MRG in Vienna: How Much Rent Can You Legally Charge?

This article explains statutory rules. It is not legal advice, and no article can classify a specific apartment. Before you rely on a rent figure for a purchase decision, have the tenancy checked — by the Schlichtungsstelle, a lawyer, or the Mietervereinigung.

If you own an apartment in Vienna and plan to let it, the question that decides your return is not what rent can I get? It is what rent am I allowed to charge?

Those two numbers can be far apart, and the gap is not a market inefficiency you can close. It is the law.

For an investor this is not a detail at the end of the analysis. An apartment that looks attractive at advertised market rent can produce a materially lower legal rent — and the difference lands in your yield, your debt service, and the price you should have been willing to pay.

Three regimes, not one law

The Mietrechtsgesetz is not a single rulebook applied uniformly. A tenancy sits in one of three places, and which one decides whether the rent is capped at all.

Regime	Rent	Typical case
Vollanwendung	Capped	Older multi-unit buildings meeting the statutory conditions
Teilanwendung	Freely agreed	Non-subsidised new builds, many condominium properties
Outside the MRG	Freely agreed	Buildings with no more than two independent units

Tenant protection against termination can survive into partial application even where the rent cap does not. The two protections are separate and should not be reasoned about together.

The classification comes from §1 MRG and the facts of the specific building and tenancy. It cannot be read off a listing.

Why "Altbau" is not a classification

The most common and most expensive mistake is this one: "It's a pre-war Altbau, so the rent is capped."

The word Altbau has no legal content. What matters is a set of statutory conditions — among them, under §1(4) Z 1 MRG, that a building erected under a permit granted after 30 June 1953 falls under partial application only.

Note what that provision keys on: the date of the building permit, not the completion date. A building finished in 1956 under a 1952 permit is not in the same regime as one finished in 1956 under a 1954 permit. This single distinction has moved individual apartments between a capped and an uncapped rent.

Before assuming a regime, establish:

1. The date of the building permit, not of completion
2. How many independent units the building contains
3. Whether the property is in condominium ownership (Wohnungseigentum)
4. Whether public funding was involved
5. When the tenancy was or will be concluded, and for how long

The Vienna Richtwert in 2026

Where the Richtwert system applies, Vienna's statutory value is €6.74 per m², from 1 April 2026.

Three things about that number matter more than the number itself.

It was frozen. €6.67 applied from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2026 — a three-year hold. The 2026 adjustment was +1.00 %, explicitly capped. An investor modelling future rent growth should not extrapolate inflation into this figure; the legislature has twice declined to pass it through.

It is a starting value, not a ceiling. The Richtwert is where the calculation begins.

It applies to the Hauptmietzins, not to the total the tenant pays. Betriebskosten, VAT and any Erhaltungs- und Verbesserungsbeitrag sit outside it and must be modelled separately. Comparing a regulated Hauptmietzins to an advertised all-in rent compares two different things.

How the permissible rent is actually built

Richtwert + statutory Zuschläge − statutory Abschläge = permissible Hauptmietzins>

× 0.75 if the tenancy is fixed-term (§16(7) MRG)

The assessment under §16 MRG and the Richtwertgesetz takes account of the apartment's size, type, condition, location, equipment and state of maintenance. These are statutory categories with case law behind each — not a judgement call a landlord makes.

The Lagezuschlag, and the Vienna rule that removes it

A Lagezuschlag is the addition for a location better than average, and in Vienna it is usually the largest single item in the calculation. It is also the one most often claimed wrongly.

§2(3) Richtwertgesetz rates a location at most average where the building stock is predominantly from 1870 to 1917 and the apartments were, when built, mostly small and of Ausstattungskategorie D. The statute says überwiegend — predominantly. It does not state a percentage.

A location rated at most average cannot carry a Lagezuschlag, because §16(4) MRG permits one only for a location better than average.

In OGH 5 Ob 237/20v the court held that being inside such a Gründerzeitviertel rules out the surcharge on the clear wording of the statute — even where the location would otherwise look above average to anybody standing in it. Large parts of Vienna's most desirable inner districts are exactly this building stock.

