Austria

Whether a short visit needs a visa is decided by Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 and not by Austrian law: Annex I nationals need one, Annex II nationals do not. Austria's own Fremdenpolizeigesetz requires a valid travel document and, where Union law calls for it, a visa - and that is as far as it goes. The one place the Act mentions a visa-free stay, § 31(1) Z 1, makes your presence lawful so long as you have not overrun the limits of that stay, without ever saying what those limits are. The ninety days in any 180 are the Union's arithmetic, carried into Austria by the Schengen rules rather than written into the Austrian Act.

Austria does have a residence title for someone living on their own income and not working: the "Niederlassungsbewilligung - ausgenommen Erwerbstätigkeit". Two things stand between an applicant and it. The income test is high - twice the pension reference rate in § 293 ASVG, which for 2026 means twice 1 308,39 euro a month for a single person - and the title is quota-bound, so it may only be granted while a place is left in the Niederlassungsverordnung for the year. That ordinance is made annually by the federal government. The most recent one on the authentic Bundesgesetzblatt is the Niederlassungsverordnung 2025, published on 18 December 2025 and setting the quota for the year 2025.

Austria has no residence title for retired people. The list of titles in § 8(1) of the Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz is closed and contains none, and the word for retirement appears in the settlement chapter only once, in § 44(2), where it is about diplomats and international officials retiring in place rather than about anyone arriving. A pensioner therefore applies for the "Niederlassungsbewilligung - ausgenommen Erwerbstätigkeit" on the same terms as anyone else with income and no job: twice the § 293 ASVG reference rate, and a quota place. A pension counts towards that income, because § 11(5) counts income from insurance benefits, but it is not treated more kindly than any other source.

Working in Austria as a third-country national is governed by two statutes at once. The Ausländerbeschäftigungsgesetz decides whether you may be admitted to employment, and it does so by scoring you against a points table in one of its annexes. The Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz then grants the residence title - the Rot-Weiss-Rot Karte - on the strength of a written notification from the regional office of the Arbeitsmarktservice. Three doors lead in, each with its own annex and its own pass mark: the very highly qualified under § 12 and Annex A, which needs 70 of 100; skilled workers in a shortage occupation under § 12a and Annex B, which needs 55 of 90; and other key workers under § 12b and Annex C, which needs 55 of 90 and a salary floor tied to the social-insurance ceiling. The decision is to be taken within eight weeks.

There is no investment-based residence title in Austrian law, and no sum of money that buys one. The closed list of titles in § 8(1) of the Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz contains nothing of the kind, and the settlement chapter states no investment figure anywhere. Two routes touch the territory without being investor routes. A "Niederlassungsbewilligung" under § 43(2) is open to a third-country national who has freedom of establishment under an act of the European Union and wants to work for themselves, and it asks only for the Part 1 conditions. And the Ausländerbeschäftigungsgesetz admits start-up founders under § 24(2) on a points table of its own, Annex D, which needs 50 points of a possible 85 - a table where capital of at least 50 000 euro is worth ten points and is not, by itself, enough to pass.

A student gets an Aufenthaltsbewilligung, which is a permit to stay for a purpose rather than a settlement title, and Austria grants it as of right - "ist auszustellen" - once admission to a degree programme and the general conditions are made out. The accommodation condition in § 11(2) Z 2 is disapplied, which matters for anyone arriving into student housing. The valuable part comes at the end: a graduate who wants a Rot-Weiss-Rot Karte, a Blaue Karte EU or a researcher permit may have the student permit extended once, for twelve months, to look for work or to found a business.

Austria has no residence permit for a person with Austrian ancestry. The list of titles in § 8(1) of the Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz is closed and contains none, and descent appears in Austrian law on the other side of the line: as a way of acquiring nationality rather than residence. A child of an Austrian is Austrian from birth under § 7 of the Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz, and a grandchild born abroad to a parent who was not Austrian gets nothing from that section. One ancestry route does exist and it is wide: § 58c(3) of the Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz gives Austrian nationality, by written notice and with no residence requirement at all, to a descendant in the direct descending line of a person who fled or was deported because of persecution by the organs of the NSDAP or the authorities of the German Reich, or because they stood for the democratic Republic of Austria.

Austrian law splits family reunification by whose family you are joining. The spouse of an Austrian, an EEA national or a Swiss national who lives permanently in Austria and has not used free-movement rights gets an Aufenthaltstitel "Familienangehöriger" as of right, with no quota place needed. The spouse of a third-country national gets a Rot-Weiss-Rot Karte plus, and whether a quota place is needed depends on which title the sponsor holds: none for the holder of a Rot-Weiss-Rot Karte, one for the holder of a Daueraufenthalt - EU. Both spouses must have turned 21 at the date of the application, and only the core family counts.

