Package of measures for Startup Location Austria

Austria is an attractive location for startups. Company founders benefit from extensive support services and funding, amongst other advantages. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022, Austria is ranked first in an international comparison when it comes to startup funding.

In order to further promote innovation and the founding of startups, a comprehensive package of measures - the new Startup Package - is currently being subject to a formal evaluation procedure. It brings significant improvements and thus strengthens Austria’s attractiveness for startup founders. The draft legislation stipulates the creation of a new type of corporation. The so-called flexible corporation (German: “Flexible Kapitalgesellschaft” or FlexKapG) targets startups as well as innovative SMEs and leads to simplifications with respect to formalities and written voting or circular resolutions. Furthermore, entrepreneurship is promoted by reducing the minimum share capital to € 10,000 for limited liability companies (GmbHs) and for the FlexKapG.

Another important step is the frequently demanded measure of establishing a legal foundation for employee participation programmes based on corporate and tax law and complemented by tax relief. This is considered to be a crucial labour market initiative to retain highly qualified skilled workers. In this way, selected employees can receive employee stock options in the form of enterprise value shares in addition to their regular salaries. The advantage is that this will not only be offered in line with company law with few formal requirements, but also result in substantial relief with regard to duties and taxes.

Learn more about startup-founding in Austria

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From research to practical application: Quantum technology in Austria

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From ambitious startups to extensive government funding programmes: Austria is a promising business location for innovative companies and investors in the field of quantum technology. This enables progress and sustainable growth, a fact which is also demonstrated by successful young companies such as ParityQC, qtlabs and planqc.