Austria Has No Digital Nomad Visa, and What That Leaves

Anyone can assert that something is not on a list. What makes the assertion checkable is the verb introducing it, and Austrian drafting is consistent about three kinds.

A defining enumeration says what the set is. FPG § 20 Abs. 1 opens "Visa D werden erteilt als" and then numbers the categories, so a visa D that is not one of them is not a visa D. AuslBG § 2 Abs. 2 opens "Als Beschäftigung gilt die Verwendung" and letters the relationships the act's whole permit system attaches to. AuslBG § 1 Abs. 2 letters the exclusions, the same device pointed the other way.

An illustrative enumeration says insbesondere, in particular, and gives examples. BAO § 29 Abs. 2 does that, and its three letters do not exhaust the definition in Abs. 1.

The third kind matters here. A list can be closed in the act and still be reopened by an express power. AuslBG § 1 Abs. 4 lets the Minister add exemptions from the act's scope by ordinance, and such an ordinance exists: the Ausländerbeschäftigungsverordnung, BGBl. Nr. 609/1990, which FPG § 2 Abs. 4 Z 17 cites by paragraph. So the honest statement is not that no such rule could be made. It is that none has been, and that the lists as they stand hold nothing answering to a person paid from abroad for work done from an Austrian flat.

Each is a defining enumeration, cited to the version in force on the day it was read, and none holds an entry for remote work paid from abroad.

FPG § 20 Abs. 1 numbers ten subpositions, of which nine are live. A visa D is issued for a longer stay in the federal territory (Z 1), on humanitarian grounds (Z 2), for gainful purposes (Z 3), for job seeking (Z 4), for the issue of a residence title (Z 5), for re-entry (Z 7), on especially deserving grounds (Z 8), for seasonal workers (Z 9) and for trainees (Z 10).

Z 6 is gone. It was the visa for inclusion in family proceedings under the AsylG 2005, repealed by Art. 5 Z 16 of BGBl. I Nr. 39/2026. The version in force from 12 June 2026 carries only the repeal note and the numbering was not closed up, which is why a list of nine runs to Z 10. A page written before that date shows ten.

Abs. 2 then caps the stay: more than 90 days and at most six months for Z 1 to Z 8 and Z 10, nine months in any twelve for a seasonal worker, and twelve months only in two named cases.

A visa is permission to enter and stay, not by itself permission to earn, and FPG § 20 Abs. 2 says so before sending the reader to FPG § 24 Abs. 1, the narrowest of the seven: four cases, each defined elsewhere in the act.

Three of the four run through the AuslBG. The fourth, Z 1, is defined by three cumulative conditions rather than a permit, and each is a place where a long stay fails: past six months in twelve the activity is no longer merely temporary, a centre of vital interests that has moved to Austria defeats the second, and self-employment reaching the GSVG § 2 threshold defeats the third. The SVS guide sets out that threshold.

The question underneath every remote-work thread is whether what you do from a flat in Vienna is work in the Austrian sense. The act answers with a definition, not a standard. AuslBG § 2 Abs. 2 provides that employment means engagement in an employment relationship (lit. a), in an employee-like relationship (lit. b), in a training relationship (lit. c), under the provisions of § 18 (lit. d), or as hired-out labour within the Arbeitskräfteüberlassungsgesetz (lit. e).

Lit. d is the hinge. § 18 governs a foreigner employed in Austria by a foreign employer with no place of business here, so the definition reaches that case expressly rather than leaving it out. The consequence is the opposite of what the forums assume: an employer abroad is not a gap in Austrian law but a named category with its own permit regime. What § 18 then requires is on our austria digital nomad visa guide.

Abs. 4 closes the obvious escape. For judging whether there is employment within Abs. 2, it provides, "ist der wahre wirtschaftliche Gehalt und nicht die äußere Erscheinungsform des Sachverhaltes maßgebend": the true economic substance and not the outward form of the facts is decisive. Re-papering a job as a consultancy contract changes the outward form, which is evidence about the substance rather than a substitute for it.

The same paragraph reaches a structure recommended constantly here. Under Abs. 4 Z 2, a shareholder in a GmbH holding less than 25 percent who performs work of a kind typically done under an employment relationship is in employment, "es sei denn, die regionale Geschäftsstelle des Arbeitsmarktservice stellt auf Antrag binnen drei Monaten fest, daß ein wesentlicher Einfluß auf die Geschäftsführung der Gesellschaft durch den Gesellschafter tatsächlich persönlich ausgeübt wird", unless the regional AMS office finds on application within three months that the shareholder actually personally exercises material influence over the management.

