Salient carbon dividends are not enough to generate widespread support for carbon pricing in Austria

Carbon dividends have been proposed as a mechanism to build public support for carbon pricing, yet evidence from real-world policy settings with highly visible dividend designs remains absent. We study the Austrian Klimabonus, a carbon dividend with highly visible features paying every adult resident an annual lump-sum transfer of €145 – €290. This manuscript presents results from two large and preregistered studies ($N$= 2,628) with representative samples of the Austrian population, investigating support for carbon pricing before and after the Klimabonus’ abolition in 2025, including two real-life measures of support. Despite three years of branded, direct payments, Study 1 showed that the baseline awareness of carbon tax revenues being returned to citizens remained very low (14\%), and only 20–30\% of residents supported the carbon price while dividends were in place. Two information treatments explaining the tax and its efficiency or additionally linking the carbon tax to the dividend had limited effects on support. Study 2 revealed that one year after the abolition of the Klimabonus, general support remained mostly stable compared to support when the dividend was in place. Concurrently, only 33.6\% of residents knew that the tax revenue was now used for the general budget, and up to 25\% incorrectly believed they had received the Klimabonus in 2025. These findings suggest that the low support for carbon pricing with dividends previously reported in the literature might not have been an artifact of low dividend salience. Additional analyses point to the relevance of willingness to drive less and political views as determinants of support for carbon pricing.