Local short name form

Official Name

Area

Population

Capital

Currency

International telephone access code

ISO 3166 country codes

Car nationality plate code

Internet country code

GRC Country Code

   1.234,45

(where , indicates the decimal separator and . the thousands separator)

dd.mm.yyyy

yyyy-mm-dd

The 24-hour clock notation is mainly used:

14:32

14.32

German is the official language, spoken by 99% of the population. There are 300 000 speakers of Allemanisch ; 22 000 speakers of Hungarian ; 60 000 speakers of Serbo-Croatian ; 30 000 speakers of Slovenian along the border with Slovenia and 500 speakers of Sinte Romani .

The words zu Händen, abbreviated to z.H. or z.Hd. mean ‘For the attention of’.

Academic and occupational titles are given great importance in Austrian society and must be correctly used. They are used with and following a form of address, and before a name. Thus:

   Herr Direktor Dr Schmidt

When addressing an Austrian within a letter, the surname should be omitted where the title exists, for example:

   Sehr geehrter Herr Doktor

   Tables of forms of address  can be acquired

For given names , Austrian law states that they must be “by nature” given names (i.e. may not include family names , common nouns, brand names, place names, noble titles and so on); that they must be gender-specific; short forms are allowed but not nicknames; they must be spelt "correctly"; and that the given name may not have the potential to cause harm to the namee (e.g. Mickey Mouse, Kain, Osame bin Ladin).

   Tables of names can be acquired: given names , surnames/family names , family name prefixes , forms of address , job titles 

Where the nature of a company is mentioned in the company name this precedes the name of the company, thus:

   Bäcker Schmidt

You will often, however, find these activity indications after the company name, thus:

   Schmidt, Bäcker
   Schmidt (Bäcker)

Austrian company names will also often contain the name of the inhaber(in) (owner), usually indicated by the abbreviation ‘Inh.’.

The following company types may be found in Austrian company names:

   AG (Aktiengesellschaft) (stock corporation)
   EEG (Eingetragene Erwerbsgesellschaft – professional partnership)
   EEIG (European Economic Interest Group)
   Einzelunternehmen (sole trader)
   Genossenschaft (Gen.) (Cooperative)
   GmbH (also written Gesellschaft mbH) (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) (company with limited liability)
   GmbH & Co. KG (limited company and company limited partnership)
   GesnBR (Gesellschaft nach bürgerlichem Recht) (private partnership)
   KEG (Kommanditerwerbsgesellschaft) (limited trading partnership)
   KG (Kommanditgesellschaft) (limited partnership)
   OG (Offene Gesellschaft) (general partnership)
   OEG (Offene Erwerbsgesellschaft) (open trading partnership)
   OHG (Offene Handelgesellschaft) (general partnership)
   St. Ges. (Stille Gesellschaft) (silent partnership)
   Verein (Association)

   Comprehensive tables of these strings can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/addresses.htm 

In company addresses the name of the company precedes the name of the contact. The house number follows the street name. The form of address of the person or the type of company comes on the top line alone. Thus:

or

For small settlements where the name does not appear in the postal file, and where the postal town name is different, an extra line may be added to the address block to include the settlement name, in this way:

For post sent within Austria, the city name is written in mixed case.

The general rule is that the thoroughfare name and the thoroughfare type are written as one word, thus:

   Hauptstrasse 
   Bahnhofstrasse

There are two important exceptions. If the thoroughfare name refers to the real name of a place (e.g. a town name, a castle name, a forest name, etc.) then there is a space between the thorough­fare name and the thoroughfare type, thus:

   Wiener Strasse 
   Tyroler Allee

The second exception is where complete personal names are used. In these cases, each component of the name and each thoroughfare type are separated with hyphens. Note, however, that sur­names only are not covered by this exception. Thus:

   Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse 
   Albert Einstein Strasse 

but

   Beethovenstrasse 
   Einsteinstrasse

In streets beginning with prepositions or some adjectives (‘Am’, ‘An’, ‘Alter’, etc.) the preposition or adjective is followed by a space, thus:

   Alter Marktstrasse   

House numbers are usually hyphenated thus:

   33-39

not

   33/39

   A table containing information about the relevant position of elements within address blocks can be acquired 

   Note: This section last updated 15th November 2020

Sub-buildings or units are normally indicated with a letter after the building number. Sometimes the position in relation to another building may be found, using vor (in front of), neben (next to), gegenüber (opposite) etc.

Grst. Nr. (Grundsteuer Nummer) indicates the property tax number.

