Austria

Austria applies the European rulebook through the Finanzmarktaufsicht, and most brokers serving Austrian clients are licensed elsewhere in the EEA and passport in under MiFID II. The market is small enough that the domestic industry is limited, and the practical questions are about which foreign entity you are actually dealing with.

The FMA's warning list

The regulator publishes investor warnings naming specific companies and websites that solicit Austrian residents without authorisation, and it does so frequently and in plain terms. The list is one of the more actively maintained in the EU and is the first place to check a broker you found through an advertisement or a social media contact. A firm appearing there is not a borderline case; the FMA has determined it is operating without a licence.

Trading conditions

The ESMA product intervention applies in full: 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on minors, gold and major indices, 10:1 on other commodities, 5:1 on individual shares, 2:1 on cryptocurrencies. Negative balance protection is mandatory, margin close-out sits at 50% of required margin, bonuses are prohibited, and every broker must display the percentage of its retail accounts that lose money. Binary options cannot be sold to retail clients.

Passporting and compensation

Because so few brokers hold an Austrian licence, the compensation scheme covering your account will usually be the licensing country's rather than Austria's. A Cyprus-authorised firm brings the €20,000 Investor Compensation Fund; a German or Irish one brings its own. This is not a defect — passporting is how the single market works — but it does mean the protection limit is a fact about your broker's home state, and it is stated in the client agreement rather than on the marketing pages.

Tax

Investment income is subject to Austrian capital income tax, and the mechanism depends on the intermediary: a domestic bank or broker withholds at source and settles the liability, while a foreign broker does not, leaving the resident to declare the income and pay it directly. Austrian residents using an offshore or passported broker therefore have a filing obligation they may not have had with a domestic bank. A Steuerberater is worth the fee here.

Checks

Use the FMA's company database to confirm authorisation or passporting status, and search the warning list before funding any account.