Trade sector · August 2026
Below-average density and tangible market movement — a favourable combination. Density, 16-month trend and market movement for every federal state and 23 Vienna districts — recomputed monthly.
Active locations in Vienna
Shortest path to a decision: the three districts with the lowest number of Dachdecker businesses per 10,000 inhabitants — on paper the largest market gaps in Vienna (for population ≥ 20,000).
Note: low density is a signal, not a guarantee. Combine it with the market movement above and the OSM visibility below before you commit.
The stock is holding steady since May 2025 (post-break baseline) — under 2 % net change. That does not automatically mean “no interest”: if market movement (churn index) is high at the same time, there is active turnover within an overall stable count.
Method change May 2025. Before May 2025 the figures come from the annual report (reference-date based), from May 2025 on from the monthly OgdAufrechteGewerbeberechtigung snapshots. The two sources count slightly differently — hence the visible break between April and May 2025. For the churn indicator we use only the clean May-2025-plus window, so the calculation is not distorted by the method jump.
Seasonal fluctuations. Smaller month-to-month movements are normal — trade licences are issued in bursts (month turns, quarter ends) and deregistered (often at year ends). A single month at +5 or −3 is not a trend break.
What a line does not show. The stock is a stock, not a flow. 500 active trade licences at a steady monthly stock can mean: (a) 500 dormant businesses with no movement, or (b) 480 stable plus 20 deregistering this month and 20 newly registering. The churn indicator measures exactly that difference — the curve does not show it.
Why we don't go back further. The GISA dataset only exists in structured form from 2018, before that only as non-anonymised internal data. Annual reports from 2019 could theoretically be integrated — that is a planned expansion. Currently: monthly snapshots since March 2025.
Context
Roofing is a classic B2B trade with a large order backlog, long project cycles, and strong regional ties. The density per 10 000 inhabitants is lower than for people-facing trades (hairdressing, cosmetics), while the movement dynamic is heterogeneous — Steiermark and Vorarlberg are growing markedly, Tirol and Wien are shrinking.
The structural tailwind: climate events (storms, hail, heavy rain) have demonstrably produced more repair jobs since 2020. The photovoltaic wave extends order books by 6-12 months. This means a new business enters a market that is healthy on the demand side — the bottleneck is staff, not order volume.
The best time to start is February/March. A new business can then run at full capacity right through the spring start (April-June). Anyone founding in October loses the winter months to fixed costs without income. For roofers, winning orders typically requires 3-4 months of lead time — this is regularly underestimated.
Roofing is a strictly regulated trade (§ 94 Z 19 GewO). Without a master craftsman certificate or an equivalent qualification, there is no trade licence. Beyond that, at founding the business must be able to demonstrate at least two qualified employees — otherwise growth inevitably stalls in the first year.
Falls, water damage, faulty sealing — the liability sums run into seven figures. Business liability insurance with at least €5 million in coverage costs €2 500-5 000 per year and must be in place BEFORE the first job.
Roofing revenue is concentrated in April-October. November-March is eaten up by holiday pay, the construction workers' bonus, and Christmas pay. Without an actively built winter reserve (ideally 3 months of revenue), every other year turns into a liquidity crisis.
Regulated trade under GewO § 94 Z 19. Gewerbeschlüssel 1301 per GISA.
Insider analysis · Vienna
The typical active business in Vienna is 14 years old (median). 18 % are younger than 3 years, 41 % older than 20 years. Dominant legal form: 72.9 % registered companies.
Distribution of age in years across all 85 active locations. Median 14 years · P10–P90 1–37 years.
Bars = number of businesses per age-year bucket. Highlighted bar = median age. Small buckets under 5 businesses are suppressed as "·" (GDPR minimum cell size against re-identification).
When were the currently active businesses founded?
Solo (natural person) vs. registered company (GmbH, OG, KG, AG).
The higher the Gini index, the more the sector concentrates in a few postal-code areas. 0 = evenly distributed, 1 = everything in a single postal-code area. Vienna has 23 districts, which split into several postal-code areas.