   Comprehensive tables of these strings can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/addresses.htm 

Below is a list of the most commonly occurring thoroughfare types, with the abbreviated form(s) which you are most likely to find in address databases:

   Allee
   Berg
   Boulevard (Bd)
   Bruch
   Bühl
   Chaussee (Ch)
   Damm
   Gasse
   Graben
   Hafen
   Hof
   Kamp
   Markt
   Platz (Pl)
   Ring 
   Straße (Str)
   Ufer
   Wall
   Weg
   Weide

   Comprehensive tables of these strings can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/addresses.htm 

NB: German grammar rules governing articles, prepositions and adjectives are complex, and there is no need to explain them here. It is only necessary to be able to recognise them when and where they occur in addresses. For this reason a list without further explanation is provided. As a very general rule of thumb, the prepositions and adjectives listed may have one of the following endings added: nothing; e; er; em; en or es.

German	English
der/die/das/den/dem/des	the
ein/eine/eines/einen/einem/einer	a, an
und	and
bis	till, until, up to
für	for
von	of, from
zu, zu der (zur), zu dem (zum), nach	to, towards
bei, bei der/den/dem (beim)	near, at
an, an der/den/dem (am)	at, by, towards
auf, auf der/den/dem	on
in, in der/den/dem (im)	in
gegenüber	opposite, facing
nächst, neben, neben der/dem/den	next to
hinter, hinter der/den/dem	behind
vor, vor der/den/dem	before, in front of
zwischen, zwischen der/den/dem	between, amongst
über, über der/den/dem	over, above, beyond
unter, unter der/dem/den	under, beneath, below
mit	with
neu/neue	new
alt/alte	old
kurz/kurze/kurzen/kurzer/kurzem/kurzes (K.)	short
lang/lange/langen/langer/langem/langes (L./Lge.)	long
gross/grosse/grossen/grosser/grossem/grosses (G.)	large
klein/kleine/kleinen/kleiner/kleinem/kleines(K./Kl./Kle.)	small
nord	north
ost	east
süd	south
west	west
Sankt (St.)	saint
Industrieterrein, Industriegebiet	industrial estate

For addresses written in Slovenian, Serbo-Croat or Hungarian, please refer to the appropriate country chapter.

This is written as Postfach (PF).

   Note: This section last updated 28th December 2018

The postal code (Postleitzahl) is written on the same line, and before, the name of the town.

Austrian postal codes consist of a block of 4 digits (the first digit cannot be a 0). These codes do not correspond well to administrative districts, as many towns have more than one code, and many codes refer to more than one municipality. Codes may refer to a whole town, a set of post office boxes or an area centred on a post office within larger towns.

The three villages of the Kleinwalsertal : Mittelberg , Hirschegg , and Riezlern , in Vorarlberg , can only be reached by road from Germany. The inhabitants of this valley have both German (87567-87569) and Austrian (6991-6993) postal codes. Similarly, the pene-exclave of Austria containing the village of Jungholz is accessible by road only through Germany and has the German postal code 87491 as well as the Austrian postal code 6691.

   Metadata containing postal code formatting rules, exceptions and regular expressions can be acquired 

Austria - Postal code format graphic

Austria - Postal code format

Austria - Postal code specifics

Austria - Postal code regular expression

Austria - Postal code level of coverage

Austria - Postal code map

   Note: This section last updated 30th March 2015

For the Hungarian- and Croat-speaking minorities in the Burgenland region, place name exonyms exist.

For the Slovene-speaking minority along the border with Slovenia, place name exonyms exist.

Refer to Exonyms in Austria for full lists of place names in Austria in other languages.

   Alternate place name forms/postal code tables can be acquired at http://www.grcdi.nl/settlements.htm 

   Other language place name data can be acquired at http://www.grcdi.nl/otherlanguageplace.htm 

Austria has 9 states (Bundesländer ):

Bundesländ	Abbrev.	Postal code areas
Burgenland	Bgl	242, 2473-2475, 2491, 70-73, 740-741, 7422-7423, 743-747, 75, 838
Kärnten (Carinthia)	Kä	90-92, 930-931, 9321-9322, 933-937, 94-96, 970-977, 9781, 98
Niederösterreich	NÖ	20-23, 240-241, 243-246, 247-2472, 248, 2490, 2492-2493, 25-28, 30-32, 330-332, 3331-3333, 334-339, 34-39, 430, 4392, 443, 4441, 4482
Oberösterreich	OÖ	3334-3335, 40-42, 431-438, 4391, 440-442, 4442-4443, 445-447, 4481, 4483-4484, 449, 45-49, 512-514, 521-528, 531, 536
Salzburg	Sbg	50, 510-511, 515-516, 520, 530, 532-533, 5340, 5342, 535, 54-57
Steiermark (Styria)	Stm	7421, 80-82, 830-836, 84-89, 9323
Tirol	Tir	60-66, 9782, 9900-9991
Vorarlberg	Vbg	67-69
Wien (Vienna)		1

   This regions/postal code data can be acquired as a data file 

The name of the state is never used in addresses.

Administrative districts graphic

Austrian telephone numbers have total lengths ranging between 4and 13 when called from abroad. Area codes commencing 644, 650-653, 655, 657, 659, 660-661, 663-669, 67-69 indicate mobile numbers.