Is GHB legal in Austria?

Legal status

Austria controls this as a Suchtgift under the Suchtmittelgesetz. In the Suchtgiftverordnung, Annex IV.1 lists gamma-hydroxybutyric acid and writes its exception into the entry itself: preparations are excepted where they contain no other controlled substance, are not applied to the human or animal body, and hold no more than 1 per cent GHB. That 1 per cent figure is specific to GHB and is not the general Suchtgiftverordnung preparation exclusion, which runs at 0.001 per cent and requires exclusively diagnostic or analytical use. All three GHB conditions have to hold at once. Designation works by delegation: SMG §2(1) makes a substance a Suchtgift only where the 1961 Single Convention subjects it to restrictions on production, possession, trade, import, export, handling or use and the Federal Minister for Health has designated it as a narcotic by regulation, and the Suchtgiftverordnung is the regulation that does so through the annexes its §1 assigns. Each annex is read on its own terms. The extension clauses differ between I.1.c, I.2, II, IV.1, V.1 and V.2, and SV §1(5) supplies the isomer rule for all of them without becoming a general analogue provision.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. What this row exposes a person to runs as far as life imprisonment, carried by SMG §28a(5) and by nothing else, for leadership within a larger connection of people committing §28a(1) conduct. No Austrian offence is capital. GHB is the row where the exception is inside the entry, so the prosecution question is whether the preparation meets all three stated conditions rather than whether the substance is listed. The everyday tiers are §27(1) at one year or 360 day fines and §27(2) at six months for exclusively personal use, with §27(2a) reaching two years for the specified paid supply in a public transport vehicle. The threshold those tiers turn on is fixed by SMG §§28b and 31b on the pure active substance, so a gross mixed weight cannot be laid against it and the numeric figure changes with the compound. 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. They describe the offences that this row's placement in the Austrian Suchtgift and psychotrope lists brings into play.

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 a Suchtgift, the psychotrope non punishment route in SMG §30(3) is not available to it: that provision reaches medicines containing a psychotropic substance, and a narcotic is not one. The travel certificate fields that close Annexes 2 and 3 of the Psychotropenverordnung belong to the psychotrope system in the same way. A GHB medicine can exist inside the authorized purpose rule, and the 1 per cent exception is expressly unavailable to anything applied to a human or animal body, so it is not a consumer allowance.

Documentation

Carry the dispensing pack, the prescription and a prescriber's letter naming the patient, the active substance, the dose and the treatment period, because the authorized purpose in SMG §5(1) has to be demonstrable at the moment it is questioned. The 1 per cent GHB exception excludes anything applied to a human or animal body, which rules out every drinkable preparation. The narcotics list was read at its 18 September 2026 consolidation, whose last listed amendment is BGBl II 180/2026 published 10 July 2026, which is a dated source horizon rather than a guarantee that no later instrument exists.

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.