Rents increased: Housing became more expensive towards the end of the year

This is an increase of 1.6 percent compared to the third quarter and an increase of 4.6 percent compared to the same period last year. This means that the rental level remained in the double-digit euro range throughout 2025, as Statistics Austria announced on Friday.

For an average main rental apartment, households paid 686.8 euros per month in the final quarter. Of this, 172.5 euros – or 2.6 euros per square meter – went to operating costs, which increased by 1.3 percent compared to the previous quarter.

The pure rental costs amounted to 7.8 euros per square meter. “This means that the average rents have been consistently above 10 euros per square meter since the beginning of 2025,” said Statistics Austria General Director Manuela Lenk, according to the announcement.

1.8 million primary rental apartments

The costs collected relate to an extrapolated 1.8 million main rental apartments in Austria. Almost 40 percent of these are cooperative apartments and around 15 percent are municipal apartments. On the private market, around a third (31.2 percent) of rental agreements are freely agreed. 13.4 percent of tenant households pay the standard rent, while another 1.3 percent fall below the category rent.

When comparing federal states, there are clear differences in the type of rental relationships. Vienna has the highest proportion of benchmark rents at 21.0 percent and has the lowest proportion of private main rents on the open market at 22.0 percent. Styria follows in second place with 11.4 percent for benchmark apartments. In the western federal states, however, private rental contracts on the free market dominate: Vorarlberg leads here with 55.4 percent, followed by Tyrol (52.0 percent) and Salzburg (48.0 percent). In other federal states such as Burgenland (70.4 percent) and Upper Austria (58.5 percent), cooperative apartments form the clear majority.

From 2026, Statistics Austria will publish the annual guideline values ​​and category amounts on April 1st. All current amounts will then be available on a new website in the housing section.