This page normally works through the questions one at a time and gives you an indication at the end. That needs JavaScript, which is switched off in your browser. You can still read every question below and answer the ones you can — leave the rest blank, nothing here is compulsory except an email address — and we will go through them for you.
Question 1
Answer what you can, and leave the rest blank — blank is allowed everywhere. A “No” to one question does not rule out the others. Changed your mind about a radio button? Choose “I'm not sure”; that is the only way to take an answer back.
These questions work through the residence routes on this site — the EU registration, the family titles, the student and researcher titles, the Red-White-Red Card in its categories, the EU Blue Card, the intra-corporate transfer, and the settlement permit for people who will not work. Most people answer fewer than ten questions. Nobody answers more than seventeen.
They are addressed to you, the person who would move. Where a route runs through someone else — a spouse who is Austrian, an employer in Austria — we ask about that person only as far as the route needs.
If you do not know an answer, say so. “I'm not sure” is on every screen, it keeps every route open, and it never counts against you.
Your answers stay on this device until you close the tab, so it is best to finish in one sitting. Nothing reaches us until you press send.
The EEA is the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. If you hold more than one citizenship, one of these is enough on its own. A British passport has not counted since 1 January 2021 — unless you already hold the “Artikel 50 EUV” title from the Withdrawal Agreement, in which case none of this applies to you.
This decides which half of the law applies. An EU, EEA or Swiss citizen has a right of residence under EU law and only registers it; everyone else is a third-country national and needs a residence title under the Settlement and Residence Act for a stay of more than six months. Every other question on this page is about which title.
A spouse or a registered partner, of either sex. An unmarried partner is not a “family member” under the Act, however long the relationship; the partner in a durable relationship with an Austrian, or with an EU citizen living here, has only a narrower settlement permit with a liability declaration, which this questionnaire does not cover — answer No and mention it when you write to us. Children under 18 join a parent's application; if you are asking for a child, answer for the parent.
The family of an Austrian citizen, of an EU citizen who lives in Austria or moves here with you, or of a Red-White-Red Card, EU Blue Card or researcher holder has the strongest position of any: no quota, no points test, and free access to the labour market. Family reunification with other third-country sponsors can be quota-bound, and the title follows the sponsor’s own. Which family route applies depends on who your partner is — an Austrian citizen (§ 47 NAG), a citizen of another EU state living here (§ 54 NAG), or a third-country national with a residence title of his/her own (§ 46 NAG) — so if the answer is yes, the next question asks.
Austrian citizenship, whatever other citizenships he/she also holds. Both of you have to be at least 21 on the day the application is filed. If your Austrian partner has lived in another EU or EEA state or in Switzerland for more than three months and has now returned for good, answer No here and Yes to the next question — that case follows the EU residence-card rules rather than the “Family Member” title (§ 57 NAG), and the questionnaire treats the partner as an EU citizen exercising free movement.
The spouse or registered partner of an Austrian citizen who lives in Austria and has not exercised EU free movement for more than three months receives the residence title “Family Member” (Familienangehöriger, § 47(2) NAG): a legal entitlement, without a quota, with unrestricted access to the labour market, and leading to permanent residence. The general requirements — income at the couple's rate, insurance, accommodation and German at A1 before entry — still apply.
A German, Italian or Dutch citizen who works, studies or lives on his/her own means in Austria, for example — whether already there or arriving with you. Answer Yes as well for an Austrian partner who has returned after more than three months in another EU or EEA state or Switzerland (§ 57 NAG). If your partner is a third-country national who holds an Austrian residence title, answer No — that is the third family route, and it is the one your answers will point to.
The family of an EU citizen who exercises free movement in Austria takes its right of residence from EU law, not from the Austrian permit system: a residence card (Aufenthaltskarte, § 54 NAG), applied for within four months, with no income test of your own, no German requirement and full access to the labour market. The family of a third-country national comes under family reunification (§ 46 NAG) instead, and the title follows the partner's own; the family of a partner on a temporary residence permit may be granted only a dependent permit under § 69 NAG.
A degree programme at a university, university of applied sciences or private university, or research under an agreement with an Austrian institution. Not a language course on its own, and not a job at a company that happens to do research.
