Fine of over €1,000

Curious: Woman paid for vignette but drove “invalid”

Annette Rygol paid for the 2025 vignette – and still received several fines.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/APA/Roland Schlager, zVg)

A 73-year-old driver believed she was traveling in Styria with a valid vignette. Wrong! Now she is being asked to pay a hefty fine. Was it a technical error?

A scratch-off voucher code is the trigger in this very curious case: In January 2025, Annette Rygol paid for her subscription to an Austrian magazine as usual, which also included the credit for the digital vignette.

Her bank statement proves that the money for the subscription plus vignette was debited. Ms. Rygol, who was still living in Rosenheim, Germany, at the time, believed that she was legally entitled to drive on Austria's roads...

I paid at the time and didn't receive any error message. I'm not so stupid as to drive for six months without a vignette. You really have to pay close attention.

Annette Rygol

Betroffene Autofahrerin

Bild: Privat

Nasty surprise with an expensive fine
But then came the nasty surprise! The 73-year-old promptly received several reminders from the Austrian authorities, but they were still sent to her German address. However, Rygol had just moved to Styria and, of course, re-registered her address. When she saw the reminders late – she had been sent around a dozen fines for allegedly driving without a valid vignette – she was surprised. "I'm not stupid enough to drive without a vignette for six months," she told the "Krone" newspaper. She quickly activated her voucher for the vignette ("luckily, I kept it") online, supposedly again.

According to Asfinag, it was the first activation. The code appears in the system for the first time in October 2025. Rygol: "I'm pretty tech-savvy for my age, I've been doing this with the vignette for years and didn't get any error messages when I paid last January. So I thought everything was fine."

Important information and errors:

• The digital vignette has been available in Austria since 2017. Since then, a consumer protection period of 18 days has also applied (14 days for the right of withdrawal plus four days for postal delivery). Only after this period does the digital two-month or annual vignette become valid. The vignette for one or ten days is valid immediately upon purchase.
• According to Asfinag, the same applies to route toll tickets ( e.g., for the Gleinalm Tunnel): valid immediately for a single passage; for the multi-trip ticket at the toll stations (formerly annual ticket), the 18 days must be taken into account. 
• All cards arevalid immediately when purchased from a reseller (vending machine, tobacconist, Öamtc, Arbö, etc.).
• Always remember the vignette when re-registering, relocating (different district, different license plate), changing cars, or selling!

The driver does not understand why she now has to pay a fine of over €1,200 – possibly due to a technical error. Asfinag's hands are tied: "We are sorry, but we have no way of intervening in ongoing administrative proceedings." The woman can only hope for the goodwill of the authorities.