Is CBN legal in Austria?

Formal status

Across the EU, CBN is treated the same way as CBD: cannabinoid-containing extracts of Cannabis sativa are unauthorised novel foods under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, and no Union list authorisation exists in any member state.

Cannabinol is not controlled in Austria. A full-text search of the consolidated Austrian federal statute book returns no occurrence of Cannabinol at all, and the Narcotic Substances Ordinance carries an express exemption for products of listed industrial hemp varieties.

Austria's food-law restriction reaches CBN directly rather than by inference. The health ministry circular of 4 December 2018 is titled as an instruction on the classification of cannabidiol and other cannabinoids in foods, and holds that cannabinoid-containing extracts placed on the market in foods, and in food supplements in particular, are unauthorised novel foods that may not be placed on the market. The circular is ministerial guidance rather than legislation, and Austrian courts have said expressly that they are not bound by it; the operative instruments are Article 6(2) of the novel food regulation and the marketing-prohibition powers in the Austrian food safety act. The food safety agency restated the position in November 2025.

Do we sell here?

Yes, for now: Sleep spray, Sleep capsules.

Yes, we ship to Austria.

Cannabinol is not a controlled substance in Austria. It appears nowhere in Austrian narcotics law. What applies to it is the same EU-wide novel food question that applies to CBD: Austria holds that cannabinoid extracts in food are unauthorised novel foods and should not be placed on the market, and it said so in a 2018 ministry circular that names cannabidiol and other cannabinoids together.

No company anywhere in the EU holds the authorisation that would settle that question, so it is the baseline everywhere we sell rather than something particular to Austria. Austrian enforcement of it has been directed at businesses selling from within Austria, and we found no Austrian measure binding a seller established in another member state.

Our CBD page for Austria sets out the fuller country picture, including one Austrian rule on distance-ordered goods that we are watching.

Outlook

Nothing in Austrian law singles CBN out, and nothing suggests it is about to. Its position follows the extract it arrives in, so the thing to watch is the EU novel food picture rather than anything Austrian.

The more consequential Austrian development is not about cannabinoids at all: courts here have started moving cannabinoid products out of food law and into medicines law on the strength of claims made on a seller's website. In Austria, how a product is described matters at least as much as what is in it.

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 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