Notice Periods in Austria (Kündigungsfrist): § 20 AngG Explained

Ending a job in Austria runs on statutory notice periods, not on whatever a contract happens to say. The core rule sits in § 20 of the Angestelltengesetz (AngG), the law covering white collar employees (Angestellte). Since 1 October 2021 the identical scale also covers blue collar workers (Arbeiter) through § 1159 ABGB.

This is not the rule a German language search usually surfaces. Germany's § 622 BGB uses a simple month end system with no calendar quarter requirement, and it does not apply to a job based in Austria. An employer in Vienna, Graz or Linz cannot give notice on any date it likes and expect the standard month end result common across the border. Termination must land on the end of a calendar quarter unless the contract has agreed otherwise.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Austrian law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Employer Notice Periods Under § 20 AngG

The default rule in § 20 Abs 2 AngG sets the employer's minimum notice period on a rising scale tied to completed years of service (vollendete Dienstjahre). The clock starts at six weeks and lengthens four times over a career.

These are minimums, not targets. An employment contract or collective agreement can grant the employee a longer notice period, and many do. What a contract cannot do is shorten the employer's side of the scale below what § 20 Abs 2 sets, even with the employee's signed agreement.

The default termination date (Kündigungstermin) under Abs 2 is the end of a calendar quarter: 31 March, 30 June, 30 September or 31 December. § 20 Abs 3 AngG allows the parties to agree on a different termination date instead, either the 15th of a month or the last day of a month. That agreement can move the termination date, but it cannot be used to slip the notice length itself below the Abs 2 minimum.

The Calendar Quarter Rule (Kündigungstermin)

This is the feature that most often surprises someone used to a simple month based system. Unless the contract has set the 15th or month end alternative under Abs 3, an employer's notice does not simply run for the stated number of weeks or months from the day it is given. It must also land on the end of a calendar quarter.

Consider an Angestellte with six completed years of service. Six years sits between the five year and fifteen year thresholds, so her statutory notice period is three months.

If her employer hands her notice on 10 August, three months forward from that date lands on 10 November. But 10 November is not the end of a calendar quarter, so the termination cannot take effect there. The next quarter end on or after that date is 31 December, so her last working day becomes 31 December, not 10 November.

In practice this means the true length of the notice a departing employee experiences is often longer than the bare statutory figure, sometimes by close to two extra months, purely because of where the three month mark happens to fall inside the calendar. Anyone calculating a termination date needs to run the statutory period forward first, then round to the next quarter end, unless the contract already fixed a month end or 15th of month alternative under Abs 3.

Employee Notice Periods

An employee who wants to resign has a simpler rule under § 20 Abs 4 AngG: one month's notice, ending on the last day of a calendar month. There is no calendar quarter requirement on the employee's side under the default rule.

That one month period can be extended by written agreement, up to a ceiling of six months. The one hard limit that always applies: however long the parties agree an employee's notice period should be, it can never exceed the employer's own notice period for the same relationship. If the employer's notice period is two months because of length of service, the employee's agreed notice period cannot be set at three months.

Arbeiter and Angestellte: One Rule Since 2021

Austrian employment law used to run two separate notice systems: § 20 AngG for white collar Angestellte, and a shorter, more employer favorable set of rules for blue collar Arbeiter. That gap closed on 1 October 2021, when § 1159 ABGB took effect with wording that mirrors § 20 Abs 2 and Abs 4 AngG almost word for word.

The result is that an Arbeiter's employer notice period now follows the identical six week, two month, three month, four month, five month scale at the same two, five, fifteen and twenty five year thresholds, ending at the same calendar quarter. An Arbeiter's own resignation notice is the same one month to month end rule, extendable the same way.

There is one carve out worth knowing. § 1159 Abs 4 ABGB preserves shorter notice periods, set through a Kollektivvertrag, for industries where seasonal work (Saisonbetrieb) predominates. So the harmonisation is close to universal but not absolute, and anyone in a seasonal trade such as tourism or construction should check the applicable collective agreement rather than assume the general scale automatically applies.

Austria Is Not Germany

A search typed in German for Kündigungsfrist very often returns results built around Germany's § 622 BGB, and that law simply does not govern a job performed in Austria. § 622 BGB uses its own scale of notice periods that rise with tenure, but it ends on the 15th or the last day of a month, with no requirement that termination fall on a calendar quarter.

That calendar quarter mechanic under § 20 Abs 2 AngG and § 1159 ABGB has no German counterpart, and it is often the single detail that changes a calculated termination date by weeks. Anyone reading an explanation of notice periods should confirm it is describing Austrian law specifically, not a German or Swiss source that happens to rank for the same search term.

For the separate question of what is owed on top of notice, including Abfertigung entitlements, see severance pay in Austria. To work out an exact termination date for a given start date and length of service, use the Kündigungsfrist Rechner.