Führerscheinentzug in Austria: The Vormerksystem and Licence Withdrawal Explained

An Austrian driver who has never heard the word Vormerksystem tends to assume it works like the German Flensburg points register: commit enough offences, rack up enough points, and the licence goes at a set threshold. Austria does not run that model. § 30a of the Führerscheingesetz (FSG) sets up a closed list of thirteen serious offences, and what happens next depends on how many of them a driver commits within a rolling window, not on any accumulated score.

This page explains the Vormerksystem step by step: the record, the mandatory course, and the point at which Entziehung der Lenkberechtigung (licence withdrawal) follows. It also covers the separate route to a driving ban, direct Entziehung for a single serious offence such as high level drink driving, since the two systems interact and share the same minimum duration rules.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Austrian law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Two Separate Routes to Losing a Licence

Austrian law reaches Entziehung der Lenkberechtigung by two distinct routes, and confusing them is the most common mistake in English language searches on this topic.

The first route is the Vormerksystem: a driver accumulates Vormerkungen for offences drawn from a fixed thirteen item list in § 30a Abs 2 FSG, and the consequences escalate on the second and third occurrence within a defined window. The second route is direct Entziehung for a single serious offence that does not depend on any prior history at all, most commonly a drink driving offence above 1,2 Promille under § 99 Abs 1a or § 99 Abs 1 StVO.

Both routes eventually use the same duration formula in § 25 Abs 3 FSG once a withdrawal for lack of Verkehrszuverlässigkeit (driving reliability) is ordered. The rest of this page works through each route in turn.

The Vormerksystem: A Strike List, Not a Points Tally

The core mechanic sits in § 30a Abs 1 FSG. When a driver commits one of the offences on the Vormerkdelikte list, the authority enters a Vormerkung in the Örtliche Führerscheinregister. This entry happens independent of any Verwaltungsstrafe (administrative fine) already imposed for the same act, and independent of any Entziehung already ordered for a different reason. The record and the punishment run on separate tracks.

What happens next depends purely on count, not on points:

There is no cumulative score anywhere in this structure. A driver with one Vormerkung and a driver with zero are in an identical legal position until a second offence from the list actually occurs.

This is the opposite of the German Flensburg Fahreignungsregister, where minor and moderate offences all add points toward a running total and a licence can be withdrawn once the total crosses a threshold, even without any single serious incident. Unlike Germany, Austria's system tracks a short, fixed list of genuinely serious offences and ignores everything else for this purpose. A search for the German model does not translate into Austrian rules, and treating the two as equivalent will misinform a reader about how close they are to losing a licence.

The 13 Vormerkdelikte: Which Offences Are Recorded

§ 30a Abs 2 FSG lists the offences that create a Vormerkung. Z 3 was repealed in 2013, so thirteen numbered items remain in force. The main ones, summarised:

• Drink driving in the 0,5 to 0,8 Promille range under § 14 Abs 8 FSG (Z 1).
• Breach of the stricter 0,1 Promille limit for Class C and D licence holders under § 20 Abs 4 FSG (Z 2).
• Endangering a pedestrian lawfully using a marked crossing (Schutzweg) under §§ 9 Abs 2 and 38 Abs 4 StVO (Z 4).
• Tailgating measured at a following distance of 0,2 to under 0,4 seconds under § 18 Abs 1 StVO (Z 5).
• Failing to yield at a Halt sign, forcing another vehicle to brake or swerve, under § 19 Abs 7 StVO (Z 6).
• Running a red light and forcing cross traffic with a green signal to brake or swerve, under § 38 Abs 5 StVO (Z 7).
• Misusing the motorway hard shoulder or rescue lane in a way that obstructs emergency vehicles, under § 46 StVO (Z 8 and Z 8a).
• Speeding inside a road tunnel under § 52 lit a Z 7e StVO (Z 9).
• Dangerous goods and rail crossing violations at tunnels and level crossings (Z 10 and Z 11).
• Driving with a recognisable technical defect or an unsecured load that endangers road safety, under § 102 Abs 1 KFG (Z 12).
• Child restraint and child seat belt violations under § 106 KFG (Z 13).

