Trade sector · July 2026
Below-average density and tangible market movement — a favourable combination. Density, 13-month trend and market movement for every federal state and 23 Vienna districts — recomputed monthly.
Active locations in Vienna
Shortest path to a decision: the three districts with the lowest number of Bäcker businesses per 10,000 inhabitants — on paper the largest market gaps in Vienna (for population ≥ 20,000).
Note: low density is a signal, not a guarantee. Combine it with the market movement above and the OSM visibility below before you commit.
The stock is holding steady since May 2025 (post-break baseline) — under 2 % net change. That does not automatically mean “no interest”: if market movement (churn index) is high at the same time, there is active turnover within an overall stable count.
Method change May 2025. Before May 2025 the figures come from the annual report (reference-date based), from May 2025 on from the monthly OgdAufrechteGewerbeberechtigung snapshots. The two sources count slightly differently — hence the visible break between April and May 2025. For the churn indicator we use only the clean May-2025-plus window, so the calculation is not distorted by the method jump.
Seasonal fluctuations. Smaller month-to-month movements are normal — trade licences are issued in bursts (month turns, quarter ends) and deregistered (often at year ends). A single month at +5 or −3 is not a trend break.
What a line does not show. The stock is a stock, not a flow. 500 active trade licences at a steady monthly stock can mean: (a) 500 dormant businesses with no movement, or (b) 480 stable plus 20 deregistering this month and 20 newly registering. The churn indicator measures exactly that difference — the curve does not show it.
Why we don't go back further. The GISA dataset only exists in structured form from 2018, before that only as non-anonymised internal data. Annual reports from 2019 could theoretically be integrated — that is a planned expansion. Currently: monthly snapshots since March 2025.
Context
The bakery trade is in retreat across Austria — in six of nine Bundesländer the number of businesses is shrinking on a net basis, and only Salzburg and Wien are holding steady. The combination of sales-volume pressure from supermarket bakeries, rising energy costs, and the labour shortage in the traditional craft makes new ventures difficult.
At the same time, there is a clear trend toward specialisation: organic wholegrain, sourdough, gluten-free, vegan. Anyone planning a classic corner bakery shop is fighting against market economics. Anyone building a micro-brand in a niche can certainly grow — but the data only reflects the sector as a whole.
The Christmas season and Easter are the main revenue drivers. New openings shortly before Advent (October/November) start with the best possible six-week window. An opening in summer is the worst timing for a classic bakery — holiday period, little passing trade.
The GISA figures mix classic master-baker businesses with bake-shop operators (who often only finish-bake convenience baked goods). Gewerbeschlüssel 301 captures both, which inflates the absolute numbers. For assessing a market gap, this means: a district that appears to have many bakeries may in reality only have branches of a single chain.
A classic bakery runs from 3 a.m. Under the collective agreement, the staff surcharge turns every hour between 23:00 and 06:00 into a plus-50% hour. Labour costs are therefore well above the restaurant average. Anyone who underestimates these surcharges in their business plan will run into trouble by month 6.
Flour, butter, sugar, and above all energy fluctuate by 15–30 % year to year — without selling prices immediately following suit. A bakery needs 12 months of capacity for raw-material prepayments and an annual price review of its product range.
Regulated craft under GewO § 94 Z 3. Gewerbeschlüssel 301 according to GISA.
Insider analysis · Vienna
The typical active business in Vienna is 5 years old (median). 33 % are younger than 3 years, 16 % older than 20 years. Dominant legal form: 70.3 % registered companies.
Distribution of age in years across all 155 active locations. Median 5 years · P10–P90 1–28 years.
Bars = number of businesses per age-year bucket. Highlighted bar = median age. Small buckets under 5 businesses are suppressed as "·" (GDPR minimum cell size against re-identification).
When were the currently active businesses founded?
Solo (natural person) vs. registered company (GmbH, OG, KG, AG).
The higher the Gini index, the more the sector concentrates in a few postal-code areas. 0 = evenly distributed, 1 = everything in a single postal-code area. Vienna has 23 districts, which split into several postal-code areas.
Complementary signal
Our data shows how many businesses exist. Google Trends adds how often people search for “Bäcker” — the demand side. Together you see whether a market is constrained by supply or by demand.
