Starting a business in Austria

Your overview for foreign founders: choosing a legal form, trade license, commercial register, tax office and social insurance.

1. Why Austria?

As an EU member, Austria offers access to the single market of over 440 million consumers, strong legal certainty and a well-developed public start-up network (WKO, BMAW, USP.gv.at). For foreign founders, the key points are usually not incorporation itself but residence permits, language requirements and the right choice of legal form.

2. Who can start a business?

EU/EEA/Switzerland: full freedom of establishment and trade.
Third-country nationals: need a matching residence permit. For self-employed activity the Red-White-Red Card for self-employed key workers is the core instrument.
Students / beneficiaries of protection / family members: may pursue self-employment with partial or full access, depending on permit.

3. The five steps of every founding

Business idea & legal form: sole proprietorship, OG, KG, GmbH, FlexKapG, AG or GesbR — each with different capital, liability and accounting requirements.
Trade registration (Gewerbeanmeldung): with the district authority (Bezirkshauptmannschaft / Magistrat) — free or regulated trades.
Commercial register (Firmenbuch): mandatory for all capital companies and registrable partnerships, done through a notary.
Tax office: obtain tax number and VAT ID via FinanzOnline (forms Verf 24 / Verf 26).
Social insurance (SVS): register with the social insurance for the self-employed — compulsory from the first revenue.

4. Legal forms at a glance

Legal form	Minimum capital	Liability	Commercial register
Sole proprietorship	none	unlimited personal	optional
OG	none	fully joint and several	mandatory
KG	none	general partner full, limited partner capped	mandatory
GmbH	€35,000 (from 2024 €10,000 possible)	limited to capital	mandatory
FlexKapG	€10,000	limited to capital	mandatory
AG	€70,000	limited to share capital	mandatory
GesbR	none	fully joint and several	no

5. Detailed guides per legal form

We have prepared a full step-by-step guide for every legal form commonly used in Austria. Each guide covers founding costs, authority workflow, template documents and tax notes and is available in the premium area:

6. Common founding mistakes

Registering a trade without checking whether it is free or regulated (proof of qualification!).
Choosing a GmbH when a sole proprietorship would suffice — high running costs and mandatory bookkeeping.
Late registration with SVS resulting in penalty surcharges.
Failing to request a VAT ID despite EU-wide services.
No clean separation of private and business bank accounts.