Tax advice for freelancers and professionals: the content your website needs, from “freelance or trade” to flat-rate schemes

How freelancers search for a tax adviser

Freelancers search differently from trade businesses or limited companies. They usually have no accounts department, often no staff and little time for taxes. They want to know whether a firm looks after people like them, what it costs and whether working together is digital. Their searches tell you which pages you need.

Pay attention to the words used in both countries. In Germany, “Freiberufler” (freelance professional) is a tax term with clear consequences. In Austria, people search more for “Steuerberater für Selbständige”, “Neue Selbständige” (new self-employed), “SVS” (the social insurance for the self-employed) or “Pauschalierung” (flat-rate scheme), and the people you work for are usually called Klient:innen. A firm in Graz that only writes about “Freiberufler” and “Gewerbesteuer” misses its readers. How to build the basic structure of a tax firm's website is covered in The website for your tax advisory firm; this guide is about the extra content a firm focusing on freelancers needs.

The core question: freelance or trade?

No question comes up more often among the newly self-employed, and none is better suited as content for your website. A clear explainer page reaches exactly the people who need a tax adviser right now. It stays general: classifying an individual case is advice and belongs in the meeting.

In Germany: § 18 EStG and trade tax

Under § 18(1) no. 1 EStG (Income Tax Act), freelance work means independent scientific, artistic, literary, teaching or educational activity and the work of the so-called catalogue professions: among others doctors, dentists, non-medical practitioners (Heilpraktiker), physiotherapists, lawyers, tax advisers, engineers, architects, journalists, interpreters and translators, plus “similar professions”. Freelancers pay no trade tax (Gewerbesteuer), do not register a trade, are not compulsory members of the chamber of commerce (IHK) and usually determine their profit with a cash-basis income statement (EÜR, § 4(3) EStG), however high the profit.

It gets interesting with the borderline cases, and those are exactly what readers search for: IT freelancers, consultants, coaches, designers, influencers. Whether software development is “similar” to an engineering profession depends on training and activity and is often disputed. In partnerships, a commercial side activity can make the whole partnership commercial (§ 15(3) no. 1 EStG). Name such pitfalls as examples without deciding across the board, and explain what applies to a trade: for individuals and partnerships, trade income up to 24,500 euros is exempt from trade tax (§ 11(1) GewStG).

In Austria: § 22 EStG, Trade Regulation Act and SVS

Austria has no trade tax. The question “freelance or trade” still matters, only with different consequences. For income tax, the EStG distinguishes income from independent work (§ 22 EStG, for example scientific, artistic, literary and teaching activity, doctors, Ziviltechniker:innen (chartered engineers), Wirtschaftstreuhänder:innen (public accountants and tax advisers)) and income from a trade or business (§ 23 EStG). In practice, two other questions matter more to many clients: do I need a trade licence under the Gewerbeordnung (Trade Regulation Act), and with it membership of the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO)? And am I insured with the SVS as a trader or as one of the Neue Selbständige?

Bogus self-employment, status determination and SVS

For many freelancers, the second big worry is not the tax office but social insurance. People search for this online too, and here as well a firm convinces by taking the question seriously and referring on at the right point.

In Germany, IT freelancers, consultants and care workers in particular fear Scheinselbstständigkeit (bogus self-employment): if someone works like an employee for a single client, back payments of social security contributions loom. Clarity comes from the status determination procedure at the clearing office of the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (§ 7a SGB IV). On your website, explain what it is about, which criteria are checked and when an application makes sense. The social security assessment itself is not tax advice in the narrow sense; say honestly where you work with specialist lawyers for employment or social law.

In Austria, the SVS is the central topic. Anyone working independently without a trade licence, for example as a lecturer, psychotherapist or graphic designer, is compulsorily insured as one of the Neue Selbständige once their income exceeds the insurance threshold; in 2026 it is 6,613.20 euros a year. People dread the back payments after the income tax assessment, because the provisional contributions start out low. A section “SVS back payment: why it comes and how to prepare” answers one of the most common questions in the first year. For the line between employment contract and self-employment, the Sozialversicherungs-Zuordnungsgesetz (Social Insurance Allocation Act) provides a check of the insurance allocation.

Explaining cash-basis accounts, the small-business scheme and flat rates

Freelancers want to know how much effort taxes take. That is why profit determination and VAT belong on the target-group page, briefly and with examples. In Germany that means the EÜR with the Anlage EÜR (EÜR form) to the income tax return. In Austria it means the Einnahmen-Ausgaben-Rechnung (cash-basis accounts) and, especially interesting for many small self-employed people, the flat-rate scheme (Pauschalierung).

