Trade sector · August 2026
Low density, an active and growing market — a favourable timing window. 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 Friseur 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 growing noticeably since May 2025 (+3.1 % post method change). For founders the direction is a signal, but not the whole picture — low per-capita density can still spell opportunity if the remaining businesses are overloaded.
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
The hairdressing trade in Austria is a classic regulated craft. To register, a master craftsman certificate or an equivalent proof of qualification under the Friseur-Verordnung is mandatory — details in the Friseur-Verordnung BGBl. II 42/2003. Anyone who does not hold the proof themselves must appoint a licensed managing director under trade law — this narrows the market, but also creates quality barriers that protect small providers.
One thing stands out in the data: density per 10,000 inhabitants in Wien is below the national average, even though the absolute numbers look high. This is a typical big-city pattern — Wien has many businesses, but even more inhabitants. Oberösterreich and Niederösterreich are more densely served, primarily through smaller one-person salons in small and mid-sized towns.
Experience shows that most new registrations fall between January and March (start of the year, new tax year) and in September (post-summer). Openings that land in these windows face stronger competition for fit-out, staff, and media attention. Starting counter-cyclically in May or October can make the ramp-up phase quieter.
An active trade licence does not mean the business has a shopfront. Mobile hairdressers, wedding styling, and home-office permissions also count — they are included in the GISA figures, but are not visible as a shop on OpenStreetMap. The gap between licensed and OSM-visible is therefore a rough indicator of the mobile share in a region.
A district with low density per 10k can still be hard to operate in if the target customers spend little (a student district, an outer district with low household income). Conversely, high density in wealthy neighbourhoods can be profitable, because revenue per customer is significantly higher.
High market turnover can point to structural problems — for example, scarce reserves of trained staff, sharp rent increases, or customer drift into neighbouring districts. The combination of high churn and a net-stable number of active businesses (a market in motion) is the genuinely positive signal: slots open up without the market shrinking.
Mandatory disclosure under the GewO + Friseur-Verordnung: Friseur-Verordnung BGBl. II Nr. 42/2003. Gewerbeschlüssel 2201 under GISA.
Insider analysis · Vienna
The typical active business in Vienna is 8 years old (median). 26 % are younger than 3 years, 21 % older than 20 years. Dominant legal form: 83.7 % sole proprietors.
Distribution of age in years across all 2,086 active locations. Median 8 years · P10–P90 0–27 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 “Friseur” — 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burgenland → | 434 | 14.4 | Very tight | Active market | +1.4 % |
| Salzburg → | 811 | 14.1 | Very tight | Growing, volatile | +3.2 % |
| Kärnten → | 799 | 14.0 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +4.2 % |
| Steiermark → | 1,732 | 13.6 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +5.0 % |
| Vorarlberg → | 534 | 12.9 | Some room | Growing, volatile | +5.3 % |
| Oberösterreich → | 1,959 | 12.7 | Some room | Active market | +1.5 % |
| Niederösterreich → | 2,037 | 11.8 | Room to grow | Active market | +1.3 % |
| Tirol → | 917 | 11.8 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +3.4 % |
| Wien(here) | 2,086 | 10.2 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +3.1 % |
Sorted by Friseur 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 | 146 | 32 | 15,879 | 92.0 | Very tight | rising +5.8 % |
| 1070 | Neubau | 89 | 27 | 31,394 | 28.4 | Very tight | falling -1.1 % |
| 1080 | Josefstadt | 68 | 12 | 24,232 | 28.1 | Very tight | rising +11.5 % |
| 1060 | Mariahilf | 78 | 21 | 31,070 | 25.1 | Very tight | rising +4.0 % |
| 1040 | Wieden | 69 | 25 | 33,450 | 20.6 | Very tight | rising +7.8 % |
| 1090 | Alsergrund | 82 | 21 | 41,782 | 19.6 | Getting tight | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1050 | Margareten | 82 | 12 | 54,060 | 15.2 | Getting tight | rising +5.1 % |
| 1030 | Landstraße | 134 | 62 | 99,954 | 13.4 | Getting tight | unchanged +0.0 % |
| 1160 | Ottakring | 125 | 11 | 101,599 | 12.3 | Getting tight | rising +5.0 % |
| 1150 | Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus | 86 | 22 | 75,384 | 11.4 | Getting tight | falling -1.1 % |
| 1190 | Döbling | 80 | 28 | 76,203 | 10.5 | Getting tight | rising +3.9 % |
| 1020 | Leopoldstadt | 117 | 31 | 114,122 | 10.3 | Some room | rising +6.4 % |
| 1180 | Währing | 52 | 19 | 51,177 | 10.2 | Some room | falling -5.5 % |
| 1170 | Hernals | 54 | 8 | 56,652 | 9.5 | Some room | rising +3.8 % |
| 1120 | Meidling | 90 | 27 | 102,344 | 8.8 | Some room | rising +12.5 % |
| 1200 | Brigittenau | 74 | 13 | 86,686 | 8.5 | Some room | rising +10.4 % |
| 1140 | Penzing | 77 | 25 | 99,469 | 7.7 | Some room | rising +1.3 % |
| 1100 | Favoriten | 173 | 23 | 225,013 | 7.7 | Room to grow | rising +1.8 % |
| 1230 | Liesing | 75 | 20 | 124,846 | 6.0 | Room to grow | falling -2.6 % |
| 1210 | Floridsdorf | 115 | 21 | 191,527 | 6.0 | Room to grow | falling -0.9 % |
| 1130 | Hietzing | 32 | 10 | 56,496 | 5.7 | Room to grow | rising +6.7 % |
| 1220 | Donaustadt | 128 | 58 | 235,361 | 5.4 | Room to grow | rising +2.4 % |
| 1110 | Simmering | 60 | 14 | 112,214 | 5.3 | Room to grow | falling -1.6 % |
Lic. vs. OSM: GISA also counts mobile or home-based businesses without a shop; OSM shows only those with a visible address. Vienna total: 2,086 licensed vs. ~1,609 in OSM (542 with postcode, 1067 without).
Quick answers to the typical questions about Friseur in Austria.
Early access · in development
We are building the in-depth market check — age of the businesses, legal-form mix, founding cohorts and postcode concentration, as PDF + Excel. Leave your address and we will tell you once, as soon as it is ready for Friseur — at an early-access price for the first founders.
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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.