Austria’s streaming song royalties run through two collecting societies, and the mechanical side paid a median of 80 cents per online payment in 2025, according to austro mechana’s transparency report. The same society’s levy on phones and hard drives rose 58.8 percent, but it only reaches songwriters as a top-up on royalties that already matched.
That second point is the one to plan around. In Austria, clean registration does not pay once. It pays twice.
Two societies, one stream
CMO means collective management organisation, a body that licenses music users and pays rightsholders. Austria splits the song side of a stream between two of them.
- AKM collects performance royalties, including for interactive streaming.
- austro mechana, wholly owned by AKM, collects the mechanical share when a work is reproduced on streaming services, plus the storage media levy.
AKM’s publisher onboarding page recommends joining both, and neither society charges annual membership dues.
What the 2025 numbers show
The austro mechana 2025 transparency report puts domestic licence income at 26.02 million euros, up 26.8 percent.
- Online use: 5.12 million euros, up 18.9 percent.
- Storage media levy: 7.60 million euros, up 58.8 percent.
Of the amounts paid out to rightsholders, the median online payment was 0.80 euros. The median television payment was 9.58 euros.
The report also lists money it could not yet route. 2.4 million euros lacked complete documentation, and another 1.9 million euros could not be assigned because entries were missing from international member directories.
A further 641,744 euros is classed as undistributable: 422,758 euros owed to deceased rightsholders with unresolved estates, and 223,665 euros owed to people with no contact or bank details on file.
Why the levy rewards matched data
The storage media levy is a flat charge on storage sold in Austria, compensating creators for private copying. The smartphone rate rose from 3.75 to 5.50 euros per unit on 1 January 2025, futurezone reported, while external hard drives fell from 6.75 to 2.25 euros.
By statute, half of that levy income goes to social and cultural funds rather than royalty statements. In 2025 austro mechana allocated 2,405,739 euros this way, split between social support such as insurance and retirement contributions, and arts grants.
The other half is where the mechanism bites. Under austro mechana’s published distribution rules, it is paid as a uniform percentage surcharge on everything a rightsholder was credited in that year, from domestic and foreign statements, less a 15 percent commission.
No credits, no surcharge. A stream that never matched to your work loses its mechanical royalty and its levy top-up together.
Cloud storage is next
Austria’s Supreme Court held in a December 2025 ruling, case 4 Ob 15/25x, that commercial cloud storage offered to Austrian consumers owes the levy even when the servers sit abroad. austro mechana announced the win in January 2026.
Its cloud tariff, applying from 1 April 2026, runs from 0.60 euros per customer per quarter under 15 GB to 9 euros above 4 TB. Law firm DORDA noted the rate has not yet been tested in court. If it holds, the pool that tops up matched royalties gets bigger.
What to do with this
- Register with both societies. Performance and mechanical streaming income are collected separately, so a single membership leaves one of them unclaimed.
- Keep splits and bank details identical everywhere. Directory gaps held back 1.9 million euros, and missing contact or bank details another 223,665.
- Check AKM’s online grant. Songwriters who are AKM members, with prior-year AKM royalties between 1,000 and 5,000 euros, can apply for up to 2,000 euros net a year toward online costs including digital distribution. Only one member per band qualifies each year.
Where this sits in Europe
Switzerland pays streaming royalties no earlier than six months after the stream, and an unregistered Czech song gets three years to claim its share. Paraguay sets its device levy by decree.
The master side of an Austrian stream reaches you through your distributor’s territory reporting. The song side pays twice, and only for work the societies could match, so accurate ISRC and songwriter credit data at delivery is where both royalties start.
