The Austrian Company Register (Firmenbuch)
what it holds, how to search it, how to read an extract

"Austrian company register", "Austrian commercial register" and "Austrian corporate registry" are three English names for one thing: the Firmenbuch. Its statutory purpose is the recording and disclosure of facts that must be entered under the Commercial Code or another statute (FBG § 1 Abs. 2). The Hauptbuch holds the entries; the Urkundensammlung holds the documents behind them, each filed only once (FBG § 12). It absorbed the former Genossenschaftsregister too.

That is why a counterparty asks for an extract. A fact that should be registered and is not cannot be held against a third party unless he knew it; once entered, he must accept it, except for acts within 15 days where he proves he neither knew nor had to know (UGB § 15).

It is not the German Handelsregister. To set a company up rather than look one up, start with company registration in austria.

FBG § 3 fixes what is entered for every registered entity, and the rows in bold are the ones a non-resident should read twice. Fourteen kinds of entity are registrable, the FlexKapG (FlexCo) among them at Z 5a, and the austrian company law guide compares them.

The sentence non-residents are most often surprised by: Austrian GmbH shareholding is public at the level of the individual shareholder. Name, date of birth, the amount subscribed and the amount paid in are register entries, readable by anyone for EUR 4.89. Settle the holding structure before the articles are signed: gmbh in austria.

1. What a GmbH entry adds. The Stammkapital, every shareholder by name and date of birth, each Stammeinlage and the payments on it, the supervisory board, and the directors with their powers (GmbHG § 11).

2. The founding privilege is visible too. Where GmbHG § 10b is used, that fact and the privileged contributions are entered.

3. A FlexCo is the one exception, and only in part. Holders of Unternehmenswert-Anteile are by express derogation not entered individually: the register shows the class and the sum, and the directors keep a separate Anteilsbuch (FlexKapGG § 9 Abs. 6 and 7). Ordinary FlexCo shareholders are entered like a GmbH's.

Search engines confuse these three, and so do most English pages. A fourth turns up on the same searches: the financial regulator's list of authorised entities, a supervision register and not a company one, where a crypto license austria cost claim is checked.

These are court fees fixed by statute, and they changed on 1 August 2026: most English pages still print the set superseded on 31 July. Query fees follow Gerichtsgebührengesetz Tarifpost 10 Z IV, and a billing agency adds its approved surcharge.

For orientation only. A different tariff, and the formation cost picture belongs to the formation pages.

Every line below is a statutory entry, with the German term, what it means and its paragraph. Deleted entries are marked and stay retrievable (FBG § 31) but appear only on request (FBG § 33 Abs. 4), which is what the dearer historical extract buys; every entry names the court decision behind it and its execution date (FBG § 32).

The statutory rule is thinner than people expect. FBG § 30 says only that each entity is kept under a running number (fortlaufende Nummer), and nothing about digits or letters. The format comes from the government portal instead: a number "die aus maximal sechs Ziffern und einem Prüfbuchstaben besteht", at most six digits plus one check letter. No official source publishes how that check letter is derived, so this page publishes no validation rule and does not present it as a requirement of FBG § 30. It is a different thing from the check digit in an Austrian VAT number, whose construction rule the Ministry of Finance does publish.

1. What the FN is. A register entry in its own right (FBG § 3 Abs. 1 Z 1), also in the free short information, and the primary search key.

2. What the FN is not. Not a tax identifier: neither the Steuernummer nor the UID. Nor the only identifier on the extract, which carries the EUID and the OeNB number too.

3. The old numbers still work. HRA, HRB and GEN numbers remain valid search terms.

A downloaded PDF checks a counterparty. It is often not enough to open an account or file abroad.

• The certified extract, beglaubigter Firmenbuchauszug. The public document about the register's state, from the Landesgericht or a notary.
• The electronic equivalent, the signierter Stichtagsauszug. It must be certified, the certification being the judiciary's signature confirming it matches the stored data (FBG § 34 Abs. 1a).
• A notary. Must keep the means for register queries, grant anyone inspection, and may certify extracts at the court's fees (FBG § 35).
• At the court itself. Inspection by printouts, with short oral information on request; every court named in JN § 120 grants extracts (FBG § 33).

• A court confirmation, for proving a negative. That no further entry exists, or that one was not made, is proved by court confirmation, not by an extract (UGB § 9 Abs. 3).
• Something in English. The Firmenbuch extract is German; the GISA extract is natively English and officially signed, with the trade wording untranslated.

A bank usually wants the certified or signed extract with the articles from the document collection: how to open a business bank account in Austria as a foreigner. This page states no apostille rule as law: none was read in an official source, and a receiving authority abroad may require one.

This is why an unreachable registered address is not merely inconvenient. A Scheinunternehmen, a bogus business, is one directed primarily at cutting wage levies, contributions or pay claims, at registering people for social insurance so they can draw benefits without taking up work, or at documents that feign or conceal a transaction (SBBG § 8 Abs. 1).

Two of the statutory indications of suspicion are about the register entry itself: that people of the kind the stated business implies cannot be found at the business address entered in the Firmenbuch, and that personal contact cannot be established through that address (§ 8 Abs. 3 Z 2 and Z 3). The paragraph adds false documents, missing resources or staff, and risk-analysis anomalies under ASVG § 42b.

So the für Zustellungen maßgebliche Geschäftsanschrift is not a formality. An address nobody answers is an arrangement the statute lists as an indicator; the lawful version is a real address and a representative who acts: the nominee director guide.

1. Who decides, and how little time you get. The Amt für Betrugsbekämpfung investigates and notifies the suspicion in writing. The objection window is one week, and only the entity or its organ representative may lodge it, in person.

2. Where the finding travels. To the cooperation bodies, the trade authority and the Auftragnehmerkataster Österreich, and onto a Finance Ministry list carrying the FN, UID and address.

3. The register entry is made by the court of its own motion. The Firmenbuch court makes or deletes the Z 15a entry ex officio (§ 8 Abs. 11), and for a corporation the office may apply to have it struck off for lack of assets (FBG § 40).

4. The bank consequence, which arrives fastest. A bank may be ordered not to execute money transactions for at most 30 days, extendable to 90; an appeal has no suspensive effect (SBBG § 8a).

The official tools, in the order most readers need them. No reseller is named on this page.

• The register search, with the query routes, the fee table and the official list of billing agencies: justiz.gv.at, Firmenbuchabfrage.
• What the register is and records, in German: usp.gv.at, Firmenbuch.
• The trade licence register, free and in English: GISA queries.
• The beneficial owner register, WiEReG, on proof of a legitimate interest.
• The EU-wide company search, the European e-Justice Portal. Named and not linked: it refused an automated request on 17 September 2026.
• The statutes, each paragraph above linking to its own RIS open-data document.

Where a figure is not published officially this page says so rather than estimating: no processing time, no check-letter formula, no company count.

A registered address that receives post. The seat and the service address are different register fields: business address vienna.

The extract your bank will accept. Account opening turns on documents, not on the search: how to open a business bank account in Austria as a foreigner.