Subsidies · Vorarlberg
Housing benefit in Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg pays the difference between what your flat is allowed to cost on paper and what you can reasonably carry yourself. Both halves are fixed by the 2026 guideline, and both are published in full, so the number can be worked out rather than guessed.
The number that decides everything: €8.70 per square metre
Housing benefit counts at most €11.50 per square metre, and that figure already includes a flat operating-cost share of €2.80. What is left for the rent itself is €8.70 per square metre. Anything you pay above that does not raise the benefit by a cent.
That ceiling is not theoretical here. The average rent actually paid in Vorarlberg is €9.30 per square metre net (€11.80 including operating costs), the highest per flat of any province at €619.90 a month. The average tenant is therefore already above the line the calculation stops at.
These are rents actually paid across all existing leases (Statistics Austria, Microcensus 2025), not asking rents. New leases cost markedly more: across Austria €9.7 per m² net for contracts under two years old, against €4.7 for those running over twenty years. That gap is why the average across all leases sits well below what you pay on a new one.
And the second cap: the eligible floor area
Only part of your flat counts. One person gets 50 m², two get 70 m², three get 80 m², and every further member of the household adds 10 m², but never more than the flat actually has. Both caps together give the largest housing cost the province will ever recognise.
| Household | Eligible area | Highest recognised housing cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 m² | €575.00 |
| 2 | 70 m² | €805.00 |
| 3 | 80 m² | €920.00 |
| 4 | 90 m² | €1,035.00 |
| 5 | 100 m² | €1,150.00 |
| 6 | 110 m² | €1,265.00 |
A flat below 25 m² is not a flat under the guideline (§ 4 para. 1 lit. a) and gets nothing at all.
Your own share comes from a table, not a formula
What you are expected to carry yourself is a percentage of household income, and that percentage comes straight from the appendix to § 9. The table looks like 400 numbers but it is three: €1,265 in the first cell, €22 more per percentage point, €260 more per additional member of the household. One person on €1,265 a month carries 1 per cent; the table runs up to 40 per cent.
| Household | 1 % up to | Marked guide figure | Last printed row (40 %) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €1,265 | €1,903 | €2,123 |
| 2 | €1,525 | €2,295 | €2,383 |
| 3 | €1,785 | €2,555 | €2,643 |
| 4 | €2,045 | €2,837 | €2,903 |
| 5 | €2,305 | €3,097 | €3,163 |
| 6 | €2,565 | €3,379 | €3,423 |
The province marks one figure per column in colour. Above it there is normally no entitlement. But the guideline says in its own notes that these are guide figures, not hard cut-offs, and a hardship clause can carry you past them.
The clauses that move the whole table
A disability of at least 55 per cent, care allowance from level 2, a child with a disability or increased family allowance, or three or more dependent children each take 10 percentage points off your share. Single parents get 5 off. Where several apply, the total is capped at 15 points. Ten points on a €2,000 income is €200 a month, so this is the largest single lever on the page.
Calculator
The calculation below follows the 2026 guideline step by step and shows every intermediate figure. It reproduces all three worked examples the province publishes in its own brochure to the cent. It is still an estimate: only the notice from the province is binding.
The other half: building subsidy for a new home
Vorarlberg lends rather than grants, and the base loan is expressly "graded by land consumption" (§ 6). The denser you build, the more you get.
| Type of building | Base loan per unit |
|---|---|
| Detached house | €30,000 |
| Semi-detached or terraced house | €40,000 |
| Flat, extension or conversion, replacement new build | €50,000 |
| Housing initiative (§ 10 para. 14) | €60,000 |
Bonuses come on top, but never on their own. The total loan is capped at €100,000 per housing unit.
| Bonus | Amount |
|---|---|
| Per child drawing family allowance | €15,000 |
| First-time ownership for the whole household | €10,000 |
| Heating demand below the threshold in the energy certificate | €10,000 |
| OI3 ecological index below the threshold | €10,000 |
| klimaaktiv gold standard (not combinable with the two above) | €25,000 |
| All above-ground windows in regional timber | €5,000 |
| Facade, walls, ceilings or roof in regional timber, brick, clay or recycled concrete | €2,500 per group |
Income limits and conditions
The household income must stay within €4,000 a month net for one person, €7,000 for two, €8,250 for three or more. Above that the loan is cut by 5 per cent for every €50 started. The flat may not exceed 150 m² (200 m² for a house with two flats), and an alternative heating system plus solar or PV is mandatory, unless the site gets fewer than six hours of sun on 21 April.