The student permit (§ 64 NAG) and the researcher permit (§ 43c NAG) need no employer and no points; they need an admission or a hosting agreement. The student permit is also one of the well-trodden roads into settlement, because graduates of Austrian universities have a Red-White-Red Card category of their own; the researcher permit is a settlement title from the start.
A notice of admission (Zulassungsbescheid) to a degree programme, or to a university course of at least 40 ECTS that is not purely a language course. An application that is still pending is “not sure”.
Admission is the gate of the residence permit “Student” (§ 64 NAG). The rest of that file is means at the student rate — €722.58 a month under 24 and €1,308.39 from 24 in 2026 — health insurance, and, for each renewal, evidence of study progress.
A hosting agreement (Aufnahmevereinbarung) with a university or a certified research institution, setting out the research project, its duration and its funding. A job offer from a company's research department is not one — that is a question for the work routes.
The settlement permit “Researcher” (§ 43c NAG) rests on the hosting agreement (§ 43d NAG). It is a settlement title — it counts in full towards permanent residence — it is issued for two years (for a shorter hosting agreement, its length plus three months), your family is exempt from the German-before-entry rule, and after two years it leads to the Red-White-Red Card plus.
Any gainful activity, including running a business of your own. Work done from Austria for an employer abroad is, in our reading of the Settlement and Residence Act and the Act Governing the Employment of Foreign Nationals, work in Austria — no authority has published a position on remote work, so if that is your plan answer Yes and raise it with us. Answer No if you will live on a pension, savings or investment income and do not intend to work at all.
The work permits — the Red-White-Red Card, the EU Blue Card, the intra-corporate transfer — all require that you come to work. The settlement permit “Except Gainful Employment” (§ 44 NAG) requires the opposite: it forbids any gainful activity, and in our reading of the law that includes work for an employer abroad, although no official guidance addresses remote work. The two halves of the law do not overlap, so this one answer closes one of them.
A transfer within a group from an employer outside the EU to its Austrian entity, as a manager, a specialist or a trainee — keeping your employment with the sending company. A new job with an unrelated Austrian employer is not a posting; answer No.
The residence permit “ICT” (§ 58 NAG) is built for exactly this and for nothing else: managers, specialists and trainees with 9 months' prior employment in the group (6 for trainees), for at most 3 years in the EU (1 year for a trainee, who must hold a university degree). There is no points test. It is a temporary permit rather than a settlement title: its years count only half towards permanent residence, which is one reason to compare it with the Red-White-Red Card for a long-term move — the ICT page sets the two side by side.
A signed contract, or a written offer that names the position, the gross salary and the start date, from an employer established in Austria. Interviews in progress are “not sure”.
Every employed category of the Red-White-Red Card and the EU Blue Card starts from the employer's declaration (§ 20d(1) AuslBG). The one category that can start without an offer is the very highly qualified, who may come on a six-month job-seeker visa — and a citizen of a visa-free country may look for work during the 90-day visa-free stay.
A bachelor's, master's, diploma or doctoral degree from a university or equivalent tertiary institution, anywhere in the world, from a programme that took at least three years. A vocational qualification, however advanced, is not a degree for this purpose — it counts elsewhere. One exception: a manager or professional in information and communication technology (ISCO-08 groups 133 and 25) qualifies for the EU Blue Card without a degree on three years of relevant experience at degree level gained in the seven years before the application (§ 12c(2) AuslBG) — the fourth answer below is for that case.
The EU Blue Card requires a degree of at least three years (§ 12c AuslBG) — or, for IT managers and professionals only, three years of comparable professional experience gained in the last seven. In the other-key-worker table a three-year degree earns the most qualification points; in the very-highly-qualified table the qualification block is worth up to 40 points — 20 for a four-year degree, 30 for one in a MINT field, 40 with a habilitation or PhD, or 20 to 30 for last year’s senior salary at a listed company — and a degree is not a condition there; the shortage-occupation table counts only the vocational training. The very-highly-qualified route therefore stays open whatever you answer here, and is settled by the experience question. Without a degree the routes that remain are the shortage occupations, other key workers on the strength of experience, and the self-employed categories.
The EU Blue Card threshold for 2026 — 1.0 × the average gross annual salary of full-time employees — as a gross annual figure including the two special payments. It follows the average salary last published by Statistik Austria and is stated by the authorities for each calendar year; a new figure is expected in December, so an application filed late in the year should be checked against the coming year’s figure as well.
