Blog Post

If you want to move to Austria as a non-EU resident, Austria does something almost no other European country does: its main work route is points-based rather than salary-based. Your qualifications, experience, language and age can carry you where a salary threshold alone would not.

That makes the usual advice backwards here. The national route is often easier than the EU Blue Card, not harder.

The two routes, and why the national one usually wins

The Austrian Blue Card threshold is among the higher ones in Europe. That is a consequence of the recast directive, which lets member states set the figure anywhere between 1.0 and 1.6 times their average gross annual salary where the old rule fixed it at 1.5. The same card now costs around EUR 41,000 in Spain and nearly EUR 69,000 in Wallonia.

So unless you specifically need the Blue Card’s mobility between EU countries, the points route is usually the shorter path. See what the EU Blue Card actually buys you.

The collective agreement, which overrides the headline

A detail that catches people and is easy to check. Austrian pay is largely set by collective agreements covering an occupation and sector, and where the agreement sets a higher figure than the immigration threshold, the agreement is the number that binds.

This is the same mechanism that governs Icelandic pay and the same trap as the UK going rate: the published national figure is a floor, not your floor. Before you negotiate, ask which collective agreement covers the role and what it sets. An employer who cannot answer that has not done this before.

If you do not have an offer yet

Austria has a job seeker version of the Red-White-Red Card, and it is strict enough that it is worth understanding before you plan around it:

• You need 70 points on the Red-White-Red criteria to be granted the visa at all.
• It runs six months and is non-extendable.
• You may not work during it. Not part-time, not at all.

That last condition is the one to plan around. Six months with no income means the money you bring is a burn rate with a fixed end date, so go in with interviews already arranged rather than a plan to arrange them. Austria’s own migration site sets out the scoring, and our guide walks through the application.

Worth comparing with Germany before you commit. The German Opportunity Card runs up to a year and permits 20 hours of work a week during the search, which is a materially different proposition: the German Opportunity Card.

Seasonal work, as a different kind of entry

Austria also runs seasonal schemes, concentrated in tourism and agriculture, and they are a genuinely different proposition from the skilled routes: quick, cheap, short, and tied to one employer.

Used deliberately they are worth something. A season gives you a legal Austrian work history, a local reference, and time on the ground to get a qualification recognised, which is what actually moves people onto a skilled route. Used passively it gives you one season. See seasonal work in Austria.

What to do

1. Score yourself on the Red-White-Red criteria first. If the points work, that is usually your route.
2. Ask which collective agreement covers the role and what it sets. It may be above the immigration threshold.
3. Learn some German. It scores points directly, which is unusual: in most systems language is a gate rather than currency.
4. If you have no offer, compare the Austrian job seeker visa with the German Opportunity Card before choosing. Six months without work is a very different plan from a year with it.
5. Start qualification recognition now, from home. It feeds the points total as well as the job search.

Related: Austria’s shortage occupations list and 15 European routes compared. Browse Austrian shortage jobs with visa sponsorship on our board.

Last checked September 2026. Blue Card thresholds are revised each January and collective agreements are renegotiated on their own cycles. Confirm both before relying on a figure.