Is Khat legal in Austria?

Legal status

Controlled as a Suchtgift, placed there by regulation rather than by the statute itself. The plant has no entry; Annex V.1 lists cathinone, the psychotrope regulation lists cathine, and the Supreme Court in 15Os21/15z held that harvested parts of khat shrubs containing cathinone and cathine are subject to the SMG restrictions. Separation from the living plant is enough on that reasoning, and no further extraction step is required. Khat is therefore the one row in this table where a court judgment rather than a list entry supplies the operative step. The route into control runs through SMG §2(1), which closes by requiring that a substance be subjected to the convention restrictions and designated as a narcotic by ministerial regulation, with SMG §2(3) available for a purely national addition. 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. Life imprisonment is where this ladder ends, in SMG §28a(5), for §28a(1) conduct committed while leading a larger connection of persons. Nothing capital exists anywhere in the Austrian code. Khat is charged through its cathinone content on the narcotics ladder, with cathine adding a psychotrope limb, so two different ceilings can be in play for one bundle of leaves. SMG §28a(3) reduces the §28a(1) and §28a(2) ranges to three and five years under the §27(5) dependence and self funding conditions, and §28(4) applies the parallel reductions of one, three and five years to the §28 tiers. The word oder in the basic offences makes the fine and the custodial term alternatives rather than an addition, while the aggravated tiers above generally state imprisonment alone. 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 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 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. No Austrian medicinal or cultural exemption for khat appears anywhere in the instruments read, and the Supreme Court reasoning runs the other way.

Documentation

Carry documentation that ties this specific supply to a named patient and an authorized medical purpose: the dispensing pack, the prescription, and a letter from the prescriber covering substance, dose and duration. The judgment that matters here is OGH 15Os21/15z, and it treats harvested leaf as already within the SMG. 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.