Burgenland, Lower Austria, Salzburg and Styria now bound by Austrian Stability Pact 2025, retroactive from 1 Jan 2024
Four Austrian federal states that had not yet ratified the Stability Pact 2025 (ÖStP 2025) — Burgenland, Lower Austria, Salzburg, and Styria — have now joined the agreement retroactively as of 1 January 2024, as confirmed by BGBl. I Nr. 35/2026. The consolidated text has been updated accordingly and the metadata reflects a last-updated date of 1 June 2026.
What changed
The introductory entry notice, which previously stated only that Carinthia, Upper Austria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Vienna and the municipalities had joined the pact, has been split into two numbered points. A new point 2 records that Burgenland, Lower Austria, Salzburg and Styria acceded under Art. 21(2) last sentence with retroactive effect from 1 January 2024. A separate announcement (Kundmachung, BGBl. I Nr. 35/2026) formally confirms the entry-into-force date for those states. The repeated entry notice that previously appeared before every article was also removed as a formatting clean-up.
Who is affected
The four newly acceding states — Burgenland, Lower Austria, Salzburg and Styria — and their municipalities are now fully bound by the fiscal rules, stability path, reporting obligations and sanction mechanisms of the ÖStP 2025. All other parties (federal government, the five earlier states and municipalities) were already bound from 1 January 2024.
What to look out for
Because accession is retroactive to 1 January 2024, the four states are treated as having been subject to the pact's fiscal-balance rules and net-expenditure path for the entire period from that date. Practitioners in those states should review compliance with earlier reporting deadlines and stability-path targets under Arts. 4–5 for the years 2024 and 2025.