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Water, sewage and garbage costs to increase in Vienna next year

The Local Austria
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Water, sewage and garbage costs to increase in Vienna next year
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

The cost of living in Vienna is set to increase next year, with the regular rates payment on the rise.

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Fees for water, garbage and sewage costs are set to increase in Vienna next year, council authorities have confirmed.

Owners or landlords of buildings are liable for these costs, rather than renters in Austria. 

READ MORE: Why do so few Austrians own their home?

Finance Councilor Peter Hanke said the increase was necessary as the costs had not been raised in line with the consumer price index, which has risen by 5.2 percent since the last increase.

Hanke said regular adjustments were necessary in order to prevent surprise increases which could hit ratepayers hard. 

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The new costs will come into effect from January 1st, 2022.

The rates were not increased last year due to the pandemic. 

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Der Standard reports that the average monthly cost increase for a three-person household would be around 2.45 euros, while single households would look to pay 1.07 euros more.

Vienna residents may also see the impact of the cost increases elsewhere, with pubs, restaurants and other establishments also seeing an increase in the underlying fees. 

The government promised that the money paid would go straight back into the local system - and would be used to modernise and improve the services on offer. 

While it will not impact this rate increase, Austria's ÖVP party is pushing for the automatic increases to be suspended so that the council will have more control over when rates are increased and by how much. 

Given that the automatic increases are written into the state constitution, this would require widespread constitutional change. 

 

 

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