Is 4-HO-MET legal in Austria?

Legal status

Controlled in Austria under the new psychoactive substances regime, and not as a narcotic or a psychotrope. The placement is group 6 of the NPS regulation's structural annexes: 4-HO-MET is not named; Annex II group 6 covers tryptamine and any compound derivable from that base structure, including one bearing the substituents permitted by NPSV §1(2). 4-HO-MET keeps the tryptamine core with a 4-hydroxy group and N-methyl and N-ethyl substituents, which fits group 6 for synthetic material. The dossier is careful on the boundary with the narcotics list: the extra N-ethyl carbon prevents treating it as a positional isomer of the listed psilocin, so the SV §1(5) isomer rule does not reach it. Austria regulates new psychoactive substances by structure rather than by list alone. NPSG §1 additionally requires psychoactivity and synthetic manufacture, and §2 excludes lawful medicinal channels and anything already subject to the Suchtmittelgesetz, so the SMG is applied first and the NPS scope second. The twelve cannabinomimetic cores and the other group definitions are alternatives rather than a catch all, and the annex has to be read as written rather than as a general ban on novel compounds.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. NPSG §4(2) sets one to ten years where the §4(1) offence causes death or serious injury to a larger number of people, and that is the whole of the ceiling, with no life term and no capital sentence behind it. 4-HO-MET is an NPS rather than a psilocin isomer, and that distinction is what keeps it off the narcotics ladder. Two years is the base figure under NPSG §4(1), and the shorthand that an NPS ban makes possession an offence is simply not the offence Austria wrote. Section 5 nonetheless permits confiscation unless the lawful purpose exception is met, and §7 supplies customs seizure powers. Separately from that, and carried forward from this site's published Austria entry rather than re-derived from the Suchtmittelgesetz in this pass, the published penalties are these. Austrian practice is depenalised and not legalised, and the published entry says so in those terms. There is no legal minimum quantity, and possession of any amount for personal use is punishable under section 27, up to six months in prison or a fine. Under Therapie statt Strafe at section 35, small quantity personal use is typically provisionally suspended from prosecution on one to two years of probation where the person accepts counselling or treatment. Consumption itself is not criminalised, but the possession that precedes it is. Above the Grenzmenge, the threshold quantity, the offence becomes dealing or trafficking under sections 28 and 28a, up to one to three years, escalating to ten to fifteen years for commercial or organised cases. Every figure in this paragraph is a penalty range or a fine and none of them is a quantity threshold. This row is placed outside that regime, so they are recorded as Austria's published drug penalties and not as this substance's exposure.

If prescribed or medical

Austria's traveller rule is the authorized purpose rule and there is no other. SMG §5(1) allows a Suchtmittel to be acquired, possessed, produced, processed, carried, imported, exported, offered, transferred or procured only for medical, dental, veterinary or scientific purposes and only as that Act provides, and professional licensing, medical dispensing and travel exemptions each remain subject to their own particular provisions rather than to any general allowance. Because this substance is reached by the new psychoactive substances regime rather than by the narcotics or psychotrope lists, neither the SMG §30(3) medicine exception nor the psychotrope travel certificate applies to it. NPSG §2 excludes lawful medicinal channels from that regime, which is a carve out for products that already hold a medicinal authorisation and not a route a traveller can claim for themselves. 4-HO-MET has no medicinal listing in Austria, so no dispensed product of it can exist.

Documentation

Carry a written record of what the substance actually is, because the instrument that applies and the ceiling that follows both depend on the structural identification rather than on the name it was sold under. 4-HO-MET is not treated as a psilocin isomer, which is the finding that decides its instrument. The NPS structural annexes were read at their 18 September 2026 consolidation, with Annexes II and III last amended by BGBl II 106/2024 of 18 April 2024 and Annex I last amended by BGBl II 168/2019.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Austria’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.