Buying property in Austria as a Hungarian citizen

A Sopron family prices flats in Eisenstadt, a Győr engineer takes a job in Vienna, and both hit the same worry: whether an EU passport is enough to buy in Austria, or whether some provincial office still holds a veto. Austria has no single federal rule here. It has nine, one per federal province (Bundesland), and the one that counts is wherever the property sits.

Last reviewed: 2026-08-03. Seeki.eu is not a legal or tax adviser, and this is orientation rather than advice. Austrian land-transfer rules are provincial, they change, and they turn on the municipality as much as the province. Confirm your own case with an Austrian lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) or notary (Notar) before you sign anything. Sources at the foot of this article.

Can a Hungarian citizen buy property in Austria?

Yes, and no nationality permit stands in the way. Each of the nine provinces runs its own land-transfer act (Grundverkehrsgesetz), and every one of them equates EU and EEA citizens with Austrians at the point of acquisition. Burgenland's act says it flatly: EU nationals do not count as foreigners (gelten nicht als Ausländer), so the approval procedure written for third-country buyers never opens. Buyers from outside the EU are the ones who face provincial authorisation, as set out in our rules for non-resident buyers across Europe.

What survives for you is paperwork, not permission, and it is set locally.

Where you buy	What an EU citizen files	The catch
Vienna	Nothing mandatory. EEA and Swiss buyers are exempt from Vienna's foreign-acquisition act (Wiener Ausländergrunderwerbsgesetz) and may request a written confirmation of that exemption (Negativbestätigung)	The city calls the confirmation optional, while Austrian practitioners report the land-registry court asking for it before it makes the entry
Burgenland	A declaration under §9 of the provincial land-transfer act, within three months, that the property will not be used as a holiday home	In reserved municipalities (Vorbehaltsgemeinden) an approval replaces the declaration, and a false declaration carries fines up to €36,000
Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Styria	Residential purchases run essentially open for EU buyers	Agricultural and forest land keeps its own stricter regime in every province
Tyrol	A declaration in the reserved municipalities that the purchase creates no new holiday residence	New holiday residences are barred outside the registered stock, fines reach €40,000, and the authority can force a sale
Salzburg, Vorarlberg, Carinthia	A declaration of intended use under the provincial act	Second-home caps in tourist municipalities apply whatever passport you hold

The pattern is worth reading twice. Nothing in that table turns on being Hungarian. It turns on what you intend to do with the property and which municipality it stands in.

Which provinces restrict second homes?

Three of them tightly, and the restriction has nothing to do with your passport. Tyrol, Salzburg and Vorarlberg run second-home (Zweitwohnsitz) regimes built to keep holiday flats out of the residential stock, and they bind an Austrian buyer exactly as they bind you. In Tyrol the creation of a new holiday residence is prohibited apart from the registered existing stock, and in the reserved municipalities the buyer files a declaration that the purchase will create none. Enforcement is not theoretical: fines reach €40,000 and the land-transfer authority can order the property sold.

Burgenland, the province most Hungarian buyers look at first, sits in the middle. Its §9 declaration is a formality if you are buying somewhere to live or to let long term. It is anything but a formality if the plan is a weekend house on the Neusiedler See, because that declaration is precisely the statement you would be making falsely, at a cost of up to €36,000. Buy in a reserved municipality and the process flips from declaration to approval.

Vienna, Lower Austria and the eastern provinces impose no such quota. If the flat is your home or a long-term rental, the second-home question never comes up.

What does buying in Austria cost on top of the price?

Budget 9% to 12% of the purchase price. Austria's transaction stack sits mid-table for Europe, dearer than Czechia or Slovakia, well below Belgium, and the reason it lands where it does is the agent.

Cost line	What it comes to	Who sets it
Property transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer)	3.5% of the price	Federal, §7 GrEStG (Ministry of Finance, as of January 2026)
Land-register entry (Grundbuch)	1.1% of the price for the ownership entry, plus 1.2% of the secured amount to register a mortgage lien	Court fees act, TP 9 GGG
Contract drafter (Vertragserrichter), the lawyer or notary who writes the contract and holds the money	roughly 1% to 3% plus 20% VAT	Negotiated
Estate agent	up to 3% plus 20% VAT chargeable to the buyer above €48,448.51	Estate agent ordinance (Immobilienmaklerverordnung)

One line moved this summer. The temporary exemption that waived the 1.1% and 1.2% land-register fees for owner-occupiers, on applications filed between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2026, has run out. Anything lodged after that date pays both in full again, which on a €300,000 flat puts €3,300 back on the bill.