Having defined employment, the act says what permits it. AuslBG § 3 Abs. 2 provides that "Ein Ausländer darf, soweit in diesem Bundesgesetz nicht anderes bestimmt ist, eine Beschäftigung nur antreten und ausüben, wenn für ihn eine Beschäftigungsbewilligung oder Entsendebewilligung erteilt oder eine Anzeigebestätigung ausgestellt wurde", or where he holds one of twelve named titles, and Abs. 1 puts the mirror duty on the employer. The twelve are the ones that also appear in the residence catalogue: the two Red-White-Red cards, the EU Blue Card, the ICT and mobile ICT stay permits, family community with labour market access, cross-border commuter, the artist settlement permit, the plus residence authorisation, the exemption certificate under § 4c, and the family member and long-term residence titles.

Read against the definition, that is the whole answer on the employment side. A person doing their usual job from Austria for a foreign employer is inside Abs. 2 by way of lit. d, so § 3 Abs. 2 applies, and none of the twelve is issued for that activity. The two cards are covered on the Red-White-Red card guide and the EU blue card guide, and both are granted for something else.

The last list runs the other way. AuslBG § 1 Abs. 2 provides that "Die Bestimmungen dieses Bundesgesetzes sind nicht anzuwenden auf" thirteen lettered groups, lit. a to lit. m, each defined by a status or a named activity: protection granted in Austria, diplomatic service, pastoral work, ship crews, senior executives, accredited correspondents, research and academic work, EU programmes, displacement, EU free movement, and close family of an Austrian citizen. The FAQ below lists all thirteen. None is defined by where the work is done, so a remote worker is at none of these exits either.

Nothing above is a remote-work route, because there is none. What follows is what Austrian law does offer, with the condition that decides each case in the middle column rather than at the end. Most fail for the same structural reason: they measure the activity, and remote work for a payer abroad is defined by where the worker sits.

One case is different, because there the Austrian company is the point rather than a device. Someone who genuinely moves their working life here and invoices their own clients from Austria is carrying on self-employment in Austria, a trade and social insurance question before it is an immigration one. The form that usually fits is the Einzelunternehmen: how to register as a sole trader in Austria.

Immigration law and tax law ask different questions, because the tax test does not look at permissions at all. BAO § 26 Abs. 1 gives a person a residence for tax purposes wherever they have a dwelling at their disposal in circumstances suggesting they will keep and use it, and Abs. 2 makes unlimited liability arise once a stay lasts longer than six months, reaching back over the first six.

Its third sentence carries a relief that fits this subject and is easy to miss: "Das Bundesministerium für Finanzen ist ermächtigt, von der Anwendung dieser Bestimmung bei Personen abzusehen, deren Aufenthalt im Inland nicht mehr als ein Jahr beträgt, wenn diese im Inland weder ein Gewerbe betreiben noch einen anderen Beruf ausüben." The Ministry may disapply the six-month rule for people whose stay is no more than a year and who neither carry on a trade nor exercise another profession here. It is a power rather than an entitlement, and the second limb is the hard one for anyone working while they are here. The dwelling limb is narrowed by a separate ordinance, which with the other positions a foreigner can be in is in our article on tax in Austria for a foreigner; the rates are on the income tax guide.

A second exposure belongs to the employer rather than the worker. BAO § 29 Abs. 1 defines a permanent establishment as "jede feste örtliche Anlage oder Einrichtung, die der Ausübung eines Betriebes oder wirtschaftlichen Geschäftsbetriebes (§ 31) dient", and Abs. 2 lit. b names business premises serving the entrepreneur or a permanent representative. That second list is illustrative, so it widens the question rather than closing it, and whether a particular home office is one turns on the facts and on the treaty.

This article reads five statutory lists and reports what is in them. It does not say which route fits a particular reader, whether an application would succeed or how long one takes, and it cannot: the lists are the same for everyone and the answer is not. We are a company formation provider and do not act for anyone before a residence authority, the AMS or a consulate. Advice on a reader's own tax position is reserved to a licensed Austrian Steuerberater by WTBG 2017 § 2 Abs. 1, and § 124 Abs. 1 Z 1 makes even offering it an offence.

A closed list is also a statement about the law on a date, which is why every provision here carries its version and gazette reference. FPG § 20 Abs. 1 had ten subpositions until 11 June 2026 and has nine now, and a page that does not date its list cannot tell you which of the two it describes.

The guide this article supports. Company Registration Austria: Digital Nomad Visa in Austria takes the subject from the other end: the residence title catalogue, what a short stay allows, the self-employed stay permit, and the penalties that attach when the line is crossed.

Or put the plan in front of us with its own facts. Ask about the company side of your plan, or start your onboarding if you already know what you need.