Austria

Salary in IT

—

Median

$ 89 674

Visa speed

About 8 weeks for the whole process of reviewing a Red-White-Red Card application, provided the document package is complete; the actual time depends on the agency's workload (migration.gv.at, the official FAQ of the federal immigration platform).

Degree required

yes

Changing employer

The Red-White-Red Card and the EU Blue Card are tied to the employer named in the application for the first 24 months. After 21 months of work within a 24-month period you can move to the Red-White-Red Card plus, with unrestricted access to the labour market.

Visa types: Red-White-Red Card: very highly qualified workers (a points system) · Red-White-Red Card — shortage occupations · Red-White-Red Card — other key workers · Red-White-Red Card: graduates of Austrian universities · Red-White-Red Card — self-employed key workers / startup founders · EU Blue Card · Red-White-Red Card plus (after 21 months on a Blue Card or the card, unrestricted access to the labour market)

Austria splits its routes in two, and that line matters more than any other difference. A "residence permit" (Aufenthaltsbewilligung) is granted for a temporary purpose — a posting, studies, volunteering, an intra-corporate transfer, cross-border commuting — and the years spent on it COUNT TOWARDS NOTHING: neither towards the five years for "Long-Term Resident – EU" nor towards the residence period for citizenship. The page on naturalisation after ten years says so outright: with a "residence permit" a person does not count as settled. "Settlement" (Niederlassung) — the Red-White-Red Card and the Card plus, settlement permits of every kind, the "Family Member" title, the EU Blue Card — counts towards both. When choosing a route, look not at its length or its price but at which of the two halves it falls into. The price barely depends on the route. The application fee is EUR 218, and it is the same for a residence permit, for a Red-White-Red Card, for the Card plus, for the EU Blue Card and for any form of settlement. Three fall outside the row: "Long-Term Resident – EU" costs EUR 275, and the documents of an EEA or Swiss citizen cost EUR 44 (the registration certificate and the certificate of permanent residence) and EUR 91 for the photo identification card and for a family member's residence card, with EUR 39 for those under sixteen. If the document is never issued, the tax office refunds the fee. The income threshold is common to almost every title and is tied to the pension supplement rate under § 293 of the General Social Insurance Act: from 1 January 2026 it is EUR 1,308.39 a month for a single person, EUR 2,064.12 for spouses or cohabiting partners and EUR 201.88 for each child. For the one route open to the financially independent — the "settlement permit except gainful employment" — the rate is EXACTLY DOUBLE: EUR 2,616.78, EUR 4,128.24 and EUR 403.76. What counts is regular income after deduction of current expenses, and confirmations of social benefits to which entitlement would arise only with the issue of the title qualify nowhere. In Austria the decision periods are not statistics but a duty, and they are printed on the pages of the routes themselves: on a Red-White-Red Card the authority must decide within EIGHT WEEKS, on other titles within four months, and on the move of a family member of an EU Blue Card holder from another member state within thirty days. Hence the advice to apply eight weeks before the job starts. An extension is filed in person and no earlier than three months before the title expires: whoever is late loses the continuity of the right, and the application counts as a first one. Some routes are subject to quotas. The government's settlement regulation assigns each province an annual number of places, and once the quota is used up applications are simply not accepted until the following year. A quota place is needed for the settlement permit, for the permit except gainful employment, for the "Relative" permit, for some cases of the Card plus and for switching from long-term resident status of another EU state. The Red-White-Red Card and the EU Blue Card are not tied to quotas. Working Holiday in Austria is run not by the settlement authority but by the foreign ministry, and it is a visa D, not a title. There are twelve agreements — with Argentina, Australia, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and the United States — and their terms DIFFER. The visa costs EUR 195 everywhere except Japan, where it is issued free of charge. The stay is twelve months everywhere except New Zealand, where it is six. A quota is announced only by the United States — one hundred visas a year. A degree is required by two: the United States (an American educational institution completed within the last twelve months) and Australia (a university degree or two years of study). Argentina has a restriction of its own: no more than six months with the same employer. A separate word on the EUR 195: an earlier entry in this guide attached that sum to the job-seeker visa. The page of the job-seeker visa itself carries no price at all — the EUR 195 stands on the foreign ministry's Working Holiday pages and belongs to a visa D marked WHP. Here the job-seeker visa's fee is left empty. In the citizenship branch, federal fees are printed on EXACTLY ONE page out of six — the one on the naturalisation of stateless persons: EUR 163 for the application and EUR 1,126 for the decision. The main routes — ten years, six years, fifteen and thirty — have no "Kosten" section on their pages at all, and the page on citizenship for a minor refers the reader straight to the provincial government office for the price. The reason lies in how the fee is built: on top of the federal fees a provincial administrative levy is charged, and it differs in every province. Citizenship also comes by notification, not only by naturalisation. Victims of National Socialism and their direct descendants — children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — acquire citizenship BY NOTIFICATION (Anzeige): no period of residence in Austria is required at all, the previous citizenship need not be given up, and citizenship itself arises the moment the notification reaches the authority. For those living outside Austria the case is handled by the Vienna provincial government, MA 35. The route under the agreement on the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU ("Article 50 TEU") is CLOSED to new applicants: the application had to be filed by 31 December 2021, and the right is preserved only for those who lived and worked in Austria before 31 December 2020.

