Package of measures for Austria as a startup location

Austria is an attractive location for startups. Company founders benefit from extensive support services and financing options, among other things. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022, Austria ranks first internationally when it comes to financing startups.

In order to further promote innovation and the founding of startups, a comprehensive package of measures – the new startup package – is currently undergoing a formal evaluation process. It brings significant improvements and thus increases Austria’s attractiveness for company founders. The draft law envisages the creation of a new company model. The so-called flexible company (FlexKapG) is aimed at startups and innovative SMEs and leads to simplifications in terms of formal requirements and written voting or resolutions. In addition, 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 requested measure to create a legal basis for employee share ownership programs based on company and tax law, supplemented by tax relief. This is considered a crucial labor market policy initiative to retain highly qualified professionals. In this way, selected employees can receive employee share ownership in the form of company value shares in addition to their regular salary. The advantage is that this is not only offered in line with company law with few formal requirements, but also leads to significant relief in terms of duties and taxes.