Is CBD legal in Austria?

Formal status

Across the EU, CBD is classified as an unauthorised novel food under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, and no Union list authorisation exists in any member state. In February 2026 EFSA set a provisional safe intake level of roughly 2 mg per day for a 70 kg adult; that is a safety opinion, not an authorisation.

Austria does not control CBD as a narcotic. Neither cannabidiol nor cannabinol appears anywhere in Austrian federal law, and the Narcotic Substances Ordinance carries an express exemption for products of listed industrial hemp varieties. The health ministry confirmed in October 2018 that CBD in pure substance is not defined as a narcotic in Austria.

What Austria does prohibit is selling it as food. A ministry circular of 4 December 2018 instructed the provincial food authorities that cannabinoid-containing extracts placed on the market in foods, and in food supplements in particular, are unauthorised novel foods, and that placing them on the market is therefore not permissible. That circular is guidance rather than legislation, and Austrian courts have held expressly that they are not bound by it; the legal work is done by Article 6(2) of the novel food regulation together with the marketing-prohibition powers in the Austrian food safety act. The food safety agency restated the same position in November 2025.

Two further Austrian tests apply to a cannabinoid food independently of its novel-food status: an acute reference dose for THC of 1 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day, and a provisional acceptable daily intake for CBD of 10 mg per day. Both are applied by the food safety agency and were endorsed by an administrative court in April 2025.

Do we sell here?

Yes, for now: Sleep spray, Sleep capsules.

Yes, we ship to Austria, and we would rather set out the position than tidy it.

Austria does not treat CBD as a narcotic. Cannabidiol appears nowhere in Austrian narcotics law, and the health ministry has said so in writing. What Austria does say is that cannabinoid extracts in food are unauthorised novel foods and should not be placed on the market, a position set out in a 2018 ministry circular and repeated by the food safety agency as recently as November 2025. That is the same EU-wide novel food question that applies in every country we ship to; no company anywhere in the EU holds the authorisation that would settle it.

Austrian enforcement of that position is real and thorough, and it has consistently been directed at businesses selling from within Austria. We found no Austrian measure binding a seller established in another member state.

One thing specific to Austria we would rather you heard from us: Austria has rules on receiving medicinal goods ordered from a distance, and they turn on how a product is classified for customs rather than on what is in it. We do not believe a 1 mg melatonin sleep product falls within them, and every published case we found involved much stronger products sent from outside the EU. We are watching it, and if that changes you will read it here first.

Outlook

Austria's position on cannabinoid foods has been stable since 2018 and was restated by the food safety agency in November 2025, so the food-law picture is unlikely to move on its own. An EU novel food authorisation would resolve it directly, and Austria applies the novel food regulation as written, so no separate national step would be needed.

Two things are worth watching. Austrian courts twice in 2025 moved cannabinoid products out of food law and into medicines law on the strength of claims made on a seller's website rather than on the packaging, which makes how a product is described more consequential in Austria than the formula itself. And Austria's rules on receiving medicinal goods ordered from a distance are keyed to a customs classification rather than to its medicines act, so how a low-concentration cannabinoid product is classified at the border is a live question we are following.

Timeline

October 2018

Austria's health ministry publishes its information note on hemp and CBD products, stating that CBD in pure substance is not defined as a narcotic in Austria and that compliant industrial-hemp products fall outside narcotics law.

BMASGK, Information GZ BMASGK-22710/0006-IX/17/2018

December 2018

Health ministry circular to the provincial food authorities holds that cannabinoid-containing extracts in food are unauthorised novel foods and that placing them on the market is not permissible, while instructing authorities to advise operators before penalising them.

BMASGK Erlass GZ BMASGK-75100/0020-IX/B/16a/2018

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)

April 2023

Ministerial answer to a parliamentary question discloses that AGES examined 186 CBD samples between 2018 and 2022 with objections in almost every case, on grounds of novel-food status, safety and misleading labelling, while showing far fewer completed penalties than objections.

Anfragebeantwortung 13642/AB, Austrian Parliament

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

December 2024

The Administrative Court holds that the designation "CBD" on a refill container, together with package-leaflet statements, is an impermissible element suggesting a health benefit under Austrian tobacco and non-smoker protection law.

Verwaltungsgerichtshof, Ra 2022/11/0058

December 2024

The Vienna Administrative Court classifies imported CBD oils as goods of customs tariff position 3004, bringing them within the Medicinal Goods Import Act, under which a private consumer may not receive distance-ordered medicinal goods.

Verwaltungsgericht Wien, VGW-001/016/12729/2024

March 2025

The Tyrol Administrative Court upholds an order requiring immediate cessation of marketing a CBD-containing hemp oil, and expressly rejects reliance on the Court of Justice's Kanavape judgment as inapplicable to the novel-food question.

Landesverwaltungsgericht Tirol, LVwG-2024/44/2077-5

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)

November 2025

The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety updates its CBD page, repeating the 2018 position that cannabinoid extracts in food are unauthorised novel foods and may not be placed on the market.

AGES