The agent line is the one Hungarian buyers misread most often, because of a reform that does not reach them. The "whoever hires, pays" rule (Bestellerprinzip) moved rental commission onto the party that hires the agent from 1 July 2023, and it covers rentals only. On a purchase the commission is still split between the sides, and a buyer can legally be charged up to 3% plus 20% VAT. Put it in the estimate, or settle who is paying before you make an offer. For how the whole stack compares with the rest of the continent, see our breakdown of the true cost of buying a home in Europe.

Can you get an Austrian mortgage while living in Hungary?

Yes, at a lower loan-to-value than a resident gets and with a heavier file. The lending rules loosened in 2025: the regulation that forced roughly 20% of your own money into most home loans (KIM-Verordnung) expired on 30 June 2025 and was not renewed. In its place the financial regulator FMA issued a circular on sound residential lending (02/2025, published 26 June 2025) that keeps the same three yardsticks as supervisory expectations rather than hard law. A maximum 90% loan-to-value at origination, instalments up to 40% of net income, a 35-year ceiling on the term, and tolerance for breaches on no more than a fifth of new lending in any half-year.

That is the resident case. A non-resident EU applicant with documented income typically reaches 60% to 70% of value, so plan a third of the price in cash on top of the transaction costs, and expect four to eight weeks of underwriting once the file is complete. The loan is secured by a lien on the Austrian land-register entry, which is why it will normally be an Austrian loan rather than a Hungarian one.

Currency deserves more thought than the headline rate. A euro loan repaid from a forint salary carries exchange-rate exposure for the whole term, and a weaker forint raises the real cost of every instalment. Earn in euros, in Austria or anywhere else in the eurozone, and that risk disappears.

Where do Hungarian buyers actually look?

Two places, for different reasons. Burgenland comes first because it is the cheapest province in Austria and the most permissive on land transfer, and because Sopron sits a few kilometres from the frontier. Eisenstadt, Neusiedl am See and the border towns put an Austrian address, an Austrian school and an Austrian salary inside a commute many Hungarian families already make. Hungarians rank among the ten largest foreign nationalities living in Austria, and net migration from Hungary was still positive by around 2,700 people in 2025, per the Austrian Integration Fund (Österreichischer Integrationsfonds) using national statistics office figures (Statistik Austria) as of 1 January 2026.

Vienna is the other. It is dearer per square metre than any province, but the market is deep, tenancy law is unusually protective if you ever let the flat out, and the outer districts price well below the citywide headline. Which district (Bezirk) you buy in changes the building stock and the buyer profile more than any single average suggests, which our mid-year review of the Vienna market sets out tier by tier. If letting is part of the plan, read what Austrian landlords can and cannot charge first, because the regulated tier caps your rent by law.

Austrian residential prices rose 2.6% across 2025, according to the national statistics office's house price index published in March 2026, so the entry point is drifting upwards rather than sideways.

The process, from binding offer to land-register entry

1. The binding offer (Kaufanbot). Once the seller accepts it you are committed, so every condition you need, financing included and the provincial declaration or approval with it, goes in here with an outside date.
2. The sale contract (Kaufvertrag) and escrow (Treuhand). A lawyer or notary acting as the contract drafter writes the contract and holds the money in escrow until you are registered. Both signatures are officially certified (Beglaubigung), which the land register requires before it will accept the lodgement.
3. The provincial step. Burgenland's declaration goes in within three months of the contract. Where a reserved municipality or an alpine province wants an approval instead, that decision is what the outside date in step one protects you against.
4. The tax office (Finanzamt). The contract drafter files the contract, the 3.5% transfer tax is assessed and paid, and the tax office issues the clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung) that the registry will ask for.
5. The land register (Grundbuch). The contract is lodged at the district court (Bezirksgericht) and the 1.1% fee falls due. Ownership passes on registration, not on signature.
6. Escrow release and handover. The price reaches the seller once you appear on the register, and the keys follow.

