Trade sector · October 2026
Vienna has 3,678 active businesses licensed for Lebens- und Sozialberatung according to the GISA trade register (as of October 2026); Austria-wide 14,376. Each licence counts once, at its registered location — branches registered only as additional premises are not counted separately. Dense market, but still growing — use the timing window.
Active locations in Vienna
Shortest path to a decision: the three districts with the lowest number of Lebens- und Sozialberatung 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 clearly since May 2025 (+11.7 % 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
Life and social counselling is a regulated trade requiring a certificate of competence under the Lebens- und Sozialberater-Verordnung. The certificate requires 584 hours of training in an accredited course (ARGE Bildungsmanagement, ILS, ISBB and others). No training, no trade licence — that is the most important barrier to entry in this fast-growing market.
Around 14,000 active life counsellors are registered across Austria, nearly 3,500 of them in Wien. The sector has been growing above average for years — many career changers come from human resources, education or nursing. The market is better protected than, say, management consultancy thanks to the mandatory training, but denser than classic regulated trades such as roofers or master builders.
Demand for counselling is strongly seasonal: the turn of the year (New Year's resolutions), the period after summer (reorientation), and the weeks around Mother's Day are typical peaks in enquiries. Couples and family counselling picks up especially in autumn, once holiday conflicts come to the surface.
Life counselling is not psychotherapy. The treatment of mental illness is reserved exclusively for psychotherapists (PthG) and clinical psychologists (PG). Unclear positioning ("counselling for depression") can lead to a report for unauthorised medical treatment. Clear language in marketing and initial consultations is mandatory.
Life counsellors are bound by a duty of confidentiality. Client documentation must be GDPR-compliant — this also applies to paper records (a lockable cabinet). For counselling minors, the written consent of both legal guardians is required.
The life-counselling qualification explicitly does not cover sports-science-based nutritional counselling — that is a separate, independently regulated trade. Anyone wanting to draw up diet or training plans as a life counsellor needs an additional certificate of competence. Details from the ACP.
Regulated trade under GewO 1994 § 94 plus the Lebens- und Sozialberater-Verordnung. Gewerbeschlüssel 4601. Professional profile: Österreichische Vereinigung für Lebens- und Sozialberatung.
Insider analysis · Vienna
The typical active business in Vienna is 6 years old (median). 28 % are younger than 3 years, 13 % older than 20 years. Dominant legal form: 96.6 % sole proprietors.
Distribution of age in years across all 3,678 active locations. Median 6 years · P10–P90 1–21 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 “Lebensberatung” — 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 17 months).
Density per 10,000 inhabitants plus market dynamics over the last 17 months. Sorted by density, descending.
| Federal state | Locations | per 10k | Density | Market dynamics | net 11 mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wien(here) | 3,678 | 18.0 | Very tight | Growing, volatile | +11.7 % |
| Burgenland → | 518 | 17.2 | Very tight | Growing, volatile | +7.7 % |
| Salzburg → | 907 | 15.8 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +6.1 % |
| Kärnten → | 898 | 15.8 | Getting tight | Growing, volatile | +10.6 % |
| Tirol → | 1,159 | 14.9 | Some room | Growing, volatile | +10.7 % |
| Niederösterreich → | 2,565 | 14.8 | Some room | Growing, volatile | +10.9 % |
| Vorarlberg → | 604 | 14.7 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +4.0 % |
| Steiermark → | 1,849 | 14.5 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +7.4 % |
| Oberösterreich → | 2,198 | 14.3 | Room to grow | Growing, volatile | +12.9 % |
Sorted by Lebens- und Sozialberatung 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 | 101 | 0 | 15,879 | 63.6 | Very tight | rising +14.8 % |
| 1090 | Alsergrund | 180 | 0 | 41,782 | 43.1 | Very tight | rising +9.8 % |
| 1070 | Neubau | 133 | 0 | 31,394 | 42.4 | Very tight | rising +8.1 % |
| 1080 | Josefstadt | 97 | 0 | 24,232 | 40.0 | Very tight | falling -2.0 % |
| 1180 | Währing | 183 | 0 | 51,177 | 35.8 | Very tight | rising +19.6 % |
| 1060 | Mariahilf | 110 | 0 | 31,070 | 35.4 | Getting tight | rising +23.6 % |
| 1130 | Hietzing | 181 | 0 | 56,496 | 32.0 | Getting tight | rising +12.4 % |
| 1040 | Wieden | 105 | 0 | 33,450 | 31.4 | Getting tight | rising +9.4 % |
| 1190 | Döbling | 189 | 0 | 76,203 | 24.8 | Getting tight | rising +11.8 % |
| 1030 | Landstraße | 221 | 0 | 99,954 | 22.1 | Getting tight | rising +7.3 % |
| 1140 | Penzing | 218 | 0 | 99,469 | 21.9 | Getting tight | rising +11.2 % |
| 1170 | Hernals | 124 | 0 | 56,652 | 21.9 | Some room | rising +12.7 % |
| 1020 | Leopoldstadt | 231 | 0 | 114,122 | 20.2 | Some room | rising +9.5 % |
| 1050 | Margareten | 103 | 0 | 54,060 | 19.1 | Some room | rising +8.4 % |
| 1230 | Liesing | 207 | 0 | 124,846 | 16.6 | Some room | rising +8.4 % |
| 1160 | Ottakring | 164 | 0 | 101,599 | 16.1 | Some room | rising +13.9 % |
| 1120 | Meidling | 154 | 0 | 102,344 | 15.1 | Some room | rising +12.4 % |
| 1150 | Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus | 111 | 0 | 75,384 | 14.7 | Room to grow | rising +19.4 % |
| 1220 | Donaustadt | 327 | 0 | 235,361 | 13.9 | Room to grow | rising +17.2 % |
| 1200 | Brigittenau | 103 | 0 | 86,686 | 11.9 | Room to grow | rising +9.6 % |
| 1210 | Floridsdorf | 213 | 0 | 191,527 | 11.1 | Room to grow | rising +8.1 % |
| 1100 | Favoriten | 164 | 0 | 225,013 | 7.3 | Room to grow | rising +13.9 % |
| 1110 | Simmering | 59 | 0 | 112,214 | 5.3 | Room to grow | rising +9.3 % |
Lic. vs. OSM: GISA also counts mobile or home-based businesses without a shop; OSM shows only those with a visible address. Vienna total: 3,678 licensed vs. ~0 in OSM (0 with postcode, 0 without).
Quick answers to the typical questions about Lebens- und Sozialberatung 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.