Google Trends is a free third-party tool. We store nothing and pass no data on — the link opens directly on trends.google.com in a new tab.
Each dot is a trade sector. Left = lower density per 10,000 residents, top = more movement (registrations and deregistrations over the last 11 months).
Density per 10,000 inhabitants plus market dynamics over the last 11 months. Sorted by density, descending.
| Federal state | Locations | per 10k | Density | Market dynamics | net 11 mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oberösterreich → | 338 | 2.2 | Very high | Shrinking, volatile | -2.0 % |
| Salzburg → | 115 | 2.0 | Very high | Shrinking, volatile | -3.4 % |
| Burgenland → | 54 | 1.8 | High | Active market | +0.0 % |
| Vorarlberg → | 69 | 1.7 | High | Shrinking, volatile | -2.8 % |
| Tirol → | 126 | 1.6 | Medium | Shrinking, volatile | -2.3 % |
| Niederösterreich → | 277 | 1.6 | Medium | Active market | -1.4 % |
| Kärnten → | 82 | 1.4 | Low | Active market | -1.2 % |
| Steiermark → | 166 | 1.3 | Low | Shrinking, volatile | -2.4 % |
| Wien(here) | 155 | 0.8 | Low | Active market | +0.0 % |
Sorted by Bäcker density per 10,000 inhabitants, descending. “Licensed” = GISA trade licences, “OSM” = shop addresses visible in OpenStreetMap, “since May 25” = district net delta post method break (clean signal, without the May-2025 jump).
| Postcode | District | Lic. | OSM | Inh. | per 10k | Density | since May 25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1010 | Innere Stadt | 4 | 28 | 16,281 | 2.5 | Very high | falling -20.0 % |
| 1200 | Brigittenau | 15 | 8 | 86,950 | 1.7 | Very high | rising +7.1 % |
| 1170 | Hernals | 9 | 10 | 56,767 | 1.6 | Very high | rising +28.6 % |
| 1150 | Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus | 11 | 5 | 75,902 | 1.4 | Very high | falling -8.3 % |
| 1100 | Favoriten | 25 | 26 | 223,190 | 1.1 | Very high | rising +4.2 % |
| 1050 | Margareten | 6 | 12 | 54,581 | 1.1 | High | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1160 | Ottakring | 10 | 14 | 102,727 | 1.0 | High | falling -28.6 % |
| 1120 | Meidling | 9 | 10 | 102,393 | 0.9 | High | rising +50.0 % |
| 1110 | Simmering | 9 | 13 | 112,149 | 0.8 | High | falling -18.2 % |
| 1180 | Währing | 4 | 11 | 51,376 | 0.8 | High | rising +33.3 % |
| 1020 | Leopoldstadt | 8 | 22 | 112,675 | 0.7 | Medium | falling -11.1 % |
| 1140 | Penzing | 7 | 9 | 99,049 | 0.7 | Medium | falling -12.5 % |
| 1060 | Mariahilf | 2 | 10 | 31,083 | 0.6 | Medium | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1070 | Neubau | 2 | 10 | 31,330 | 0.6 | Medium | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1030 | Landstraße | 6 | 23 | 98,881 | 0.6 | Medium | rising +20.0 % |
| 1230 | Liesing | 7 | 14 | 123,714 | 0.6 | Low | rising +16.7 % |
| 1220 | Donaustadt | 10 | 19 | 228,158 | 0.4 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1130 | Hietzing | 2 | 12 | 56,108 | 0.4 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1210 | Floridsdorf | 6 | 14 | 189,551 | 0.3 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1190 | Döbling | 2 | 10 | 76,074 | 0.3 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1090 | Alsergrund | 1 | 15 | 41,664 | 0.2 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
Lic. vs. OSM: GISA also counts mobile or home-based businesses without a shop; OSM shows only those with a visible address. Vienna total: 155 licensed vs. ~564 in OSM (313 with postcode, 251 without).
Quick answers to the typical questions about Bäcker in Austria.
Optional · if you need more
Everything you see here stays freely accessible — always current, always verifiable. But if you need these figures for your business plan, the bank or your own bookkeeping, there is the Pro Report: a complete PDF report to save, an Excel export of the raw data, 12 months of automatic updates.