Two further requirements, both practical:

• The reasons for the surcharge must be given to the tenant in writing, no later than the signing of the contract.
• OGH 5 Ob 115/21d: stating that a property is "outside a Gründerzeitviertel" or that the location is "above average" is not enough. Concrete factors must be named.

A Lagezuschlag that was never properly disclosed is a Lagezuschlag that can be removed later, with the overpayment repayable.

Modelling note. The Lagezuschlag is set at address and zone level via the City of Vienna's Lagezuschlagskarte (MA 25), not by district. Two addresses in the same Bezirk can carry very different values, so any figure estimated per district is an estimate and should be labelled as one.

Fixed-term tenancies: the 25 % reduction

§16(7) MRG, verbatim:

"Der nach Abs. 1 bis 6 höchstzulässige Hauptmietzins vermindert sich im Fall eines befristeten Hauptmietvertrags (§ 29 Abs. 1 Z 3) um 25 vH."

The reduction applies to the maximum permissible under paragraphs 1 to 6 — so to the Richtwertmietzins and the angemessener Mietzins alike.

And the part that is usually missed: the reduction falls away when the tenancy converts to an open-ended one only if the contract states the permissible open-ended rent in figures and in writing, alongside the rent actually agreed. A contract that omits it keeps the 25 % reduction after conversion.

For an investor running a fixed-term model, this is not a 25 % haircut on one contract. It is a structural choice about the asset.

The exposure nobody models: the look-back

A rent agreed above the permissible maximum is not simply corrected going forward. Under §16(8) MRG the tenant can invoke the invalidity of the excess for three years.

For a fixed-term tenancy that period ends at the earliest six months after the tenancy ends or converts to open-ended — and in that case the limitation period runs to ten years.

So an over-charged rent is a contingent liability that can sit on the property across a sale. For a buyer, the question is not only what may I charge? but what has been charged, and for how long?

What this does to the investment calculation

1. Establish the regime. Full, partial, or outside — from §1 MRG and the facts, not from the listing.
2. If capped, build the rent. Richtwert, then the statutory additions and deductions, then the Lagezuschlag question — including whether a Gründerzeitviertel bars it.
3. Apply the tenancy structure. Fixed-term costs 25 %.
4. Separate the rent from the housing cost. Betriebskosten and the rest are not Hauptmietzins.
5. Only now compute yield, cash flow and debt service.

An investor who runs the last two steps against an advertised market rent has not made an optimistic assumption. They have modelled a different property.

What "unknown" is worth

There is a fourth state, and it is the one most listings are actually in: nobody has established the regime yet.

That is not a gap to be filled with an assumption. A yield computed against an assumed regime looks identical to a yield computed against a confirmed one — same number, same confidence, no indication that the cap underneath it was guessed.

This is why Immovesto treats the rent regime as something asserted and recorded, not inferred. Every listing starts unknown and stays unknown until the agent confirms it. Where the regime is unconfirmed, a return is shown with no cap applied and says so, which is the only honest thing to display. Where it is confirmed as full MRG, the cap is applied and the figure means something.

The system will suggest a regime from the building permit date and the statutory conditions — but it will never report high confidence for full MRG. Reaching that classification requires facts about the building that no database holds, and a suggestion presented as a determination is the same mistake as an asking price presented as a legal rent.

How to check a specific apartment

• The Wiener Mietenrechner gives orientation for Altbau and subsidised new-build cases. It is orientation, not a determination.
• The Schlichtungsstelle für wohnrechtliche Angelegenheiten handles rent reviews, and a review under §16 MRG can be requested by the landlord as well as the tenant. A landlord who wants certainty before letting can ask.

The bottom line

You cannot derive a legally permissible rent from an asking price. The order runs the other way: establish the regime, build the rent the statute allows, then decide what the property is worth to you.

The question is not "what rent could this apartment achieve?" It is "what rental income is legally achievable for this specific property and this tenancy structure — and what has already been charged?"

That is the number that belongs in a Vienna investment model.