Pass and driver's license costs explode: This is how it affects the citizens!

Pass and driver's license costs explode: This is how it affects the citizens!

Vienna, Österreich - On May 22, 2025, the National Council passed a comprehensive package of measures to renovate budgets. This includes a significant increase in health insurance contributions for pensioners, which increases from 5.1% to 6%. In addition, the prescription fee of currently 7.55 euros per pack will be frozen in the coming year, while medication that costs less than the prescription fee will be included in the recipe fee in the future. A long -term goal of the law is to gradually reduce the recipe duty from 2027 to 2030 from 2% to 1.5% of the annual net income.

The planned measures come across criticism, especially from MEPs from the Greens and FPÖ, the fear that these changes in particular are disproportionately burdening the lower income groups. Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer (SPÖ) replies this concerns and emphasizes that consolidation is not socially unbalanced. He points out that the budget service has only assessed directly assignable measures and expects positive effects through offensive measures.

rising fees and their effects

In conjunction with the new regulations, the fees for important documents are also increased: passports will cost 112 euros in the future, which means an increase from the previous fee of 75.90 euros. The fees for personnel cards also increase by 48% to 91 euros, while for the driver's license 90 euros and 178 euros for the registration certificate will be due.

Neos MP Karin Doppelbauer warns of a pension hole of 40 billion euros by 2029 and emphasizes the need for savings. ÖVP budget speaker Andreas Hanger asks all parties to take responsibility and to develop solutions. However, Marterbauer remains optimistic and sees opportunities for positive revisions of economic researchers.

Reform of social security contributions in Germany

parallel to the developments in Austria in Germany from January 1, 2025, there are also significant changes. The Federal Government plans to increase the contribution assessment limits in the statutory health, nursing and pension insurance. In particular, the average additional contribution to statutory health insurance (GKV) is increased by 0.8 percentage points to 2.5 percent in order to counter a forecast deficit of 13.8 billion euros.

This increase is intended to generate additional income of around 16 billion euros in order to cover the increasing health costs. These cost increases are due to the aging of the population, medical progress and higher care expenditure. For employees above the increase in the contribution assessment limits, this will be a noticeable additional burden that makes an average of 98.93 euros per month or 1,187.16 euros annually.

financing of the health system

Health expenditure in Germany rose to 498 billion euros in 2022, which corresponds to more than 12.8% of gross domestic product. 53% of the expenditure on statutory health insurance (GKV) is eliminated, while private health insurance only contributes 7.7%. Most of the GKV expenditure is used for hospital treatment (32.1%) and pharmaceutical supply (17.8%).

The current developments also raise questions about justice in the financing system. Discourses on possible citizens' insurance are becoming increasingly important to fix existing injustices in health insurance.

The political measures in Austria and Germany reflect a growing challenge to keep the social security systems stable and at the same time to counter the growing health expenditure.

For more information about the current financial changes in social insurance in Germany, visit Experts Federal Center for Political Education . You can find out more about the current developments in Austria on vienna.at .