About GewerbeCheck
Why GewerbeCheck Exists
Starting a business in Austria means navigating a complex regulatory landscape. Official information is scattered across dozens of government websites, written in legal German, and often lacks practical guidance.
Existing "guide" sites are no better — they paraphrase official texts without adding real value, offer no interactive tools, and rarely distinguish between verified facts and assumptions.
GewerbeCheck takes a different approach. We go directly to the source: the Austrian Trade Act (GewO 1994), the Federal Ministry of Economics, and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Every claim is verifiable. Every uncertainty is openly communicated.
Our Principles
- Primary sources first: Law text before interpretation
- Verifiable: Every regulatory statement linked to its source
- Honest about uncertainty: What we don't know, we say
- Free: Core information is and remains freely accessible
- Current: Real review dates, not fake freshness
- Multilingual: Available in 8 languages for Austria's diverse population
Why You Can Rely On This
We have no customer testimonials, because there is nothing to buy here and nobody creates an account. Instead of telling you we are trustworthy, here is how you can check it yourself.
| What we claim | How to verify it |
|---|---|
| Free, no account, no paywall. There is no paid tier and no purchase path. | Click around. There is no sign-up and no price — anywhere. |
| No ads, no tracking, no cookies. The site loads nothing from third-party servers. | Open your browser's developer tools (F12), the Network tab, and reload. Every request goes to gewerbecheck.at. No cookies, no banner — which is why nobody here ever asks for your consent. |
| No commissions. No link on this site earns us money. | Hover over any outbound link. They point to RIS, WKO, BMWET, USP and GISA — with no partner or tracking parameter in the address. |
| Every legal statement carries its paragraph. | Open any trade page. Next to each statement is the citation, linked into the RIS, where the law stands in the original. |
| The data is yours too. We hoard nothing. | All trades as JSON via the open interface, CC-BY 4.0. The market figures come from data.gv.at — you can recompute them yourself, without us. |
| We say what we do not know. | Many pages carry a section on what is deliberately absent. Where figures are missing, it says so — instead of a zero that pretends completeness. |
| A person with a name and an address. | Imprint — no PO box, no shell company. |
| Every page carries a real review date. | Subject pages state when the legal position was last checked. That date is the day of the check, not the day of the last deploy. |
If you can disprove any of these, write to us — the address is below. An error somebody finds beats one that stays.
What GewerbeCheck Is NOT
Contact
Found an error? Have a suggestion? Business inquiry?
kontakt@gewerbecheck.at