Irritating or charming?
For some, sticking a vignette on the windshield is irritating, but for others it’s a valuable part of the series of memories that a vacation trip represents. For Austria, after 2026 it will remain just a memory forever, because this is the last physical Austria vignette ever.
The highway vignette is a familiar phenomenon among Dutch people, particularly thanks to the Alpine countries, who have more tendency than perhaps anyone else to explore Europe by car. For years, Switzerland and Austria have gratefully used their position as popular winter sports destinations and transit countries for travelers to Italy by only allowing highway use after purchasing a vignette. It has a different color each year, making it immediately clear whether someone has the correct vignette on their windshield.
In Switzerland, it’s an annual vignette for a (certainly by Swiss standards) quite reasonable amount, while in Austria you can also choose a vignette for 2 months or 10 days. Yes, 10 days – precisely short enough to need 2 vignettes if you, like many others, want to drive around your vacation country for two weeks. The Austrian vignette requirement has existed since 1997, and since then quite a few curse words have been heard, because those Austrian vignettes in particular are a real crime to remove when the vacation comes to an end.
Switzerland vignette left, Austria vignette right, both from 2022.
Since 2019, this has been avoidable, because that year Austria introduced a digital ‘vignette’ that is simply linked to the license plate and therefore doesn’t require a sticker. As of 2027, this digital vignette will become the standard, and no physical vignette will be issued at all. The Austrian highway vignette for 2026, which was recently presented, is therefore the last one ever. This also tells us what color the last physical Austrian vignette in 29 years has: bright red.
In Switzerland, the inventor of the highway vignette, a digital variant has also existed since 2023. Officially, nothing is yet known about a complete abolition of the physical sticker here, although this is likely in the long term.