What changed, and when

The largest revision of the card since it was created. The salary floor for other key workers became a single 50 % of the maximum contribution base for every age; the separate salary floor for graduates was deleted; work experience began to count by the half-year instead of the year; English earned points, and a bonus for English as the company language was added; the start-up founders’ capital requirement fell from €50,000 to €30,000; language certificates were limited to five years; age and salary became assessed at the date of application; the category for regular workers in tourism, agriculture and forestry (Stammmitarbeiter) was created; the EU Blue Card threshold fell from 1.5 to 1.0 times the average salary and an experience route for IT specialists was added; the means test was waived for the Red-White-Red Card, whose accommodation proof had already been dropped on 24 December 2020 (BGBl. I Nr. 145/2020); and a statutory service point for employers was set up at the Austrian Business Agency.

Published on 20 October 2022 and in force from the following day: a Red-White-Red Card applicant in any category may file in Austria after any lawful entry and during a lawful stay, no longer only a very highly qualified worker on a job-seeker visa (§ 21(2)(7) NAG) — the provision that the 7 August 2026 amendment then took out of the no-right-to-stay rule of § 21(6).

The points annexes were re-enacted with five points each for French, Spanish and Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian at B1, and the German requirement for the Red-White-Red Card for regular workers in tourism, agriculture and forestry was lowered from A2 to A1. The annexes have not changed since.

A licence under railway or transport law now counts as the vocational training a shortage occupation requires, and rail occupations may be listed as shortage occupations regardless of the job-seeker ratio.

People displaced from Ukraine with twelve months of fully insured employment in the last twenty-four may obtain the Red-White-Red Card plus.

The application fee for a residence title rose from €120 to €156 and the issuance fee from €20 to €26, with €30 for biometrics — €212 in all, against €160 before — the last step before the flat fee of 2026.

The Federal Government suspended the duty to decide entry applications by the family of refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection under the Asylum Act: the ordinance was issued on 2 July 2025, entered into force on 3 July 2025 for six months, was extended to twelve by BGBl. II Nr. 310/2025 and expired on 2 July 2026. It operated only through § 36a of the Asylum Act. It did not touch the Settlement and Residence Act, and never affected the family of Red-White-Red Card or EU Blue Card holders, of other settled workers, of Austrians or of EU citizens — a point worth stating, because the headlines did not.

A new temporary residence permit and AMS category for third-country nationals who hold a permanent residence title in a neighbouring state and commute to an Austrian employer (§ 68 NAG, § 12e AuslBG).

Published on 18 December 2025 and in force from the following day, for the year that was about to end: 5,616 quota-bound titles, 385 of them settlement permits without work (Vienna 130), against 420 the year before under the ordinance of 28 June 2024. Under § 13(7) NAG it continues to apply, at one-twelfth of its numbers per month, until an ordinance for 2026 is issued.

Published on 23 December 2025: 64 occupations nationwide, down from 81, with separate lists for 8 provinces. In force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026; an application filed before the end of the year is decided under this list.

A single flat fee of €218 for any fixed-term residence title and €275 for the unlimited one, replacing the split fees. The maximum contribution base rose to €6,930 a month, so the other-key-worker salary floor became €3,465. The reference rates rose to €1,308.39 for a single person and €2,064.12 for a couple, and the settlement permit without work to twice that. The EU Blue Card threshold rose to €55,678.

Consequential changes to the asylum, aliens-police, citizenship and foreign-employment statutes for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Not specific to the routes on this site, but it abolished the asylum-law route for family reunification that the 2025 suspension had frozen; that route now runs through a quota-bound title in the NAG (see 7 August 2026).

The recast EU Single Permit Directive, transposed into both Acts. A holder of an employer-bound title — the Red-White-Red Card among them — who changes employer may start the new job provisionally 45 days after applying, and the change is handled as a change of purpose; the EU Blue Card keeps its 2022 rule of 30 days, or an immediate start after 12 months on the card. A holder of an employer-bound title who loses the job and reports it to the authority without delay keeps the title for at least 6 months of job search, 3 more where the former employer imposed exploitative working conditions (§ 28(5a) NAG, new for every such title); the AMS’s matching six-month job-search period, which the EU Blue Card has had since 1 October 2022 (§ 20d(7) AuslBG), now also covers the Red-White-Red Card, the artist and cross-border-worker permits and family permits with labour-market access. Residence titles without a deadline of their own now have to be decided within 90 days, extendable by 30, in proceedings begun since that date — except the titles § 19a(3) NAG lists: the settlement permits under §§ 43 and 44, the self-employed artist permit, long-term residence, the family titles (§§ 46, 46a, 47, 69) and the pupil, posted-worker, self-employed and social-service permits, which keep the six-month limit of § 73 AVG (and no extension for the student and volunteer permits); the eight-week rule for the two cards stays. A Red-White-Red Card application filed in person in Austria was taken out of the rule that in-country applications give no right to stay beyond the visa-free period — the official migration portal (migration.gv.at) says the applicant may remain while it is decided. The AMS confirms the plus-card conditions within six weeks. And family reunification with refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection (after two years of that status) became a quota-bound NAG title — the Red-White-Red Card plus under § 46a — decided by the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum.

Published on 30 June 2026, its electronic-document provisions in force together with § 19(1a) NAG on 7 August 2026. The implementing ordinance now provides for scans and electronic originals in online applications and in applications filed by the employer, with originals to follow on request and the passport always shown in the original before a title is issued.

Four things were on the table but not in the gazette by 12 September 2026. No quota ordinance for 2026 had been issued, so the 2025 numbers apply at one-twelfth per month. The Federal Government’s programme foresees a digitalised, faster Red-White-Red Card procedure (“Easy Access Austria”) and a review of the shortage list; the statutory basis for online applications now exists (§ 19(1a) NAG, since 7 August 2026), but we are not aware of any province having declared the technical means by regulation, and no bill on the shortage-list review had been published. And the citizenship reform the coalition announced in December 2025 — a general German level of B2 instead of B1 — had not been enacted, and no government bill on it had reached Parliament. Press reports in June 2026 mentioned a possible abolition of the registration certificate for EU citizens as a deregulation candidate; no official proposal, bill or date exists, and § 53 NAG is unchanged. Last checked 12 September 2026.