Trade sector · July 2026
High density, but regular movement — slots keep opening up. 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 Taxi 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 taxi trade is a licensed trade requiring a concession under the Gelegenheitsverkehrs-Gesetz (GelVG) — not simply a trade under the GewO, but a concession allocated by the authorities. In Vienna, the Wiener Taxi-, Mietwagen- und Gästewagengesetz applies on top of this. Requirements: a category B driving licence with 2 years of practical experience + a taxi-driver examination (topography, law, tariffs) + a police clearance certificate + a health certificate + economic and professional reliability.
Around 4,300 active concessions are registered in Vienna — the single-car variant (gs=220301), with 10,900 licences across the country, is the typical entry-level form. The market dynamics were completely overturned by the 2020 amendment to the GelVG and the integration of the hire-car segment (formerly the legal grey area occupied by UBER). Since then, uniform tariffs and taxi-rank rules have been in force — with measurable effects on prices and order volume.
The taxi business is extremely seasonal: summer (tourism) and December (Christmas and New Year's Eve trips) are the peaks. Friday and Saturday from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. are the highest-revenue time windows (nightlife traffic). Anyone registering as a newcomer should start on the weekend/night shift — competition is densest there, but so is the return per trip.
Since the 2020 amendment to the GelVG, all passenger transport services must operate under the same tariff. Uber, Bolt & co. are today platform intermediaries for classic taxi concession holders. The platforms take 15-25 % commission on the fare — a concession holder who works ONLY through platforms structurally has a lower contribution margin than someone with their own customer base.
Classic taxi ranks in Vienna are expensive (radio-dispatch centres such as Taxi 40100 or 31300 charge monthly fees, often 200-400 €). Anyone who does not want to rely on taxi ranks is dependent on app customers — and pays platform commission. A model based purely on your own customer base only realistically becomes established after 2-3 years.
Taxi suitability regulation (Taxi-Tauglichkeits-Verordnung): the vehicle must be no more than 6 years old, of certain vehicle classes, with an approved taximeter. A newer used car costs 15-25k €. At a typical 30-40k km/year and 8 €/100 km for diesel = 2,500-3,500 € in fuel + insurance + maintenance. An economically viable turnover is around 40-50k €/year — which is harder to reach than novice drivers often assume.
Licensed trade requiring a concession under the GelVG + the Vienna Taxi Act (Wiener Taxigesetz). Gewerbeschlüssel 220301 (single-car variant). Tariffs and regulations: City of Vienna taxi regulations.
Insider analysis · Vienna
The typical active business in Vienna is 8 years old (median). 25 % are younger than 3 years, 24 % older than 20 years. Dominant legal form: 71.1 % sole proprietors.
Distribution of age in years across all 4,336 active locations. Median 8 years · P10–P90 1–34 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 “Taxi” — 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salzburg → | 1,294 | 22.6 | Very high | Active market | -1.8 % |
| Wien(here) | 4,336 | 21.2 | Very high | Active market | +0.1 % |
| Tirol → | 1,073 | 13.8 | High | Active market | +1.7 % |
| Steiermark → | 1,174 | 9.2 | High | Active market | -0.5 % |
| Oberösterreich → | 1,119 | 7.3 | Medium | Shrinking, volatile | -3.5 % |
| Kärnten → | 411 | 7.2 | Medium | Active market | -1.7 % |
| Niederösterreich → | 1,136 | 6.6 | Low | Shrinking, volatile | -4.3 % |
| Burgenland → | 183 | 6.1 | Low | Active market | +0.6 % |
| Vorarlberg → | 161 | 3.9 | Low | Active market | +0.0 % |
Sorted by Taxi 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1110 | Simmering | 361 | 0 | 112,149 | 32.2 | Very high | rising +1.7 % |
| 1100 | Favoriten | 647 | 0 | 223,190 | 29.0 | Very high | falling -0.8 % |
| 1230 | Liesing | 353 | 0 | 123,714 | 28.5 | Very high | rising +10.7 % |
| 1200 | Brigittenau | 242 | 0 | 86,950 | 27.8 | Very high | falling -4.7 % |
| 1120 | Meidling | 271 | 0 | 102,393 | 26.5 | Very high | rising +1.9 % |
| 1210 | Floridsdorf | 476 | 0 | 189,551 | 25.1 | High | falling -1.9 % |
| 1220 | Donaustadt | 520 | 0 | 228,158 | 22.8 | High | rising +3.4 % |
| 1010 | Innere Stadt | 37 | 0 | 16,281 | 22.7 | High | falling -7.5 % |
| 1160 | Ottakring | 228 | 0 | 102,727 | 22.2 | High | rising +1.8 % |
| 1150 | Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus | 160 | 0 | 75,902 | 21.1 | High | falling -1.2 % |
| 1020 | Leopoldstadt | 211 | 0 | 112,675 | 18.7 | High | falling -4.5 % |
| 1050 | Margareten | 87 | 0 | 54,581 | 15.9 | Medium | falling -5.4 % |
| 1190 | Döbling | 118 | 0 | 76,074 | 15.5 | Medium | rising +6.3 % |
| 1140 | Penzing | 153 | 0 | 99,049 | 15.4 | Medium | rising +1.3 % |
| 1030 | Landstraße | 147 | 0 | 98,881 | 14.9 | Medium | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1170 | Hernals | 82 | 0 | 56,767 | 14.4 | Medium | falling -6.8 % |
| 1040 | Wieden | 45 | 0 | 33,444 | 13.5 | Medium | rising +4.7 % |
| 1130 | Hietzing | 57 | 0 | 56,108 | 10.2 | Low | falling -1.7 % |
| 1060 | Mariahilf | 31 | 0 | 31,083 | 10.0 | Low | falling -11.4 % |
| 1070 | Neubau | 30 | 0 | 31,330 | 9.6 | Low | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1180 | Währing | 45 | 0 | 51,376 | 8.8 | Low | falling -19.6 % |
| 1080 | Josefstadt | 17 | 0 | 24,242 | 7.0 | Low | falling -15.0 % |
| 1090 | Alsergrund | 18 | 0 | 41,664 | 4.3 | Low | falling -10.0 % |
Lic. vs. OSM: GISA also counts mobile or home-based businesses without a shop; OSM shows only those with a visible address. Vienna total: 4,336 licensed vs. ~0 in OSM (0 with postcode, 0 without).
Quick answers to the typical questions about Taxi 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.