Is THC legal in Austria?

25 August 2026

A flag of Austria, next to the chemical structure of THC

Situación formal

Austria treats personal use as a criminal offence but almost always diverts it, the prosecutor suspending the case for a probation period so no conviction results. Growing is only an offence where the purpose is producing narcotics, which is why seedlings can be sold openly. Medical cannabis exists as dronabinol, Sativex and nabilone, never as flower. For supplements Austria's 0.3% exemption also requires an approved hemp variety, and food authorities apply an acute reference dose.

¿Vendemos aquí?

Not at the moment.

Yes, we ship to Austria.

Austria exempts products made from approved industrial hemp varieties from its narcotics law, provided THC stays at or below 0.3 per cent throughout production and no narcotic can readily be extracted from the finished product. Our third-party batch testing sits comfortably below that figure.

Austrian food authorities apply a second and stricter test, an acute reference dose measured per daily serving rather than as a percentage. It applies to any food containing THC, and it is the constraint we design around. You can see what each batch actually tested at on our batch testing page.

Our CBD page for Austria sets out the fuller country picture.

Perspectivas

Austria's industrial hemp exemption has been in place since 2017 and there is no sign of it being narrowed. The part of it worth watching is not the percentage but the variety condition, which is the limb Austrian prosecutions have actually turned on.

The food-side acute reference dose is the more active constraint, because it applies whatever a product's novel-food status and because it is assessed per daily dose rather than per gram. Austrian assessments have noted that a capsule can carry more extract than an equivalent number of drops, so the same formula can be treated differently in different presentations.

For the new food law described above, the question we are watching is where Austria draws the “customary” line in its food codex, since that is what determines whether it reaches a trace-THC hemp extract at all.

Timeline

October 2017

An amendment to the Narcotic Substances Ordinance inserts the industrial-hemp exemption: products of listed hemp varieties are exempt where THC does not exceed 0.3% before, during and after processing and no narcotic can easily or economically be extracted from them.

BGBl. II Nr. 292/2017

August 2021

Styrian authorities report a multi-year narcotics operation against four hemp shops and three CBD-flower production sites: 159 house searches, ten arrests and around 90 customers searched, on the ground that non-approved hemp varieties fell outside the statutory industrial-hemp exemption.

ORF Steiermark (report date; individual raid dates not stated)

September 2024

A joint customs, consumer-health and food-safety control action at the Vienna postal distribution centre examines 50 parcels of food supplements ordered from outside the EU; 44% were objected to and 21 were unauthorised novel foods, returned to sender under customs supervision with no penalty on the recipient.

BMF / BAVG / AGES press release

April 2025

The Burgenland Administrative Court quashes a food-law marketing ban for want of competence, holding that website disease claims made the products medicinal by presentation, and records the acute reference dose for THC and a provisional daily intake figure for CBD as applying independently of novel-food status.

Landesverwaltungsgericht Burgenland, E 156/02/2020.001/063

September 2025

The health ministry publishes its foreign-webshop control figures for 2024: 150 controls with a 62% objection rate, including 77 food supplements checked and 40 objected to, under a federal programme that expressly claims competence over sellers established in other EU and EEA states.

BMSGPK, Internetkontrolle (Stand 01.09.2025)

July 2026

Austria enacts a statutory ban on non-customary psychoactive substances in foods, with internet advertising and website-shutdown powers (BGBl. I Nr. 75/2026; in force 1 September 2026)

Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, BGBl. I Nr. 75/2026, ausgegeben am 29. Juli 2026

Ingredientes

Consultar la legalidad de nuestros otros ingredientes en Austria.