Contract for work with a freelancer — neue Selbständige (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 for work for freelancers in Austria who are insured as new self-employed persons (neue Selbständige) under the GSVG with the SVS, typically without a trade licence: for a defined result such as a logo, a translation, a text or software. It covers the description of the work, independent performance, the duty to warn under § 1168a ABGB, acceptance, a fixed price or a cost estimate, rights of use and confidentiality. The page explains what sets a Werkvertrag apart from a free service contract: under § 539a ASVG, how the work is actually done decides. 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 representative
- Contractor (freelancer): first name and surname, with any academic degree
- Freelancer's date of birth
- Freelancer's address
- Contractor's VAT number (UID-Nummer, if any)
- Description of the work
- Deadline
- Time to raise objections (days)
- Acceptance criteria
- Remuneration
- Kind of price: fixed price, or a binding or non-binding cost estimate
- Payment term (days)
- Liability cap
- Kind of usage right: non-exclusive (Werknutzungsbewilligung) or exclusive (Werknutzungsrecht)
- Fields of exploitation of the work
- 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
- Contract for work or free service contract: what decides in Austria which one applies?
- What is actually agreed and lived, not the heading (§ 539a ASVG). A Werkvertrag exists where a defined, separable result is owed, such as a logo, a translation or software; once the work is finished the contract is fulfilled. If instead someone undertakes to provide services over a period, mainly in person and without substantial business assets of their own, it is a free service contract (freier Dienstvertrag, § 4(4) ASVG). Someone bound to working hours, a place of work and instructions is an employee.
- What happens in Austria if a contract for work is really an employment relationship?
- If an audit of payroll levies finds that the relationship was in truth a free service contract or employment, the work is classified under the ASVG and the client must pay social insurance contributions retroactively. Since 1 July 2017 the Social Insurance Classification Act (SV-ZG) has provided a procedure in which the health insurance fund and the SVS settle the insurance classification bindingly. No wording in a contract rules out such a reclassification; what matters is how the work is actually carried out.
- How is a freelancer insured in Austria as a new self-employed person?
- Someone who earns self-employed income without a trade licence — from writing, translation, lectures or design, for instance — is as a rule insured as a new self-employed person (neue Selbständige) under the GSVG with the Social Insurance Institution for the Self-Employed (SVS) and registers there personally. Under a genuine Werkvertrag the client registers nobody with the health insurance fund and pays no contributions. The contractor takes care of income tax and any VAT; a small business (Kleinunternehmer) charges no VAT.
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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