Data-center law in Austria

EEffG Sec. 72a, BGBl. I Nr. 59/2023 as amended

Effective 2024-04-18 · Applies to both

Section 72a(1) obliges the owner and the operator of a data centre with at least 500 kilowatts of installed electrical capacity for information technology to publish, from 15 May 2024 and every year after by 15 May, and to keep current, the minimum information Section 72a(3) lists, except information covered by a confidentiality duty or a trade or business secret.

Section 72a(2) exempts a data centre used solely for national defence or for population protection, including civil and disaster protection.

Section 72a(3) requires publication of the data centre's name, owner, operator, commissioning date and municipality; its floor area, installed capacity, annual incoming and outgoing data traffic and the volume of data it stores and processes; its efficiency over the last full calendar year against key indicators including energy consumption, power usage, temperature setpoints, waste-heat use, water consumption and renewable-energy use; and any further information a delegated act under Article 33(3) of Directive (EU) 2023/1791 requires.

The term 'data centre' is defined at Section 37 Z 33 as a structure or group of structures used to house, network and run computer systems or servers and associated equipment for storing, processing or distributing data, and related activities, following Annex A point 2.6.3.1.16 of Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 on energy statistics.

Source: Full text of law

EEffG Sec. 41-42, BGBl. I Nr. 59/2023 as amended

Effective 2023-06-15 · Applies to private

Section 41(1) obliges an enterprise established in Austria to carry out an energy audit or set up a recognised management system if it is a large enterprise, if it crosses the size thresholds the Act sets, or if it forms part of a corporate group whose combined figures cross those thresholds. Enterprises more than half owned by, or owning more than half of, another enterprise are aggregated for this test.

Section 42(1) lets the obligated enterprise satisfy the duty by an energy audit at least once every four years, carried out by a certified energy auditor, or by a certified energy-management or environmental-management system built on a recognised standard; Section 42(2) requires either route to meet the minimum requirements the Act's Annex 1 sets.

A data-centre operator that meets Section 41's thresholds is bound by this audit or management-system duty the same as any other large enterprise, regardless of its sector.

Source: Full text of law

ElWG Sec. 95, BGBl. I Nr. 91/2025

Effective 2025-12-24 · Applies to both

Section 95(1) obliges a distribution network operator to conclude a private-law connection contract with end customers, energy-storage operators, generators and other network operators; the contract is governed by the general network conditions set under Section 93.

Section 95(2) obliges the operator to connect a facility without delay at a suitable point, and the obligation holds even where feeding in or drawing power first becomes possible only once the operator optimises, reinforces or expands its network, which the operator must then do without delay.

Section 95(3) confines exceptions from the connection obligation to a substantiated safety concern or a technical incompatibility of the system components, and requires the operator to give the applicant a transparent, traceable reason for any refusal. Section 95 replaced the equivalent connection duty in the former Elektrizitätswirtschafts- und -organisationsgesetz 2010 (ElWOG 2010), which went out of force the same day.

Source: Full text of law

WERUG 2020 Sec. 7 to 10 and 22, LGBl. für Wien Nr. 28/2026

Effective 2026-07-17 · Applies to both

The Wiener Energie- und Klimarechts-Umsetzungsgesetz 2020 (WERUG 2020), as amended by the Wiener Energierechts-Änderungsgesetz 2026, contains a chapter implementing Article 26(6) to (12) of Directive (EU) 2023/1791. It defines a data centre by reference to point 2.6.3.1.16 of Annex A to Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008. Section 7(1) requires a cost-benefit analysis in accordance with Annex 1 before the construction and operation or substantial modernisation of the installations it lists.

Those installations include a data centre with a nominal total energy input of more than 1 MW. Section 8(1) makes the construction and operation of new installations of that kind, and their substantial modernisation, subject to a permit.

The permit is to be granted if the planned installation ensures efficient energy generation according to the state of the art and if the cost-benefit analysis starts from correct assumptions, matches the guiding principles of Annex 1, and is comprehensible and conclusive.

Section 9(2) lists among the cases needing no permit a data centre whose waste heat is or is to be used in a district heating network, or directly for space heating, domestic hot water preparation or other purposes in the building, group of buildings or facilities where it is located. Section 10(1) requires an existing data centre with a nominal total energy input of more than 1 MW to use its waste heat or other heat recovery applications.

A data centre that can show by a cost-benefit analysis under section 7 that heat recovery is technically or economically not feasible is exempt from that duty. On the operator's application, the authority must establish that there is no obligation to use waste heat where the conditions are met. The Magistrat der Stadt Wien is the competent authority for enforcing the chapter and for administrative penalty proceedings.

Section 22(1) punishes with a fine of up to 25,000 euro anyone who builds, operates or substantially modernises such an installation without the required permit, or who operates a data centre without using its waste heat or other heat recovery applications as section 10(1) requires. The amending Act was issued in the Landesgesetzblatt für Wien on 16 July 2026 as number 28 of 2026. Section 26(1) of WERUG 2020 provides that the changes made by the Act take effect on the day after its promulgation.

Source: Full text of law

WRG 1959 Sec. 9-10, BGBl. Nr. 215/1959 as amended

Applies to both

Section 9(1) requires a water-rights authority's permit for any use of a public watercourse beyond ordinary common use, and for building or altering a facility used for that purpose. Section 9(2) extends a permit requirement to a private watercourse where the use could affect a third party's rights or the water's flow, character, or level, or risk flooding or waterlogging another's land.

Section 10(1) lets a landowner draw groundwater for ordinary household and business needs without a permit where extraction is by hand-operated pumping or drawing equipment only or is proportionate to the owner's own land. Every other groundwater development or use, and the construction or alteration of a facility serving it, requires a water-rights permit. An artesian well always requires a permit.

A data center's cooling-water withdrawal from a river or aquifer, or its discharge of water back to a watercourse, falls within this permit requirement rather than under the UVP-G's environmental impact assessment, since the UVP-G's Annex 1 lists no data-center project category.

Source: Full text of law

GewO 1994 Sec. 74, 77, BGBl. Nr. 194/1994 as amended

Applies to private

Section 74(1) defines a commercial facility (gewerbliche Betriebsanlage) as any spatially fixed installation intended to serve a commercial activity on more than a temporary basis.

Section 74(2) requires an authority's permit before such a facility may be erected or operated if, because of its machinery, equipment, mode of operation or other characteristics, it could endanger life, health or property, cause a nuisance to neighbours through odour, noise, smoke, dust or vibration, impair a nearby public-interest facility, materially disrupt traffic, or adversely affect a watercourse unless a water-rights permit already covers that effect.

Section 77(1) requires the authority to grant the permit where, given the state of the art, the foreseeable hazards can be avoided and the nuisances kept within a tolerable level, attaching conditions where needed. Section 77(3) requires the authority to limit air-pollutant emissions to the state of the art and to apply the Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft's ordinances, tightening the test in an area that already exceeds designated air-quality limit values.

The statute names no data centre; a data centre operated as a commercial activity is a commercial facility within this definition, and erecting or operating one needs this permit where the permit criteria are met.

Source: Full text of law