How Psychotherapy Costs and Reimbursement Work in Austria
Austria's system for private psychotherapy is more generous than newcomers expect — but it is not obvious from the outside. Here is how the money actually works.
Two routes to therapy
In Austria there are broadly two ways to access psychotherapy. The first is a fully funded place (a Kassenplatz), where the public system covers the cost entirely. These are valuable but scarce, and waiting times can be long. The second is to see a private-practice therapist — a Wahltherapeut — whom you pay directly and from whom you can usually begin without a long wait. This guide is about that second route, which is how my practice works.
How a Wahltherapeut arrangement works
The mechanics are simple once you have seen them once:
- You attend your sessions and pay the agreed fee directly.
- You receive a proper invoice (Honorarnote) for each session or block of sessions.
- You submit those invoices to your Austrian health insurance fund.
- The fund pays you back a fixed partial amount per session — the Kostenzuschuss.
You carry the difference between the fee and the refund yourself. In exchange you get choice of therapist, no waiting list, and continuity.
The numbers, approximately
The partial refund depends on which fund you belong to. As a rough orientation, the per-session subsidy is in the region of:
- ÖGK — approximately € 33.70
- SVS — approximately € 50
- BVAEB — approximately € 50.20
These figures are indicative and change over time, so treat them as a starting point and confirm the current amount with your own fund. The reimbursement is a fixed contribution, not a percentage, so it covers a larger or smaller share depending on the fee.
The one requirement to know about
The subsidy is tied to therapy for a condition with clinical relevance — in the system's language, a krankheitswertige Störung. In practice this is established as part of beginning treatment. Therapy taken up purely for, say, general self-development without any clinical basis is not what the subsidy is designed for.
If you are new to the Austrian system
Which fund you belong to usually follows from your work situation: employees are typically with ÖGK, the self-employed with SVS, and public-sector employees with BVAEB. If you also hold private supplementary insurance (Zusatzversicherung), check your policy — some plans reimburse a further portion of psychotherapy costs on top of the public subsidy.
If cost is a genuine obstacle
The Austrian funds generally provide the subsidy above for clinically relevant diagnoses. Separately, in situations of real financial hardship, a limited number of sessions at reduced rates may be possible — it is always worth raising directly rather than quietly ruling therapy out.
A worked example
Numbers make this concrete. Suppose a session costs € 130 and you are insured with ÖGK, which refunds in the region of € 33.70. You pay € 130 at the time, submit the invoice, and receive roughly € 33.70 back — so your effective cost is around € 96 per session. With SVS or BVAEB, where the subsidy is closer to € 50, the effective cost is lower again. If you also hold supplementary private insurance that covers psychotherapy, your out-of-pocket figure can fall further still. The exact numbers are yours to confirm, but this is the shape of it.
How to actually claim it
The process is more straightforward than it sounds:
- Keep the invoices you receive for your sessions.
- Submit them to your health insurance fund — most now allow this online, by app, or by post.
- Receive the per-session contribution back, usually within a few weeks.
Many funds let you submit a batch of sessions at once rather than one at a time, which keeps the admin light.
Online and couples sessions
Online individual sessions are generally treated the same way as in-person ones for reimbursement. Couples sessions can work differently, since the subsidy is tied to an individual's clinically relevant diagnosis — worth clarifying for your specific situation before you begin, which we can do together.
This is general information rather than tailored advice; your fund can confirm the specifics for your situation. If you would like help understanding what your own costs would look like in practice, that is something we can walk through together before you commit to anything.