Lagging AT Verified 21 Oct 2026

Austria

EU AI Act implementation, 2026

More than a year after the 2 August 2025 deadline, Austria has still not designated a market surveillance authority, a notifying authority or a single point of contact under the AI Act, and no implementing bill has been tabled; the RTR-hosted KI-Servicestelle remains an advisory desk without enforcement powers.

Implementing law
No bill yet
Penalty regime (Art. 99)
Not adopted
Regulatory sandbox
None
Readiness rank
22 of 27score 30 / 100

Key findings

  • No market surveillance authority, notifying authority or single point of contact had been designated or notified to the Commission as of October 2026; Austria missed the 2 August 2025 deadline by more than 14 months.
  • The RTR KI-Servicestelle (legal basis § 20c KOG / § 194a TKG, BGBl I 6/2024) is an advisory and information body only; it cannot demand documentation or impose Article 99 fines.
  • The 2025 government programme plans a 'KI-Behörde' built on the KI-Servicestelle inside RTR, but no draft law has been published and opposition MPs flag an advisory-versus-supervisory conflict of interest.
  • Austria did complete its Article 77 fundamental-rights designations (Volksanwaltschaft, Datenschutzbehörde, KommAustria, FMA, Arbeiterkammern, BASG and others).
  • No national penalty rules under Article 99 and no national sandbox exist; the 2021 AIM AT 2030 strategy predates generative AI and has not been updated.

National authorities

Market surveillance

Not designated or not confirmed as of 21 Oct 2026.

Notifying authority

Not designated or not confirmed as of 21 Oct 2026.

Single point of contact (Art. 70(2))

Not designated or not confirmed as of 21 Oct 2026.

Implementing law, penalties and sandbox

Implementing law No bill yet

No AI Act implementing or accompanying law published (government programme foresees a 'KI-Behörde' built on the RTR KI-Servicestelle)

parlament.gv.at (opens in new tab)
Penalty regime Not adopted

No national penalty rules under Article 99 are in force; regulators rely on existing powers.

Regulatory sandbox None

No national AI regulatory sandbox has been announced on official Austrian AI Act pages; the Digital Omnibus pushed the EU sandbox deadline to 2 August 2027.

digitalaustria.gv.at (opens in new tab)
National AI strategy

AIM AT 2030 – Strategie der Bundesregierung für Künstliche Intelligenz

2021

digitalaustria.gv.at (opens in new tab)

Notable developments

  1. Federal 'KI-Maßnahmenpaket' announced

    The Finance Ministry's AI measures package (State Secretary Florian Tursky) foresaw an AI service desk at RTR as the first step of a two-step process towards a national AI authority for the AI Act.

    web.archive.org (opens in new tab)

  2. KI-Servicestelle created at RTR

    Federal Law Gazette I No. 6/2024 inserted § 20c KOG and § 194a TKG 2021, establishing the AI Service Desk at the telecoms and media regulator RTR as an information hub and point of contact, without supervisory powers.

    rtr.at (opens in new tab)

  3. State Secretary Pröll concedes the AI authority will start late

    Digitalisation State Secretary Alexander Pröll said the 'KI-Behörde' would launch late, in autumn 2025, with a solution 'by the end of summer'; the deadline passed without a designation.

    parlament.gv.at (opens in new tab)

  4. Green motion 'KI-Behörde endlich benennen' tabled in the Nationalrat

    Motion 517/A(E) (15 Oct 2025) calls on the government to designate a notifying authority and a market surveillance authority immediately and warns that combining advisory and supervisory roles at RTR creates a conflict of interest.

    parlament.gv.at (opens in new tab)

  5. Digital Omnibus ('Omnibus VII (KI)') takes effect

    Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 was published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and applied from 27 July 2026 (Digital Austria dates the Omnibus VII to 24 July); it postponed high-risk obligations (Annex III to 2 Dec 2027, Annex I to 2 Aug 2028), easing but not removing pressure to stand up national authorities.

    digitalaustria.gv.at (opens in new tab)

  6. Commission list still shows no Austrian single point of contact

    The Commission's continuously updated list of single points of contact (last update 7 Sept 2026) has no entry for Austria, alongside Belgium, Bulgaria and Croatia.

    digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu (opens in new tab)

Analysis

Austria is an outlier among wealthier western member states: it built an early, well-resourced AI service desk at RTR in 2024, yet has not taken the legally decisive step of designating competent authorities under Article 70. The result is a governance gap in which Austrian deployers of high-risk systems have no national regulator to report serious incidents to, a point the Greens' October 2025 motion made explicitly. Official pages at Digital Austria describe the country as having a 'modern AI governance structure', but list only Article 77 fundamental-rights bodies, the KI-Beirat advisory council and the RTR desk.

The political plan is clear even if the law is not: the ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS government programme places the future 'KI-Behörde' inside RTR, extending the KI-Servicestelle. The sticking points appear to be institutional design (independence from the advisory function, whether sectoral regulators such as FMA, BASG and the Datenschutzbehörde keep their domains) and timing. State Secretary Pröll's mid-2025 promise of an autumn start slipped, and by October 2026 no draft had been sent for Begutachtung or to the Ministerrat that we could identify.

Practically, the Digital Omnibus has bought Austria time. With Annex III high-risk duties postponed to December 2027, the absence of a market surveillance authority mostly affects Article 50 transparency enforcement, which has applied since 2 August 2026, and the handling of prohibited-practice complaints. Companies should expect RTR to become the lead authority, treat the KI-Servicestelle's guidance as the best available signal of future supervisory practice, and watch the Commission's single-point-of-contact list for the moment Austria finally appears.

PDF edition

EU AI Act 2026 Q3 Report

All 27 member-state profiles including Austria, the readiness ranking, the Omnibus timeline and every source, as one print-ready PDF.

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Sources

  1. No AI Act implementing or accompanying law published (government programme foresees a 'KI-Behörde' built on the RTR KI-Servicestelle) (opens in new tab) parlament.gv.at
  2. Regulatory sandbox (opens in new tab) digitalaustria.gv.at
  3. AIM AT 2030 – Strategie der Bundesregierung für Künstliche Intelligenz (opens in new tab) digitalaustria.gv.at
  4. Federal 'KI-Maßnahmenpaket' announced (opens in new tab) web.archive.org
  5. KI-Servicestelle created at RTR (opens in new tab) rtr.at
  6. Commission list still shows no Austrian single point of contact (opens in new tab) digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu