Is Ketamine 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 8 of the NPS regulation's structural annexes: ketamine is a prescription medicine marked NR, meaning prescription required with repeat dispensing prohibited, and synthetic ketamine outside lawful medicinal channels fits the arylcyclohexylamine core in Annex II group 8 through its chloro, keto and N-methyl substitutions. Ketamine is not in the Suchtgiftverordnung and not in the Psychotropenverordnung. It is a medicine on one side and an NPS on the other, and NPSG §2 is the provision that keeps the medicinal channel out of the NPS regime. 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. The Austrian NPS Act tops out at ten years under NPSG §4(2), and only where the §4(1) offence has caused a death or serious injuries to a larger number of people. No life term sits above that, and the death penalty does not exist in Austria. Ketamine is the row where the lawful channel and the unlawful one sit in different instruments, so the same molecule is a medicine in a hospital and an NPS in a wrap. NPSG §4(1) carries two years and three separate elements: the advantage intent, the specified supply conduct, and the intent that another use the substance for psychoactive effect. Possession alone satisfies none of them, although NPSG §5 still permits confiscation without prosecuting any particular person. 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 publishes no per substance traveller route. SMG §5(1) is the single rule: a Suchtmittel may be handled only for medical, dental, veterinary or scientific purposes and only as the Act allows, with the travel, licensing and dispensing exemptions each governed by their own provisions. 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. Ketamine is the substance in this table where the prescription answer is strongest: it is a genuine Austrian medicine, dispensed on a non repeat prescription, and NPSG §2 expressly keeps that channel outside the NPS regime.

Documentation

Carry the dispensing record and the prescription for any ketamine medicine, because that is a real Austrian medicinal channel and NPSG §2 is what keeps it outside the NPS regime. A ketamine prescription is marked for no repeat dispensing, so a single dispensing record is what exists to show. 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.