Austria belongs to one regime that gives nationals of other states a right to live there rather than permission: the European Economic Area. The Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz handles it in a chapter of its own, §§ 51 to 57, and the difference from the rest of the Act is visible in the verbs. An EEA national who works, is self-employed, has sufficient means and comprehensive insurance, or is studying with means and insurance is entitled to stay beyond three months; they notify the authority within four months of entry and are issued an Anmeldebescheinigung on request. After five years of lawful continuous residence the right becomes permanent regardless of whether the original ground still holds. Of the forty-two origins this site covers, seven are EEA states: Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium.

Austrian naturalisation takes ten years of lawful continuous residence, five of them as a settled person, plus German, civics and self-sufficient means. Six years is enough in a short list of cases: married five years to an Austrian, an EEA national, born in Austria, outstanding achievement, or German at B2. The part that decides most cases is § 10(3): a foreigner who holds another nationality may not be naturalised if they fail to do what is needed to leave it, where that is possible and reasonable, or if they deliberately procure its retention. The machinery is § 20. The authority first issues an assurance of the grant, valid two years, against which the applicant renounces; and the assurance is redeemed either by proof of release or by proof that release was not possible or not reasonable. Austria also waives § 10(3) outright for an applicant naturalised on the government's certificate of exceptional merit, and does not apply it at all to acquisition by notice under § 58c.

Austrian income tax turns on two concepts defined not in the tax Act but in the Bundesabgabenordnung. A Wohnsitz is where you keep a dwelling in circumstances suggesting you will keep and use it - no minimum number of nights, no registration requirement in the definition itself. A gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt is where you are present in circumstances showing you are not merely passing through, and where unlimited liability is tied to it the Bundesabgabenordnung settles the argument: more than six months in Austria brings it about in every case, and the liability then reaches back over those first six months. Either test alone makes you unlimitedly liable under § 1(2) of the Einkommensteuergesetz, which extends to income from everywhere.

Anyone lawfully present in the European Union has a right, under § 23 of the Verbraucherzahlungskontogesetz, to open and use a payment account with basic features at a credit institution established in Austria, whatever their place of residence. It extends to people with no fixed address, to asylum seekers, and to people with no residence right who cannot be removed. The bank has ten business days to open the account or refuse, and it may refuse only on the two grounds in § 24(1): you already have such an account in Austria, or there is a criminal case or unspent conviction against you for a deliberate offence to the bank's or its staff's detriment. The fee is capped at 80 euro a year. Section 26(3) says that cap changes with the consumer price index every two years from 1 January 2019 and that the new amounts are to be published in the Bundesgesetzblatt. A full-text search of the authentic Bundesgesetzblatt for the word used in that provision returned eight documents, none of them such a publication.

Austrian health insurance attaches to employment. Section 4(1) of the Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz makes employees fully insured for sickness, accident and pension by force of the statute, with no mention of nationality anywhere in the provision: the trigger is the employment relationship. Someone not compulsorily insured can self-insure under § 16(1), and the only condition that section states is a residence in Austria. Dependants are covered without a contribution of their own under § 123, on two conditions: habitual abode in Austria, and not being insured in their own right. Separately, comprehensive insurance that actually pays in Austria is a condition of almost every residence title, so for most people the cover has to be arranged before the permit rather than after arrival.

Two regimes, and which one you are in is decided by the state that issued your licence. A licence from an EEA state counts as an Austrian licence from the moment you move your residence to Austria and for as long as you keep it there - nothing has to be done, and an exchange is optional. A licence from anywhere else lets you drive for six months from the day you establish a residence in Austria, extendable once by six months for someone who will be in Austria under a year for work or training, and after that driving on it is an offence. To convert it you must show you lived in or stayed six months in the issuing state when the licence was granted, that you have moved your residence to Austria, that you are fit and reliable - and then either pass a practical driving test or come from a state the transport minister's ordinance has listed as granting licences on equivalent terms. That list is § 9(1) of the Führerscheingesetz-Durchführungsverordnung, and it is short.

Household goods brought in on a move to Austria are relieved of import duty by Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009, the same instrument in every Member State. Three conditions and one deadline do the work: you must have owned and, for non-consumables, used the goods for at least six months before leaving, your normal residence must have been outside the customs territory for a continuous twelve months, and the goods must be entered for free circulation within twelve months of your establishing residence in the Union. Alcohol, tobacco, commercial vehicles and the tools of a trade are excluded outright. Austria adds something the Regulation does not touch. The Normverbrauchsabgabe falls on the first registration of a vehicle in Austria, and the exemptions in § 3 of the Normverbrauchsabgabegesetz are for zero-emission vehicles, dealers' demonstration cars, export supplies and drivers with a disability. Removal goods are not among them.