Legal notice and mandatory details for accountants, bookkeepers and payroll accountants in Austria

Which rules apply to your website

The mandatory details for a bookkeeping firm come from several laws that partly overlap. It helps to see them side by side once before going into detail:

• E-Commerce-Gesetz (ECG), § 5: the legal notice itself, with the additional details for regulated professions.
• Mediengesetz (Media Act), § 25: the disclosure that every website needs as a medium.
• Unternehmensgesetzbuch (Commercial Code), § 14: additional details if your business is entered in the company register.
• Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz 2014 (BiBuG, Accounting Professions Act): determines which services you may list at all.
• GDPR and TKG 2021: privacy policy and consent for cookies.
• Barrierefreiheitsgesetz (BaFG, Accessibility Act): only in certain cases, see below.

The legal notice under § 5 ECG

The details must be permanently, easily and directly accessible. A “Legal notice” link in the footer of every page is common practice and sufficient. For Bilanzbuchhalter:innen (accountants), Buchhalter:innen (bookkeepers) and Personalverrechner:innen (payroll accountants), it looks like this:

For many professions, the supervisory authority is a detail for special cases. Not for you: you are publicly appointed by the Bilanzbuchhaltungsbehörde, which keeps the register and supervises how you practise. So always name it, ideally with a link to its website. As your chamber, give the regional chamber in whose area your professional seat is located, for example “Wirtschaftskammer Steiermark”. Adding the trade group (Fachgruppe) is not expressly required, but it makes the entry unambiguous.

The scope of your licence on the website

The BiBuG penalises not only those who carry out activities without a licence, but also those who offer them (§ 61 (1) no. 1 BiBuG, fine of up to 20,000 euros). A website is an offer. That is why the scope of your licence belongs not only in the legal notice but above all on your service pages. The UBIT trade group has set out in an FAQ sheet how this should look:

• Annual financial statements: only with a reference to the restriction in § 2 (1) no. 2 BiBuG, meaning up to the size criteria of a small corporation under § 221 UGB.
• Tax returns: only with the addition “Steuererklärungen im Rahmen des Berechtigungsumfanges gem. § 2 Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz” (tax returns within the scope of authorisation under § 2 BiBuG). This means the employee tax assessment (Arbeitnehmerveranlagung); income tax, VAT and corporation tax returns are excluded.
• Advice on employment and social security law: do not offer it. According to the WKO, it is reserved for lawyers. Advice on social security contribution matters, on the other hand, is permitted.
• Appeals and representation in appeal proceedings: do not offer them; none of the three licences covers them.

The same applies, even more narrowly, to bookkeepers and payroll accountants: if you are appointed only as a Buchhalter:in, you do not list payroll or balance sheets; if you are appointed only as a Personalverrechner:in, you do not list ongoing financial accounting. A sentence like “Berechtigungsumfang nach § 3 BiBuG 2014” (scope of licence under § 3 BiBuG 2014) in the legal notice is a good anchor, but it does not replace careful wording in the services section. You will find more examples of permissible wording in the article on advertising for accountants and bookkeepers.

A sample legal notice (fictitious)

The following example shows an accountant trading as a sole proprietorship (e.U.) in Linz with a blog on her website. All data is made up; adapt names, chamber and numbers to your situation. The wording stays in German, as it would appear on the site.

• Impressum und Offenlegung gemäß § 5 ECG, § 25 MedienG und § 14 UGB
• Lindner Bilanzbuchhaltung e.U., Inhaberin: Mag.a Theresa Lindner, Bilanzbuchhalterin
• Beispielgasse 7, 4020 Linz · Telefon +43 732 000 000 · office@lindner-beispiel.at
• Firmenbuchnummer FN 000000a, Landesgericht Linz · UID-Nummer ATU00000000
• Berufsbezeichnung: Bilanzbuchhalterin, öffentlich bestellt in Österreich
• Aufsichtsbehörde: Bilanzbuchhaltungsbehörde, Wiedner Hauptstraße 63, 1045 Wien; Eintrag im öffentlichen Register der Behörde
• Kammer: Wirtschaftskammer Oberösterreich, Fachgruppe Unternehmensberatung, Buchhaltung und Informationstechnologie
• Berufsrecht: Bilanzbuchhaltungsgesetz 2014, Bilanzbuchhaltungsberufe-Ausübungsrichtlinie 2014, abrufbar im RIS und bei der Bilanzbuchhaltungsbehörde
• Berufshaftpflichtversicherung: [Versicherer], [Kontaktdaten], Geltungsbereich: Österreich bzw. EU
• Berechtigungsumfang gemäß § 2 BiBuG 2014; Jahresabschlüsse im Rahmen des § 2 Abs. 1 Z 2 BiBuG. Keine Steuerberatung.
• Unternehmensgegenstand: Bilanzbuchhaltung und Personalverrechnung · Medieninhaberin: Theresa Lindner, Linz
• Grundlegende Richtung: Informationen zu Buchhaltung, Lohnverrechnung und betrieblichen Fristen für Mandant:innen und Interessent:innen

Disclosure under the Mediengesetz

Every website is a medium. If it only presents your firm, the short disclosure under § 25 (5) MedienG is enough: name or company name, the business purpose where applicable, and place of residence or registered office. But many bookkeeping firms regularly publish deadline calendars, notes on benefit-in-kind values or changes in payroll rules. The further these texts go beyond presenting your own services, the more likely the law requires the full disclosure: media owner, business purpose, registered office, bodies authorised to represent the business, shareholdings and the basic editorial direction (Blattlinie). Exactly where the line falls has not been conclusively settled. If in doubt, include the full disclosure; it only takes a few lines.

If you send a client newsletter by email, it is also a medium that needs a disclosure. In addition, the consent rules of the TKG 2021 (Telecommunications Act) apply to sending it.

Data protection, receipts and cookies

Every website that processes personal data needs a privacy policy under Art. 13 GDPR, and that starts with server logs. Bookkeeping firms face a particular issue: prospective clients tend to send bank statements, payslips or employment contracts straight through the contact form. You are bound by confidentiality under § 39 BiBuG and should design this route deliberately.

Accessibility, prices and dispute resolution

Since 28 June 2025, the Barrierefreiheitsgesetz has applied to certain e-commerce services for consumers, such as online bookings. A purely informational website of a bookkeeping firm that mainly addresses businesses is generally not covered. Microenterprises with fewer than ten employees and no more than 2 million euros in annual turnover or balance sheet total are also exempt. Readable contrast, alt texts and keyboard navigation are still worthwhile.

If you state prices on the website, such as a monthly package for ongoing bookkeeping, § 5 (2) ECG requires them to show clearly whether VAT is included. For business clients, “netto, zzgl. 20 % USt.” (net, plus 20 % VAT) is common. You can remove the link to the EU online dispute resolution platform that used to be widespread, as the platform has been switched off since 20 July 2025.