Note: Before booking a trip, be sure to contact your research group's secretary to ensure that expenses can be reimbursed!

1. Everybody is responsible for their own travel arrangements including visa acquisition, conference registration, travel and hotel reservations, registering a leave of absence (Freistellung) in VIS, etc.
2. Leave of absence (Freistellung) must be entered in VIS before the start of the trip and must also be approved. It is no longer possible to have leaves of absence approved retroactively. Without a leave of absence approved prior to a trip, any costs incurred will not be reimbursed.
3. Flights: for all flights, care should be taken to avoid unnecessary stopovers. A possible price saving, which can be given by the use of flight connections, is generally no longer a justifying criterion for the choice of this means of travel. If, in individual cases, the use of public transportation necessitates an overnight stay on site, this will be made possible. Likewise, for example, couchette, sleeper or night train offers can be used, which often represent a comfortable alternative to flights. Short-haul flights to places that are easily accessible by public transport will no longer be supported in the future and therefore the costs will no longer be refunded. This includes all domestic flights, all flights to Switzerland and flights with the destinations Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Venice, Milan, Turin and Genoa. In the case of required long-haul flights, necessary stopovers at these destinations are excluded from the regulation. Beginning on 01.10.2021, a climate contribution must be paid for all flights from the respective travel budget or, if necessary, from an alternative account assignment. This amounts to 10% of the flight costs for flights starting from 01.10.2021 for the first trip in the calendar year, but at least 50 euros per flight (an outward and return flight is regarded as one flight). From the second flight in the calendar year, the climate contribution is 20% of the flight costs, but at least 50 euros (one outward and return flight).
4. Train travel can/must be arranged with your research group's secretary and booked via the Business Card, or you use your own VorteilsCard if available.
5. Personal car: In principle, the University of Innsbruck assumes that the use of public transportation is possible and reasonable. However, if the use of private cars for business trips of employees is necessary, this must be justified and approved in advance by the Human Resources Department in order to be able to charge expenses later. Here, the application must always go through your research group's secretary desk. The use of rental cars is no longer an option.
6. Hotel: When booking hotels for business travel, please consider the principles of economy, expediency, and efficiency when choosing hotels. Upon presentation of the original invoice, the university will reimburse hotel costs up to the legal maximum amount; within Austria, this is a maximum of 105.00 euros per night, abroad, please refer to the applicable rate.
7. Invoices must first be paid by the employee him/herself and then submitted to your research group's secretary for reimbursement. Advances may be requested through Human Resources to process leaves of absence, please check with your research group's secretary if needed. Advances and travel expense claims will be paid once per week.
8. To take advantage of low fares, book your travel as soon as makes sense.
9. Keep all receipts. Otherwise you may end up covering undocumented expenses out of your own pocket. Information about refundability can be found in the Uni Wiki.
10. Arrange with your research group's secretary to have your expenses reimbursed immediately after your return. If you wait too long, we may not be able to reimburse your expenses at all. Please note: A booking confirmation is not an invoice, it must say Invoice or Costumer Receipt.
11. For small, daily-subsistance expenses such as food and suburban travel, we generally have the choice between itemized reimbursement and lump-sum daily allowance. Note that there is no legal entitlement to the reimbursement of travel expenses.
12. Document the reasons for your trip. This generally involves (a) sending your research group's secretary the conference URL or uploading a PDF of your invitation e-mail to VIS when registering a leave of absence (Freistellung), and (b) handing your research group's secretary a proof of attendance such as a certificate of participation or a conference badge. Furthermore provide the publication, poster or slides for future project audits in the course of billing.