Deadline for submitting the annual financial statements of an Austrian corporation to the corporate booking has been extended due to COVID-19.

The legal representatives of corporations (organs such as managing directors of a GmbH, board of directors of an AG) have to prepare the annual financial statements (balance sheet, profit and loss account, appendix, management report) no later than five months after the balance sheet date, depending on the size class. Nine months after the balance sheet date, disclosure must then be made at the commercial register court of the registered office of the corporation. In the course of far-reaching extensions of the deadline due to legal Covid-19 measures, this deadline for the disclosure of the annual financial statements with the commercial register was also extended to 12 months.

However, this only applies to those annual financial statements that did not have to be prepared on March 16, 2020 within the five-month period and whose cut-off date is before August 1, 2020. For corporate practice: The extension of the disclosure period to 12 months applies once for those annual financial statements that are to be prepared on a balance sheet date between October 16, 2019 and July 31, 2020.

Attention: For annual financial statements with a balance sheet date after July 31, 2020, the previous statutory disclosure period of nine months applies again! This means that the annual financial statements with the balance sheet date August 31, 2020 must be submitted to the commercial register after 9 months, at the latest on May 31, 2021.

The bodies of corporations must, for example, observe the following deadlines for the disclosure of the annual financial statements to the commercial register:

Compulsory penalties: If disclosure periods are missed, the commercial register court can impose corresponding penalties against the corporate bodies and the corporation.

September 15th, 2020 I LBG

Contact & Advice: This information naturally shows basic aspects of the topic - for completeness and correctness no guarantee can be given despite careful preparation. LBG will gladly advise you in your individual situation. Please contact one of our 31 Austria-wide locations (www.lbg.at) or welcome@lbg.at - we will gladly bring you together with one of our experts, who is very familiar with your request.