Hofer was an innkeeper, wine merchant, and cattle dealer and was intensely loyal to the Austrian house of Habsburg and the Roman Catholic church. He worked for the return of the Tirol to Austria after it had been ceded to Bavaria in 1805. With Austrian aid, he fought a number of successful minor actions against the Bavarian and Italo-French troops occupying his homeland, becoming well known throughout the Tirol.

After the Truce of Znaim (July 1809), Austria began to withdraw from its new war against Napoleon and again relinquished the Tirol, but Hofer, calling for a popular rising, defeated the Bavarians so decisively at the second Battle of Berg Isel near Innsbruck (August 1809) that they were forced to leave the province. He then styled himself commander in chief of the Tirol and established an administration with the acquiescence of the Austrian emperor Francis I. In the Treaty of Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn, Treaty of) (October 1809), however, Francis ceded the Tirol to Napoleon, thus abandoning Hofer to the victorious French. Italo-French troops pacified most of the area shortly thereafter, while Hofer wavered between resistance and acceptance of the new order. He was finally captured near his home, taken to Mantua, and on Napoleon's orders executed. In 1823 his bones were transferred to Innsbruck. The poem “Sandwirth Hofer,” by Julius Mosen, is still the Tirolese anthem.