| Years | Annuity on the original amount | of which interest |
|---|---|---|
| 1.–5. | 1,50 % | 1,00 % |
| 6.–10. | 2,75 % | 1,75 % |
| 11.–15. | 3,25 % | 2,25 % |
| 16.–20. | 4,50 % | 3,25 % |
| 21.–25. | 6,00 % | 4,25 % |
| 26.–30. | 7,75 % | 5,00 % |
| 31.–35. | 8,50 % | 5,00 % |
Alternatively a fixed 3.30 per cent over the full 35 years, with an annuity of 4.85 per cent. Payment comes in two halves, at the start of building and after completion. A child born within ten years of the commitment brings €50 a month for two years, €75 per child for multiple births.
All guidelines at the province
What the money is worth here
Vorarlberg is the second most expensive province to buy in. Measured against that, even the maximum of €100,000 is a contribution rather than a financing: in the district of Bregenz it buys 24 square metres of flat, in Feldkirch 28.
| District | Flat, € per m² | €100,000 buys |
|---|---|---|
| Bregenz | 4,243 | 24 m² |
| Bludenz | 4,094 | 24 m² |
| Dornbirn | 3,997 | 25 m² |
| Feldkirch | 3,579 | 28 m² |
Q: STATISTIK AUSTRIA, average property prices, 2025 edition, data base 2021–2025, geometric means. Median across the published categories per district.
How to apply
- Work out roughly where you stand with the calculator above, or with the spreadsheet from the province.
- Collect the papers: annual pay slip or tax assessment, tenancy agreement or loan confirmation, confirmation of rent payments.
- The application goes through your municipality of residence, which confirms the date, and that date decides which guideline applies to you.
- Housing benefit starts at the earliest in the month you apply, and it is granted for at most one year. Missing papers can be handed in within six weeks.
- Report every change in income immediately. Housing benefit wrongly received has to be paid back.
Amounts below €7.00 a month are not paid out at all.
Four things that are widely believed and wrong
- A higher rent brings more housing benefit.
- Only up to €8.70 per square metre of the eligible area. Above that the extra rent is yours alone.
- Students can get it.
- They cannot, with four exceptions: training supported by the labour market service with a daily allowance, proven part-time work of at least 40 per cent, single parents, and a self-supporter grant (§ 11).
- It is granted once and then runs.
- It is granted for a year at most, and every change of income has to be reported the moment it happens.
- Savings do not matter.
- Assets up to €15,000 for a single-person household are ignored, plus €5,000 per further person. Anything above that has to go into the housing costs first, and since 2026 the province may also look back at how earlier assets were spent.
Questions
How much housing benefit does Vorarlberg pay?
It is the difference between the recognised housing cost and your own reasonable share. The recognised cost is the eligible area times at most €11.50 per m²; the reasonable share is a percentage of household income from the table in the appendix to § 9. For a single-person household in a 60 m² flat at €300 rent on €1,500 income, the province's own worked example gives €210 a month. The calculator above shows every step.
What income is too much for housing benefit in Vorarlberg?
The province marks one figure per household size: €1,903 for one person, €2,295 for two, €2,555 for three. Above these there is normally no entitlement. They are guide figures though, not hard limits: with a hardship clause an entitlement can still exist.
Is my rent too high for housing benefit?
Rent is never too high to disqualify you, it simply stops counting. The calculation recognises €11.50 per square metre including a €2.80 operating-cost share, so €8.70 of rent. Given that the average rent paid in Vorarlberg is above that, most applicants hit the ceiling.
Where do I apply?
Through your municipality of residence. The forms are on the province website, and the date the municipality confirms decides which guideline your application is judged by.
Can I get housing benefit as an owner?
Yes. Loan repayments for building, buying or renovating your own home count as housing costs in the same way as rent, provided the loan runs for at least fifteen years. Sub-tenancies are the case that is excluded.
On wohnwahn
What the market around the subsidy actually looks like.
- Renting a flat in Vorarlberg
- Buying a flat in Vorarlberg
- Buying a house in Vorarlberg
- Renting a house in Vorarlberg
Sources
All subsidy figures come from vorarlberg.at: the Wohnbeihilferichtlinie 2026 (adopted 25 November 2025, in force 1 January to 31 December 2026), the Wohnbeihilfe brochure 2026 and the Neubauförderungsrichtlinie July 2025/2026 for private housing. Prices and rents are our own reading of Statistics Austria. Where the province publishes no figure, none appears here.
As at: Subsidy figures September 2026, prices 2025, rents 2025