Child Support in Austria: How Alimente Is Calculated (2026)

When parents in Austria separate, the parent who does not have the child living with them day to day pays cash maintenance, called Alimente in everyday speech and Kindesunterhalt in the statute. The amount is not a flat fee and it is not something the parents simply agree on in a vacuum. It is worked out from the paying parent's net income, the child's age and how many other people that income already supports.

This page explains the legal basis for that duty, the percentage scale Austrian courts actually apply, the deductions for other children or a dependent spouse, the upper cap known as the Luxusgrenze, and the current Regelbedarfssätze reference figures. A worked example at the end shows how the pieces fit together for a real income and a real age.

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.

The legal basis: § 231 ABGB, not § 140

The duty to support a child financially sits in § 231 of the Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (ABGB), Austria's civil code. Some older material online still cites § 140 ABGB for child maintenance. That citation is wrong for anything after 1 February 2013, when the Kindschafts- und Namensrechts-Änderungsgesetz 2013 renumbered the family-law provisions of the ABGB.

§ 140 ABGB today covers a different topic entirely: Abstammung, meaning parentage and the legal effect of establishing or contesting who a child's parent is. It says nothing about money. If a source cites "§ 140 ABGB" for a maintenance amount, that source has not been updated since the 2013 reform.

§ 231 ABGB itself is written in general terms. It requires both parents to contribute, in proportion to their means, to the child's needs as measured against the family's standard of living, taking into account the child's own aptitudes and development. The parent who runs the household where the child lives contributes through that care. The other parent contributes through money, and must do so fully if the caring parent cannot cover the child's needs alone or would have to spend more than is reasonable given their own circumstances.

What § 231 ABGB does not do is specify a number, a percentage or a formula. That gap is filled by case law.

The percentage method (Prozentsatzmethode) is case law, not statute

Austrian courts calculate the cash maintenance amount using a percentage scale built up over decades of decisions, known as the Prozentsatzmethode. This scale is not written into the ABGB. It is judge-made law, restated on the Bundesministerium für Justiz's own citizen information page, which is explicit that the percentages were established by court practice rather than by the legislature.

The percentage applies to the paying parent's average monthly net income and depends on the child's age:

Net income for this purpose generally means income after tax and social insurance, and it can include more than base salary; bonuses, certain benefits in kind and, in some cases, investment income can be drawn in depending on the facts. Because that assessment is fact specific, a precise income figure in a contested case is something a court or a lawyer determines, not something a general explainer can settle.

Deductions for other dependants

If the paying parent supports more than one person, the base percentage is reduced. The same official guidance sets these deduction points:

• 1 percentage point off for each additional child under 10 years old
• 2 percentage points off for each additional child aged 10 or older
• 0 to 3 percentage points off if a spouse also has a maintenance claim, depending on that spouse's own income

These deductions are also Judikatur, the same case-law basis as the base percentages, not separate statutory text.

Worked example

Take a parent with 2,500 euros in average monthly net income who has one child, aged 8, from a first relationship, and pays maintenance for a second child, aged 8, from a later relationship. For the child in question, the base rate at age 8 is 18 percent.

Before deductions, 18 percent of 2,500 euros is 450 euros a month. Because the parent also supports one additional child under 10, a 1 percentage point deduction applies, bringing the rate to 17 percent. Applied to the same income, that is 425 euros a month.

This is the realistic starting point for a case with these facts, not a ceiling and not a guarantee. A court can adjust it for the specific circumstances of the family, and the figure changes if the paying parent's actual net income, the child's age band, or the number of other dependants differs.

Shared care can reduce the amount

Official guidance also describes a separate adjustment for a paying parent who takes on more contact time than the standard allowance. A common rule of thumb applies roughly a 10 percent reduction for each extra day of contact beyond the usual pattern, about 20 percent where care runs close to one third of the time, and the money-maintenance obligation can fall away entirely under a genuine shared-residence arrangement (Wechselmodell) where care time, in-kind contributions and incomes are all roughly balanced between the parents.

This adjustment depends heavily on the actual care schedule and is worked out case by case. It is not reflected in the base percentage table above.

