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New Record Keeping Rules in Austria

May 2, 2011— Effective May 1, foreign employers in Austria must comply with more stringent and new record-keeping duties related to the minimum salary requirements for intracompany transferees and seconded employees, while fines for failing to comply with already existing notification duties will increase. These changes will impact all non-Austrian employers that hire foreign employees in Austria as intracompany transferees or seconded employees, including employers that have a corporate presence in one of the other European Economic Area member nations or Switzerland.

Under the new rules, non-Austrian employers must maintain records of their compliance with minimum salary requirements and display at their work location each foreign national’s assignment or employment agreement, payslips, and record of the days and hours worked. These records must be in German and must also indicate the salary paid to the foreign worker. Employers that violate these record-keeping obligations will be subject to fines between EUR 500 and EUR 5,000 for the first violation and from EUR 1,000 to EUR 10,000 for any subsequent violations.

Penalties for violations of existing record-keeping and reporting obligations will also increase under the new rules. For instance, non-Austrian employers of foreign nationals based in the European Economic Area or Switzerland must file a declaration to the KIAB authority (the Austria Authority for Control of Illegal Employment of Workers) at least seven days prior to the start of the worker’s assignment, and they must maintain a copy of the filed KIAB declaration and their A 1 certificate at the place of employment in Austria. The A 1 certificate indicates EU member states in which the employee continues to pay social insurance contributions during the assignment. Under the new rules, employers that fail to comply with these filing and record-keeping requirements will be subject to increased administrative fines of EUR 500 to EUR 5,000 for the first violation and EUR 1,000 to EUR 10,000 for any subsequent violation.

Under the new rules foreign employers that fail to meet the minimum salary requirements may be fined between EUR 1,000 and EUR 10,000 for their first violation and from EUR 2,000 to EUR 20,000 for any subsequent violation. If an employer violates the minimum salary obligations with respect to more than three foreign workers, it will be prohibited from providing services in Austria for a minimum period of one year and will be subject to higher fines between EUR 2,000 to EUR 20,000 for each employee for the first offense and from EUR 4,000 to EUR 50,000 for each employee for subsequent offenses involving more than three foreign employees.

About AIReS

AIReS, which was named to the 2010 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing independently owned businesses in the U.S., is in its 30th year of providing best-in-class relocation management services. With seven ISO registered U.S. offices and other strategically located employees located around the globe, AIReS is a recognized industry leader in delivering high quality relocation and assignment management services to leading corporations. The company boasts some of the industry’s highest annual customer-satisfaction scores and a client-retention rate of over 98%. For more information, please visit the AIReS website at www.aires.com.