Founded at the pleasure of the Habsburgs. On 20 July 1498, Emperor Maximilian decided to hire six singing boys, the first permanent boys choir attached to the court. He also made arrangements for their education – fringe benefits that are difficult to get from a modern employer. The choir served the monarchy until its demise at the beginning of the First World War. The last Imperial Chaplain, Monsignor Josef Schnitt reestablished the Boys Choir in 1924 as a private institution. To earn money, the choir began to perform outside the Imperial Chapel. Even though they are a not-for-profit organization, the rising costs of educating the choristers from a very young age as well as providing music required establishing the Verein Wiener Sängerknaben necessary. The choir sings high mass every Sunday morning (Sep-Jun) at the Hofburgkapelle (Imperial Chapel) in the Imperial Palace, and appears regularly at evening concerts in the Musikverein.

The Vienna Boys' Choir (German: Wiener Sängerknaben) is a choir of boy sopranos and altos based in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the best-known boys' choirs in the world. The boys are selected mainly from Austria, but also from many other countries.

The choir is a private, non-profit organization. There are approximately 100 choristers between the ages of nine and fourteen. The boys are divided into four touring choirs, named after Austrian composers Bruckner, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert, which combined perform about 300 concerts each year before almost 500,000 people. Each group tours for about nine to eleven weeks. Some pieces include "Good Morning" and "Merry Christmas from Vienna Boys".