With a degree, a job offer that matches it for at least six months (the minimum the EU directive and the official portal require) and this salary, the EU Blue Card can be applied for without any points test — a labour-market test by the Public Employment Service (AMS) still applies — and it is asked first because of what it carries: easier movement between EU states, and an exemption from the German-before-entry rule for your family. Below the threshold, the Red-White-Red Card categories take over; the other-key-worker category has a lower floor of €3,465 a month, the shortage-occupation and graduate categories none in euros.
A bachelor's, master's, diploma or doctoral degree completed in Austria — or a diploma programme from its second stage onwards. A degree from another EU country does not count here.
Graduates of Austrian universities have a Red-White-Red Card category of their own (§ 41(2)(3) NAG, § 12b(2) AuslBG): no points test and no labour-market test, provided the job matches your level of education and pays what comparable Austrian graduates earn.
The 2026 list names 64 occupations nationwide — nurses, physicians, engineers in several fields, electricians, train drivers, cooks, roofers among them — and further occupations for 8 of the nine provinces. The category needs completed vocational training in the occupation itself, not experience alone.
The shortage-occupation category (§ 41(2)(1) NAG, § 12a AuslBG) has no labour-market test and no fixed euro salary floor — the pay has to be the collectively agreed or statutory minimum plus any overpayment customary in the firm — and a points test of 55 of 90; a card for a regional shortage occupation is limited to that province. The list is fixed for each calendar year; an application filed before 31 December is decided under that year's list.
The statutory minimum for other key workers in 2026: half the monthly maximum contribution base for social insurance, before the 13th and 14th salary. It is assessed on the day the application is filed, and it rises every 1 January.
The other-key-worker category (§ 41(2)(2) NAG, § 12b(1) AuslBG) is the broadest employed category: any occupation, with or without a degree, on 55 of 90 points — but with this salary floor and a labour-market test.
The very-highly-qualified category counts a four-year degree, years of experience, a research record or awards, last year's salary in a senior position at a listed company (from €50,000 upwards), language and age towards 70 of 100 points. A young graduate with a PhD in a STEM subject can reach it; so can a senior manager. We can only count the points from the documents, so answer for the profile.
The very-highly-qualified category (§ 41(1) NAG, § 12 and Annex A AuslBG) is the one that does not need a job offer at the outset: with 70 points you may come on a six-month job-seeker visa. We ask a simpler question than the points table does, because the table is unanswerable without documents; the count itself is the open point on any result that reaches this route.
A company you found or buy into and personally manage — a self-employed key worker whose business brings a macroeconomic benefit, typically an investment of at least €100,000 or the creation or securing of jobs, or at least has significance for a region (§ 24(1) AuslBG); or a start-up founder with an innovative product and at least €30,000 in capital, at least half of it equity. A passive investment with no role in the business is not a route to a permit.
Two categories of the Red-White-Red Card are for people who bring a business rather than take a job: self-employed key workers and start-up founders (§ 41(2)(4)–(5) NAG, § 24 AuslBG). They are also the only investment-linked routes Austria has — there is no golden visa — and they require you to run the business, not only to fund it.
Twice the reference rate for 2026, and €403.76 more for each child, counted after rent and other regular outgoings above €386.43 a month have been deducted. Pensions, investment income and savings spread over the year all count; income you would earn by working does not.
The settlement permit “Except Gainful Employment” (§ 44 NAG) requires fixed and regular income at twice the reference rate, all-risk health insurance, accommodation, and German at A1 before entry — and a place in the annual quota — a few hundred places across Austria, allocated in order of filing, and an application for which no place is free is rejected, so timing decides a great deal. No quota ordinance for 2026 had been issued by 12 September 2026; the 2025 numbers continue to apply month by month.
This is a first, non-binding indication. It is based only on what you have told us on this page, it is not legal advice, and it does not create a lawyer–client relationship. Nothing here is a promise that an application will succeed. Only the competent Austrian authority decides, and it decides on documents.
A lawyer in our immigration team reads what comes in and replies where we can help. Only your email address is needed.
Printed from our questionnaire — a non-binding preliminary indication, not legal advice.
Eight is as far as this form goes. Put anyone further under Add details (anything else) below — a plain list of names, dates of birth and citizenships is exactly as useful.
Need more rows? Put the other family members under Add details (anything else) below.
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