Permanent residence after

5 years

Citizenship after

10 years

Language

German (the level depends on the route; B2 qualifies for the naturalisation period shortened to 6 years)

Dual citizenship

not allowed

Absence limits: To obtain 'Daueraufenthalt – EU' status (permanent settlement under EU Directive 2003/109/EC), the five-year period of continuous residence in Austria is broken if absences from the country total more than 10 months, or 6 months at a stretch (for EU Blue Card holders the threshold is more lenient: 18 months in total or 12 months continuously outside the EEA). For good cause (serious illness, the equivalent of military service, etc.), with prior notification to the authorities, an absence of up to 24 months is allowed without breaking the term. A 'Daueraufenthalt – EU' status already obtained is revoked after a continuous absence of more than 12 months outside the EEA, and it lapses if the person has not been settled in Austria for 6 consecutive years (oesterreich.gv.at, page 'Aufenthaltstitel "Daueraufenthalt – EU"').

The standard route is 10 years of continuous lawful residence. The accelerated route is 6 years with certified German at B2 or sustained integration; for EEA and Swiss citizens it is 6 years. Marriage to an Austrian citizen: at least 5 years of marriage alongside 6 years of residence in the country (Wikipedia, 'Austrian nationality law', citing Austrian legislation).

Document certification

apostille

The country is party to the 1961 Hague Convention: a degree or certificate is authenticated with a single apostille in the country that issued it.

Limit

5

Quarantine

no

Antibody titre test

needed

Preparation

~4 months

Cost per animal

$ 341 – $ 910

EU rules (Regulation 576/2013), applied uniformly in Austria. Up to 5 animals per person with no quarantine, provided the requirements are met: a microchip, rabies vaccination and, for countries outside the EU list (Russia included), an antibody titre test at an accredited laboratory and a wait of 3 months after a successful test. Total preparation takes from about 4 months. No data was found on a federal ban on particular breeds (rules on keeping dogs may differ between the federal states).

Situation

calm

Crime: Austria is one of the world's most peaceful countries. The main everyday risk is pickpocketing in tourist areas and city centres.

The main natural hazards are flooding in the Alpine regions (Salzburg, Tyrol, Vorarlberg) and local seismicity in the east and south. There are no hurricanes, tsunamis or active volcanoes.

Type

Three climate zones: Atlantic influence in the north-west, a continental climate in the east, traces of a Mediterranean climate in the south; the Alps form Europe's climate divide (Wikipedia, “Austria”)

Life expectancy

82 years

Healthcare: Universal compulsory health insurance through ÖGK (Österreichische Gesundheitskasse), with contributions split between employer and employee.

Bread, 500 g

$ 2,76

Milk, 1 l

$ 1,73

Eggs, 12

$ 4,95

Chicken breast, 1 kg

$ 14,5

Cheese, 1 kg

$ 19,1

Rice, 1 kg

$ 2,61

Potatoes, 1 kg

$ 2,11

Apples, 1 kg

$ 3,06

Coca-Cola / Pepsi, 2 l

$ 2,77

Total

$ 53,5

The same set for every country, so the comparison is fair.

Rent, 1 bedroom

$ 1 023 a month

Rent, 3 bedrooms

$ 2 151 a month

Utility bills

$ 296 a month

Home internet

$ 35,9 a month

Monthly transport pass

$ 61,4 a month

Single transport ticket

$ 3,38

Petrol, litre

$ 1,86

Cold medicine

$ 17,6 for a week

Country averages. City prices, where collected, are shown above and are more precise.

Life expectancy

82 years2024

Homicides

1 per 100k2024

Theft

1 180 per 100k2024

Burglary

700,1 per 100k2024

Robbery

32,6 per 100k2024

Vehicle and vehicle-part theft

39,2 per 100k2024

Road deaths

4,6 per 100k2021

Unemployment

5,6 %2025

Unemployment, ages 15–24

11 %2025

Inequality (Gini)

31,22023

Health spending per person

$ 6 739 a year

Air pollution, PM2.5

10 µg/m³2023

Access to clean water

100 %2024

Internet, fixed line

116,3 Mbit/s2026

Internet, mobile

116,1 Mbit/s2026

Governance

Political stability

above average · 0,5

Control of corruption

high · 1,3

Rule of law

high · 1,7

Government effectiveness

high · 1,5

World Bank estimates on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale, higher is better.

Natural hazards

Earthquakes

3,9 out of 10

River floods

7,2 out of 10

Coastal floods

0 out of 10

Tropical cyclones

0 out of 10

Droughts

1,7 out of 10

Tsunamis

0 out of 10

Policy towards newcomers

Migrant integration, overall score

41 out of 100 · 2019

Family reunification

36 out of 100 · 2019

Permanent residence

50 out of 100 · 2019

Access to citizenship

13 out of 100 · 2019

Access to the labour market

59 out of 100 · 2019

Measures how favourable the law is towards newcomers, not one person's chances of getting a visa.

Each value carries the year it refers to. “Data lags behind” means this country's figure was collected noticeably earlier than the rest. Natural hazards use one 0–10 scale and are meant to be compared against each other.

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