How to Find an Apartment in Vienna: a Guide

Vienna is regularly ranked the world's most liveable city, and the rental market behaves accordingly: good apartments disappear within a day, and a single viewing can attract dozens of applications. The good news is that the process is very learnable. Here is everything we wish someone had told us at the start.

Where to search

The market runs on willhaben.at – almost every private listing and most agency listings end up there. It is in German only, which is exactly why being fast there gives expats an edge. Also worth checking: immobilienscout24.at, the property section of derStandard and wohnnet.at. For shared flats (WG), use wg-gesucht.de; for furnished short-to-mid-term places, platforms like HousingAnywhere – pricier, but they work in English and landlords expect foreign tenants.

Since speed decides who gets the viewing, we built Mietscan: it scans willhaben every 5 minutes and pings you on Telegram or email the moment something matching appears, with filters in English. Free during the beta. You can see the current market on our live map of Vienna.

One thing to know as a newcomer: most Austrian rentals come unfurnished, and in older buildings that can genuinely mean no kitchen. Look for the word Küche in the listing, or for Ablöse (more below).

Which district fits you?

Vienna has 23 districts and the postcode tells you which one: 1060 is the 6th, 1220 the 22nd. A rough map:

• Inside the Gürtel (4th–9th): Altbau charm, cafés, short distances. The 7th (Neubau) is the hip one, the 8th and 9th are quieter. Popular and priced accordingly.
• 1st district: Beautiful, central, expensive – few people actually live there.
• 2nd, 3rd, 20th: Close to the centre, mixed, with the Prater park and the Danube canal. Good value; the 2nd has gentrified fast.
• West (13th, 18th, 19th): Green and residential. Döbling and Hietzing are among the most expensive areas – think families and vineyards.
• South and west belt (10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 17th): The most affordable square metres in the city. The 15th and 16th are diverse and changing quickly; the 10th is rising thanks to the central station quarter.
• Across the Danube (21st, 22nd): Lots of new construction, more space for your money. Check the U-Bahn connection before committing.
• 23rd: Quiet, almost suburban, works well with a car.

Listing vocabulary, decoded

• BK (Betriebskosten): running costs. Always check whether the advertised rent is inkl. BK (included) or exkl. BK.
• HWB: the building's heating demand from the energy certificate – lower means cheaper winters.
• Kaution: the deposit, normally three months' gross rent. We wrote a separate deposit guide.
• Ablöse: a payment to the previous tenant, typically for the kitchen or furniture. Legal only for real value – inflated Ablöse demands can be reclaimed.
• Provisionsfrei: no agent commission. Since July 2023, whoever hires the agent pays them, so as a tenant you usually pay nothing.
• Befristet / unbefristet: fixed-term vs. open-ended. Fixed-term contracts under the MRG must run at least three years; you can terminate after one year with three months' notice.
• Altbau: pre-1945 building – often covered by the Richtwert system that caps the legal rent.
• Erstbezug: first occupancy after construction or renovation.
• Hauptmiete / Untermiete: main lease vs. sublease. Subtenants have much weaker rights – ask which one you are signing.

Applying like a local

Prepare a folder before you start: payslips for the last three months, your Meldezettel (residence registration – you must register within three days of moving in), and a short introduction in German if you can manage it. Reply within the first hours after a listing goes live – that is exactly what instant alerts are for.

Before you sign anything: Austrian tenancy law strictly regulates deposits, fixed terms and clauses, and not every contract plays by the rules. Our AI contract check reads your Mietvertrag and flags the obvious problems in minutes, in English – launching in September, the waitlist is open.