in Austria when a business pays an invoice late?
- Between businesses, 9.2 percentage points above the base rate where the debtor is answerable for the delay, otherwise 4 % a year (§ 456 UGB, § 1000(1) ABGB). The base rate is published by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and changes from time to time, which is why the contract gives no fixed percentage. On top come flat compensation of €40 for recovery costs (§ 458 UGB) and any further necessary recovery costs (§ 1333(2) ABGB). If payment still does not come, the next steps are a reminder and then a claim in the court's order-for-payment procedure, which leads to a Zahlungsbefehl.
How you can sign this document
- Print it and sign by hand. The signature lines in the document are left blank on purpose — sign on them in ink.
- Sign it yourself with a qualified electronic signature. If you already hold a QES — Evrotrust, B-Trust, StampIT, ZealiD or any qualified provider on the EU Trusted List, on a card, a USB token, in a mobile app or in the cloud — our signing guide explains step by step how to sign this exact file without invalidating it. Step-by-step help, and a way to check it worked
DocMuse sells documents, not legal advice. Acceptance always depends on the recipient's rules and your local law.
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