Plan on 8 to 14 weeks from an accepted offer to a land-register entry on a straightforward urban purchase. A provincial approval adds four to twelve weeks, which is why alpine purchases run longer than eastern ones.

Frequently asked questions

Can a Hungarian citizen buy a house in Austria without a permit?

Yes. Every provincial land-transfer act equates EU and EEA citizens with Austrians at acquisition, so the foreign-buyer approval written for third-country buyers (Ausländergrunderwerb) does not apply to a Hungarian passport. What can still be required is a declaration of use: Burgenland asks for one within three months confirming the property is not a holiday home, and Tyrol asks for the equivalent in its reserved municipalities.

Do I need to live in Austria to buy property there?

No. Residency is not a condition of ownership anywhere in Austria, and you can buy as a non-resident who has never held an Austrian address. Residency changes two practical things rather than your right to buy: how much an Austrian bank will lend against the property, and whether the flat counts as your main home under the alpine second-home rules. You can shortlist Austrian listings on Seeki.eu in Hungarian, with prices shown in the currency you choose.

How much does buying property in Austria cost on top of the price?

Around 9% to 12%. The fixed parts are the 3.5% transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer) and 1.1% for the land-register entry (Grundbuch), plus 1.2% of the loan if you register a mortgage lien. On top come the contract drafter at roughly 1% to 3% plus VAT and, unlike in a rental, an agent commission of up to 3% plus VAT that a buyer can be asked to carry. Our European transaction-cost breakdown sets Austria against eleven other markets.

Can I buy a holiday home on the Neusiedler See?

Sometimes, and the constraint is not your nationality. Burgenland requires a declaration within three months that the property will not serve as a holiday home, and a false one carries fines up to €36,000. In a reserved municipality that declaration becomes an approval instead. Check the municipality rather than the province, because that is the level the rule bites at, and every listing on Seeki.eu carries the municipality it sits in.

Will an Austrian bank lend to someone earning forints?

Usually yes, at 60% to 70% of value for a documented EU non-resident against 80% or more for a resident. Since the equity-cap regulation (KIM-Verordnung) lapsed on 30 June 2025, the financial regulator's circular expects lenders to hold a 90% ceiling, a 40% debt-service ratio and a 35-year maximum term. The exposure to watch is currency: a euro loan repaid from forint income moves with the exchange rate for its entire life.

How do I compare Austrian and Hungarian prices before choosing?

Put both markets on one screen. Seeki.eu carries Austrian and Hungarian listings in the same search, in Hungarian if you want it that way, with every price shown in the currency you pick, and its relocation comparator ranks cities by what a single budget buys once everything is normalised to euros. The per-square-metre pages then give you a median for each Austrian state, a steadier anchor than any one asking price.

Before you sign a binding offer

Two checks decide most of it. Confirm what the municipality says about second homes, not just the province, because a declaration you cannot honestly sign is the one way an EU buyer still gets stopped. Then price the whole purchase rather than the asking price: 3.5% tax, 1.1% registry, the contract drafter, and unless you have agreed otherwise an agent fee that Austrian buyers can be charged. After that it is a shortlisting problem. Set the median euro per square metre across Austria against the same figure for Hungary, keep both in one currency while you compare, and open the Buying Property in Austria as a Foreigner (2026 Guide) for the province you settle on.

Sources

Compiled in August 2026 from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance on the property transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer, §7 GrEStG, last updated 1 January 2026), the court fees act (TP 9 GGG) for the 1.1% and 1.2% land-register (Grundbuch) rates, the City of Vienna's guidance on foreign acquisition (Ausländergrunderwerb), the Burgenland land-transfer act (Grundverkehrsgesetz, §3, §9 and §32), the Tyrolean land-transfer act of 1996 and its reserved-municipality declaration, the estate agent ordinance (Immobilienmaklerverordnung) commission caps, the financial regulator's circular on sound residential mortgage lending (FMA 02/2025, 26 June 2025) following the expiry of the equity-cap regulation (KIM-Verordnung), the national statistics office's house price index (Statistik Austria), and population data published by the Austrian Integration Fund. Rates and provincial rules change. Confirm your own position with an Austrian lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) or notary (Notar) before you commit.