Background information

In order to support the Austrian economy in the wake of the Corona crisis, the federal government has designed a new support programme in the form of the aws investment premium, which creates an incentive for business investment and thus makes a significant contribution to securing business locations, creating jobs and training positions and strengthening the international competitiveness of Austria as a business location.

Content of measure

The premium is a tax-free, non-repayable subsidy which is granted to companies that carry out first measures for new investments in depreciable fixed assets between 1 August 2020 and 28 February 2021 and implement them by 28 February 2022 at the latest. Companies of all sectors and all sizes are eligible. Premiums lie at 7% of the investment costs and 14% in the specific areas of digitalisation, ecologisation and health.

The following investments are funded:

• material and immaterial new investments required to be capitalised
• depreciable fixed (long-term) assets
• combinations with funding from other sources are possible

Exempt from the investment premium are:

• climate-damaging investments (especially vehicles with a conventional drive system and installations which make use of fossil energy sources)
• real estate/plot of land
• purchase of buildings except for directly from the developer
• building and expansion of residential buildings if they are planned for purchase or rent for private users
• financial investments
• company takeovers
• capitalised assets
• state units (except when they are in competition and have no sovereign tasks)

The premium needs to be applied for by 28 February 2021 and investment (which includes ordering, payments, deliveries, ...) needs to start before 1 March 2021. €1 billion has been earmarked for this measure.

Use of measure

As of 27 November 2020, 49,613 applications have been received with an investment volume of €21.7 billion and a requested grant volume of around €2.3 billion. Over half of the applications have a digitisation or greening aspect.

Almost two thirds of all applications (64%) are from micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 employees), 18.5% from small enterprises (fewer than 50 employees), 9.8 percent from medium-sized enterprises (fewer than 250 employees) and 7.7% from large enterprises (over 250 employees). Regionally, most applications have been filed by companies in Upper Austria (26.2%), followed by Lower Austria (19.5%) and Styria (13.9%).

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Public support service providers	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

The social partners' involvement is unknown.

Views and reactions

No views/reactions are available.

Sources

• 05 October 2020: aws investment bonus (www.aws.at)
• 27 November 2020: Increase in the COVID-19 investment premium initiated (www.bmdw.gv.at)
• 19 April 2021: Government increases funding for investment premium (orf.at)
• 28 May 2021: AWS Investment Bonus (www.aws.at)