The cap: Luxusgrenze and Unterhaltsstopp

Where the paying parent has a high income, the straight percentage calculation can produce an amount well beyond what a child of that age actually needs. Courts address this with a ceiling known as the Luxusgrenze or Unterhaltsstopp, meaning the maintenance amount stops rising once it reaches a multiple of the Regelbedarf for the child's age.

The general practice, confirmed in OGH Rechtssatz RS0007138, is a cap of roughly 2 times the Regelbedarf for a child under 10 and 2.5 times the Regelbedarf from age 10 onward. The Supreme Court's own case law is candid that the precise crossover point for a child aged 10 to 12 is not a bright-line rule; the court has declined to treat "2 times versus 2.5 times" at that exact boundary as a settled legal question, so real outcomes can land on either side of it near that age range.

It is also worth noting that this multiple is a practice benchmark, not an absolute statutory ceiling. Case law confirms there is no fixed maximum that applies in every case regardless of the child's actual, documented needs.

Regelbedarfssätze 2026

The Regelbedarf is a reference figure representing an average child's monthly needs by age, published each calendar year. It is used two ways: as the multiplier base for the Luxusgrenze cap above, and as a general benchmark for comparing an award against what an average child of that age is assumed to need. The following figures are the calendar-year 2026 values:

These figures were verified on 22 July 2026 through two independent secondary sources that arrive at the same numbers by different calculation paths; the Regelbedarf is set by an annual court administrative notice rather than by a statute, so it does not appear on the federal legislation database the way the ABGB provisions do. The Regelbedarf is updated on a calendar-year basis each January, so a reader checking this later in the year should confirm the current figures have not been superseded by the next annual update.

There is no statutory minimum child support

A common misunderstanding is that the Regelbedarf functions as a legal floor, guaranteeing a child at least that much money each month. It does not. § 231 ABGB sets no floor figure at all; it only requires a contribution proportionate to the parent's means and the child's needs. The Regelbedarf appears in the official calculation guidance only as a comparison benchmark and as the base for the Luxusgrenze cap, never as an amount a paying parent owes regardless of their income.

What can function like a practical floor in a low-income case is a different doctrine entirely, the Anspannungsgrundsatz, covered next. It is a fault-based rule about imputed income, not a Regelbedarf-based guarantee, and a calculation should never simply output "at least this amount" because of a child's age.

Anspannungsgrundsatz: income a parent could reasonably earn

If a paying parent voluntarily works less than they are able to, or refuses reasonable available work, a court can calculate maintenance based on the income that parent could reasonably earn rather than their actual, reduced income. This is the Anspannungsgrundsatz. Courts require the parent to make full use of their personal capacity and earning ability; a parent who does not is treated as though they received the income they could have earned through reasonable work.

This imputation is not automatic. Case law is clear that it applies only where the parent is at fault for not working, meaning a parent who is genuinely unemployed through no fault of their own, or who cannot work because of illness or disability, is not assessed on income they never had and could not reasonably obtain.

Sonderbedarf: extraordinary needs

Beyond the regular monthly amount, a child can sometimes claim additional support for an extraordinary, non-recurring need, such as orthodontic treatment or a course of therapy. This is called Sonderbedarf. Case law scrutinises these claims closely where the paying parent already pays materially more than the Regelbedarf; in that situation, the child must show the existing above-Regelbedarf payments are already committed to other recognised extraordinary needs before an additional Sonderbedarf claim can succeed.

Both the Anspannungsgrundsatz and Sonderbedarf require a case-specific judicial determination. A general calculation using the percentage scale above assumes actual, undisputed net income and ordinary needs only; it cannot substitute for legal advice on either doctrine.

Using these figures

Any calculation built from the percentage scale, the deductions and the Luxusgrenze cap above provides an orientation figure, a realistic starting point for what a court is likely to order given the stated facts. It is not a binding determination, it does not account for shared-care adjustments, Anspannung or Sonderbedarf unless those are separately factored in, and an actual court order depends on the specific facts of the family, including income the parties may dispute.

For a contested amount, a family-law specialist or the local Bezirksgericht handling the maintenance matter is the appropriate next step. The Austria overview page links to related topics including divorce procedure.