Best Ski Resorts in Burgenland: All 3 Areas Ranked

By Best:in Editorial Team · Updated September 2026

Burgenland is Austria's flattest state, so the field is genuinely tiny: three club-run ski areas, four lifts and roughly 1.1 km of piste in total, per skiresort.info in September 2026. Schiwiese Wiesen ranks first on lift capacity and snowmaking, Schiwiese Kukmirn second, Skilift Rettenbach third. Nobody books a ski holiday here. People come to learn, to race the kids, or to ski ten minutes from home.

Best Ski Resorts in Burgenland: All 3 Areas Ranked, ranked

1.

Schiwiese Wiesen

The Gaisrückleiten T-bar has run since 2003, measures 300 m and moves 1,000 people per hour, the highest lift capacity in the state. Snowmaking backs it up, and a rebuilt base station opened on 19 January 2021 after construction started in August 2020. Skiresort.info rates it 2.1 of 5 stars, the highest score in Burgenland. Friday operation until 19:30 and roughly 1,000 club members behind the ski school seal first place.

Best for: First turns near Vienna and Eisenstadt

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2.

Schiwiese Kukmirn

The Skilift Zellenberg is the newest lift in Burgenland, built in 2012 to replace a rope tow. It runs 250 m at 2.5 m/s, carries 720 people per hour and takes about 1 minute 50 seconds to the top. The area covers roughly two hectares between 300 m and 360 m, with snowmaking, night skiing and a separate beginner area. School classes can book outside normal hours by appointment.

Best for: Night skiing and school groups in Southern Burgenland

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3.

Skilift Rettenbach

Rettenbach is the biggest ski area in the state by the two measures that count: 0.5 km of slope and a top station at 540 m, both Burgenland records. It also has the most lifts, two rope tows, the second dating from 2004. The trade-off is equipment level, since rope tows are hard work for small children, and no snowmaking is documented. The hill switches to grass skiing in summer.

Best for: Most vertical and most lifts in Burgenland

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Does Burgenland really have ski resorts?

It has ski areas, not resorts. Skiresort.info lists three of them in Burgenland, served by four lifts, with about 1.1 km of marked piste between them. The highest, Rettenbach near Bernstein, sits between 458 m and 540 m. Kukmirn's slope runs from 300 m to 360 m, a vertical drop of 60 m. For scale, the state's highest mountain, the Geschriebenstein on the Hungarian border, reaches 884 m, which is lower than the base station of most Tyrolean lifts.

All three are operated by local clubs rather than lift companies. Schiklub Wiesen was founded in 1976 and reports more than 1,000 members. The Schi- und Wanderclub Kukmirn has existed since 1987 and belongs to the Austrian Ski Association. That ownership model explains the rest of this page: short operating windows, phone numbers instead of booking engines, and tickets sold at the hut.

What does a day cost and when are the lifts actually open?

No Burgenland club publishes a complete tariff on a national portal, so ring the number on the club page before you load the car. Opening hours are better documented. In Wiesen the lift has run Monday to Thursday from 14:00 to 17:00, Friday from 14:00 to 19:30, and Saturday, Sunday and school holidays from 09:30 to 17:00, with a midday break from 12:00 to 13:00. Rettenbach has advertised weekend and holiday operation from 09:00 to 16:30. Every one of those windows depends on snow cover on the day.

Historical pricing gives you the flavour of the place. When Burgenland's first lift opened at Neustift bei Güssing more than 60 years ago, a ticket cost 50 Groschen, roughly four cents, and peak days drew up to 2,000 skiers. That lift shut in the 1970s because the snow stopped coming. Kukmirn also opens its slope to school groups outside normal hours by prior appointment, which is the cheapest way to get a class on skis in the east of the country.

How reliable is the snow at 300 to 540 metres?

It is not reliable, and the clubs know it. Two of the three areas, Wiesen and Kukmirn, run snowmaking systems; without them there would be no season at all in most winters. Wiesen could not open its lift for a full winter before the 2020/21 season, then opened officially on 19 January 2021 after natural snowfall plus artificial cover. The club had started building a new base station in August 2020 and finished it days before that opening.

Season timing is therefore reactive rather than fixed. ORF Burgenland has reported January starts, with the Wiesen T-bar already turning while Kukmirn opened mid-week. Plan around cold snaps in January and February, check the club's Facebook page the morning of the trip, and accept that a mild week ends the season. The 1970s closure at Neustift bei Güssing, caused by a lack of snow, is the long-run warning attached to this altitude band.

How do you plan a Burgenland ski day without wasting the drive?

  1. Confirm the lift is turning that day

    These are volunteer operations with weather-dependent hours, not resorts with a snow telephone. Kukmirn lists a mobile number for bookings and conditions, and Wiesen posts status updates through the club. Check on the morning of travel, not the night before, because a 300 m T-bar can be closed by a single warm afternoon.

  2. Match the arrival time to the schedule

    The most common mistake is a Tuesday morning arrival in Wiesen, where the lift has opened at 14:00 from Monday to Thursday. Weekends start at 09:30 and include a break from 12:00 to 13:00. Rettenbach's advertised window is 09:00 to 16:30 on weekends and holidays.

  3. Bring cash and your own gear where possible

    Club huts are set up for local traffic, not for card-paying day visitors, and rental stock is limited. Budget for a hut meal too; each of the three areas has a ski hut serving food and drink, and there is no resort village nearby.

  4. Use the slope for its real purpose

    A 250 m J-bar with 60 m of vertical in Kukmirn, or Rettenbach's 0.5 km of slope, is a teaching ground. Book a club ski instructor, do first turns and a race course, then use Lower Austria or Styria for the actual ski weekend later in the winter.

Where do you go when half a kilometre of piste is not enough?

Burgenland's largest area, Rettenbach, offers 0.5 km of slope across 82 vertical metres. Once a child links turns confidently, that is a 20-minute experience. The nearest real terrain lies over the border in Lower Austria and Styria, along the Wechsel and Semmering ridge, and those states carry hundreds of times more piste than the whole of Burgenland. Our Lower Austria and Styria ski pages cover that step up, including lift counts and pass prices.

Keep Burgenland for what it does well. Kukmirn offers night skiing and a roughly two-hectare practice meadow with a beginner area. Rettenbach runs grass skiing on the same hill in summer, which is unusual in eastern Austria. Wiesen adds a Friday evening slot until 19:30 and a ski club with more than 1,000 members behind the instruction. The travel time from Eisenstadt, Oberwart or Güssing is measured in minutes, which is the entire argument for these hills.

How is this ranking computed?

  • Lift infrastructure and capacity: 25%
  • Snowmaking and season reliability: 25%
  • Slope size and vertical drop: 20%
  • Beginner and family suitability: 20%
  • Access and published information: 10%

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