Complementary signal
Our data shows how many businesses exist. Google Trends adds how often people search for “Dachdecker” — the demand side. Together you see whether a market is constrained by supply or by demand.
Google Trends is a free third-party tool. We store nothing and pass no data on — the link opens directly on trends.google.com in a new tab.
Each dot is a trade sector. Left = lower density per 10,000 residents, top = more movement (registrations and deregistrations over the last 15 months).
Density per 10,000 inhabitants plus market dynamics over the last 15 months. Sorted by density, descending.
| Federal state | Locations | per 10k | Density | Market dynamics | net 11 mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salzburg → | 145 | 2.5 | Very tight | Active market | +1.4 % |
| Burgenland → | 53 | 1.8 | Very tight | Shrinking, volatile | -5.4 % |
| Kärnten → | 100 | 1.8 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +4.2 % |
| Niederösterreich → | 286 | 1.6 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +3.3 % |
| Oberösterreich → | 233 | 1.5 | Some room | Growing, volatile | +3.1 % |
| Steiermark → | 193 | 1.5 | Some room | Growing, volatile | +6.6 % |
| Vorarlberg → | 54 | 1.3 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +8.0 % |
| Tirol → | 69 | 0.9 | Room to grow | Shrinking, volatile | -9.2 % |
| Wien(here) | 85 | 0.4 | Room to grow | Active market | -1.2 % |
Sorted by Dachdecker density per 10,000 inhabitants, descending. “Licensed” = GISA trade licences, “OSM” = shop addresses visible in OpenStreetMap, “since May 25” = district net delta post method break (clean signal, without the May-2025 jump).
| Postcode | District | Lic. | OSM | Inh. | per 10k | Density | since May 25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1010 | Innere Stadt | 2 | 0 | 15,879 | 1.3 | Very tight | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1170 | Hernals | 7 | 0 | 56,652 | 1.2 | Very tight | rising +16.7 % |
| 1230 | Liesing | 13 | 0 | 124,846 | 1.0 | Very tight | falling -18.8 % |
| 1180 | Währing | 4 | 0 | 51,177 | 0.8 | Very tight | falling -20.0 % |
| 1150 | Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus | 5 | 0 | 75,384 | 0.7 | Getting tight | falling -16.7 % |
| 1020 | Leopoldstadt | 7 | 0 | 114,122 | 0.6 | Getting tight | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1190 | Döbling | 4 | 0 | 76,203 | 0.5 | Getting tight | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1100 | Favoriten | 11 | 0 | 225,013 | 0.5 | Getting tight | rising +22.2 % |
| 1160 | Ottakring | 5 | 0 | 101,599 | 0.5 | Getting tight | rising +66.7 % |
| 1080 | Josefstadt | 1 | 0 | 24,232 | 0.4 | Some room | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1030 | Landstraße | 4 | 1 | 99,954 | 0.4 | Some room | falling -20.0 % |
| 1050 | Margareten | 2 | 0 | 54,060 | 0.4 | Some room | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1110 | Simmering | 4 | 0 | 112,214 | 0.4 | Some room | falling -20.0 % |
| 1210 | Floridsdorf | 6 | 0 | 191,527 | 0.3 | Room to grow | rising +50.0 % |
| 1140 | Penzing | 3 | 0 | 99,469 | 0.3 | Room to grow | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1120 | Meidling | 2 | 0 | 102,344 | 0.2 | Room to grow | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1130 | Hietzing | 1 | 0 | 56,496 | 0.2 | Room to grow | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1220 | Donaustadt | 4 | 0 | 235,361 | 0.2 | Room to grow | falling -20.0 % |
Lic. vs. OSM: GISA also counts mobile or home-based businesses without a shop; OSM shows only those with a visible address. Vienna total: 85 licensed vs. ~12 in OSM (2 with postcode, 10 without).
Quick answers to the typical questions about Dachdecker in Austria.
Free · no account
Everything on this page — density, trend, market movement, demographics, districts — is calculated from open data and stays freely accessible. No account, no paywall, no tracking. The figures are recomputed every month from the GISA snapshot; the method is written down, and so are its limits.