Every item on this list is a genuinely serious lapse rather than routine speeding or a parking violation. Ordinary offences outside this list, however frequent, never feed into the Vormerksystem at all. They are punished through the normal fine structure covered on the on the spot fines page, with no strike consequence attached.

The Two Year Window, and When It Extends to Three

§ 30a Abs 4 FSG sets the timing rule that makes the count meaningful. The consequences in § 30b and § 7 Abs 3 Z 14 only apply if the triggering offences were committed within two years of each other. If a second Vormerkdelikt is committed within that two year window, the window itself extends to three years, giving the authority a longer runway to catch a third offence before the clock resets.

In practice this means a driver's exposure is not a fixed calendar date. A single Vormerkdelikt with nothing following it within two years simply expires as a live risk, though the record itself remains in the Führerscheinregister. A second offence inside the window both triggers the mandatory measure and resets the countdown to three years for the purpose of catching a third.

Direct Entziehung der Lenkberechtigung for Serious Offences

A driver does not need three Vormerkungen to lose a licence. A single sufficiently serious offence, most often high level drink driving, triggers Entziehung directly under § 26 FSG, with fixed minimum durations set by statute:

These are statutory floors, not typical outcomes. A repeat offence within five years of an earlier one under § 99 StVO carries longer minimums still, running as high as twelve months under § 26 Abs 2 Z 2 FSG. The exact blood alcohol tiers, the corresponding fines, and how the limits differ for Probeführerschein holders and professional drivers are covered in full on the drink driving page.

Whether an Entziehung is reached through the Vormerksystem's third strike or through a single serious offence like this, both fall under the same umbrella once the ground is lack of Verkehrszuverlässigkeit under § 7 FSG. That is what makes § 25 Abs 3 the duration formula for both routes, covered next.

Worked Example: How the Minimum Withdrawal Period Adds Up

§ 25 Abs 3 FSG sets the baseline: any Entziehung ordered for lack of Verkehrszuverlässigkeit carries a minimum of three months. For most grounds, that minimum is extended by two weeks for every Vormerkung already recorded against the driver at the time of the withdrawal, but § 25 Abs 3 expressly carves out an exception: the two week extension does not apply to an Entziehung ordered under § 7 Abs 3 Z 14 or Z 15 FSG, which is exactly the third strike Vormerksystem ground covered on this page.

Take a driver who already has two Vormerkungen on record (the first from a 0,5 to 0,8 Promille offence, the second from a tailgating violation that triggered the mandatory Nachschulung) and who then commits a third Vormerkdelikt within the window. Entziehung follows automatically under § 7 Abs 3 Z 14. Because that specific provision is excluded from the § 25 Abs 3 extension, the two prior Vormerkungen add nothing to the duration:

• Base minimum under § 25 Abs 3: 3 months.
• Extension for the two prior Vormerkungen: none, since § 25 Abs 3 expressly excludes a § 7 Abs 3 Z 14 withdrawal from the two week per Vormerkung extension.
• Statutory floor for this third strike withdrawal: 3 months flat, regardless of how many Vormerkungen preceded it.

A driver with no prior Vormerkungen who is nonetheless withdrawn for a single 1,6 Promille drink driving offence faces a different floor entirely, the fixed six month minimum under § 26 Abs 2 Z 1 FSG, since that provision sets its own figure independent of the general § 25 Abs 3 baseline. The two duration rules do not stack; whichever provision applies to the specific ground for withdrawal supplies the minimum. The two week per Vormerkung extension in § 25 Abs 3 still applies to other Verkehrszuverlässigkeit based withdrawals, such as a drink driving Entziehung where the driver separately has prior Vormerkungen on record, but it is expressly excluded for the third strike Vormerksystem withdrawal itself, which stays a flat three month floor no matter how many Vormerkungen preceded it.

Drivers who want the specific alcohol limits and fine amounts behind the drink driving Vormerkdelikte and the direct Entziehung route should read the drink driving page. Routine traffic offences that never touch the Vormerksystem, such as ordinary speeding tickets issued as an Organmandat, are covered on the on the spot fines page.