In Germany, the small-business scheme of § 19 UStG has applied since 2025 if turnover did not exceed 25,000 euros in the previous year and does not exceed 100,000 euros in the current year. For doctors and other health professions, the real topic is the VAT exemption for medical treatment instead (§ 4 no. 14 UStG in Germany, § 6(1) no. 19 UStG in Austria), for example for expert opinions or aesthetic treatments. Such distinctions are ideal content for an industry page.

For the website: explain the options and their consequences, but do not calculate individual cases. A sentence like “We work out whether the flat-rate scheme pays off for you with your figures in the initial meeting” links the content to the next step. If you answer these questions already in the start-up phase, you will find ideas in Tax advice for founders: the website.

Industry pages: tax advice for doctors, creatives and IT freelancers

“Steuerberater für Ärzte” (for doctors), “Steuerberater für Künstler” (for artists), “Steuerberater IT Freelancer”: Google's autocomplete shows that many people do not search for freelancers in general but for their profession. One page per professional group answers these searches far better than a list on the services page. The difference from Practice areas on the firm website: there it is one page per service, here one page per target group.

Choose two or three groups you actually look after. An industry page without real experience behind it feels thin and is tricky under professional law: in Germany you may only call yourself a “specialist” if you can prove the relevant knowledge (§ 9(3) BOStB), and additional titles such as “Fachberater für Sanierung und Insolvenzverwaltung (DStV e.V.)” (specialist adviser for restructuring and insolvency administration) stand apart from the professional title. How to decide which groups to feature is covered in Niche instead of general store: positioning for firms. The limits of advertising are summarised in Advertising for tax advisers in Germany and in Austria.

Costs and process: what freelancers want to know before calling

“Steuerberater Freiberufler Kosten” is one of the most frequent searches in this target group. Many freelancers have a tight budget and fear a bill they cannot estimate. An honest fees page filters out unsuitable enquiries and reassures suitable clients.

• Germany: Fees follow the StBVV (Tax Advisers' Fee Regulation), for the EÜR for example § 25 StBVV. Many firms agree monthly or annual flat fees with freelancers; different fees need an agreement in text form. Say what the price depends on: number of receipts, VAT, schedules to the income tax return.
• Austria: Fees are agreed freely. A flat-fee package for people using the flat-rate scheme or for Neue Selbständige with cash-basis accounts is easy to understand and easy to compare. State clearly whether prices are gross or net.

Freelancers often arrive with a shoebox full of receipts or a half-finished spreadsheet. A downloadable document list takes away the fear of the first meeting. With the free document checklist for clients you can create such a list in a few minutes. People who were with another firm before often search for how to switch too; Switching tax adviser: what clients want to know fits that search.

Being found in a big city

Freelancers work in big cities more often than average, and competition among firms there is fierce. In Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Cologne or Vienna, Google's autocomplete shows variants such as “Steuerberater Freiberufler Hamburg” or “Steuerberater für Selbständige Wien”. You rarely beat large firms with the place alone, but often with the combination of target group and place.

• Page title: target group and place first, firm name last: “Steuerberatung für Freiberufler:innen in Hamburg | Kanzlei Krüger”.
• Google Business Profile: a fitting category, services for freelancers and industries, photos from the office, reviews from clients in the target group.
• Districts, not district pages: name your catchment area in the text (“from Ehrenfeld, Nippes and all of central Cologne”) instead of building ten nearly identical location pages.
• Highlight digital collaboration: many freelancers work location-independently. If you serve clients digitally across Germany or Austria, say so clearly, on one page rather than in every place name.

How to connect your Google profile, catchment area and location details is covered in Local SEO for law and tax firms. The full search strategy of a tax firm, from seasonal searches to AI answers, is in SEO for tax advisers.

“My target group finds me through chambers and associations”

Many firms focusing on freelancers win clients through the medical chamber, professional associations, partnerships with practice consultants or recommendations among colleagues. That stays important. But even someone who gets a recommendation looks at the website first. If all they find is “We serve businesses in every industry”, it does not match what their colleague told them. An industry page confirms the recommendation and turns a name into an appointment.

On top of that, associations and chambers reach only part of the target group. IT freelancers, creatives and coaches are rarely organised in chambers and search almost exclusively online. And talks given at associations can easily be reused as articles on the website, as described in Articles on the firm website.

Common mistakes on websites for freelancers