Is There a Digital Nomad Visa in Austria?

No. There is no Austrian residence title, visa category or labour-market permit whose purpose is working from Austria for an employer or clients abroad.

That is not an inference from silence: Austrian law answers this with closed lists, so the absence is provable. NAG § 8 Abs. 1 opens "Aufenthaltstitel werden erteilt als" and enumerates thirteen titles; NAG §§ 58 to 69 supply the specific purposes for the one covering a temporary stay; FPG § 20 Abs. 1 enumerates the categories in which a visa D may be issued; and AuslBG § 3 lists the titles on which a foreign national may work at all. A remote worker is in none of them.

If you hold EEA or Swiss citizenship none of this concerns you: three months need no title, and after that an Anmeldebescheinigung. Everything below is about third-country nationals.

The whole catalogue, and the evidence for the paragraph above.

The thirteen purposes behind Z 12 are as specific: intra-corporate transfer and mobile intra-corporate transfer, posted worker, self-employed person, researcher mobility, special cases of employed activity, pupil, student, holder of another Member State's long-term residence, social service worker, volunteer, cross-border commuter, family. migration.gv.at publishes them in English on its stay permits page.

For a short stay the question is not which permit you need but what the permission you already have allows.

Nationals of states for which the European Union has lifted the visa requirement may enter without one, and the Foreign Ministry states the entitlement and its limit together: visa-free entry "for a maximum of 90 days per 180 days in case of no gainful employment". A Schengen visa C is described the same way, for touristic, business or visiting purposes "without gainful employment". Which nationalities are exempt is set at EU level and published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

The condition is the operative part. FPG § 31 Abs. 1 makes a stay lawful only while the conditions of the entry title or of the visa-free period are kept, and Z 3 spells it out for a holder of another contracting state's title: lawful only "sofern sie ... keiner unerlaubten Erwerbstätigkeit nachgehen".

One category of work sits outside the permit system whatever your status: AuslBG § 18 Abs. 2 exempts short-term work of a kind for which domestic labour is not used, naming business meetings, trade fairs and congresses. A week of meetings in Vienna is not the problem. A month in a flat doing your usual job is.

One instrument was written for a person who works for themselves, stays a while and keeps their life somewhere else. It is not called a digital nomad visa, but it is the nearest fit in the statute book.

FPG § 20 Abs. 2 states the rule that makes it necessary: on a visa D, "die Ausübung einer Erwerbstätigkeit ist nur in den Fällen des § 24 zulässig". FPG § 24 Abs. 1 Z 1 names the first of those cases as taking up "einer bloß vorübergehenden selbständigen Erwerbstätigkeit", and the applicant gets a visa C or a visa D by the intended duration. The Foreign Ministry publishes it in English as "Visa for taking up temporary work", citing § 24 FPG.

The definition is what makes it the near fit. FPG § 2 Abs. 4 Z 16 defines the activity as one carried on for no longer than six months within twelve, where a residence in a third country is maintained and continues to be the centre of your vital interests, and which is not a case of compulsory insurance under GSVG § 2.

Its limits are why it is the closest thing rather than the answer. A visa D runs from 91 days to six months and no longer in the ordinary case, and cannot be extended inside Austria; the twelve-month variants exist only for national-interest or treaty reasons. The ministry also states that "There is no legal entitlement to a visa".

Most people asking about a digital nomad visa are not self-employed. They are employed by a company in another country and want to do that job from Austria, and Austrian law has a provision for exactly that.

AuslBG § 18 Abs. 1 catches foreigners "die von einem ausländischen Arbeitgeber ohne einen im Bundesgebiet vorhandenen Betriebssitz im Inland beschäftigt werden", employed here by a foreign employer with no place of business in Austria. They require a Beschäftigungsbewilligung, an employment permit, or for work of no more than six months an Entsendebewilligung, a posting permit granted for at most four months. Past four months Abs. 4 requires the full permit.

Two features matter and both are in the text. The legislature has plainly addressed the foreign employer with no Austrian establishment: it is not a gap. And Abs. 4 puts the application on "dem Inhaber des Betriebes, in dem der Ausländer beschäftigt wird", the holder of the business employing the foreigner. When the work is done alone from a flat and no Austrian business receives it, there is no obvious applicant.

Neither act defines Erwerbstätigkeit in the abstract, and no Austrian court decision on the point was found in the case-law database. What can be cited is AuslBG § 3 Abs. 2: a foreign national may take up employment only on a permit, a notified confirmation, or a title from the catalogue above.

For self-employment running past six months there is a title, the Aufenthaltsbewilligung als Selbständiger under NAG § 60 Abs. 1, and it is the provision behind the phrase "Austria self-employed visa".

Three conditions: the general conditions in Part 1 of the Act; a contractual undertaking to carry out a specific self-employed activity lasting longer than six months, the mirror image of the temporary visa's ceiling; and, where the authority doubts it really is self-employment, an AMS finding that it is genuine, that the AuslBG is not breached, and that carrying it on "unter wirtschaftlichen und arbeitsmarktpolitischen Gesichtspunkten im Interesse Österreichs liegt", is in Austria's interest on economic and labour-market grounds.

That last clause makes the permit a poor fit here: it is not a means test but a judgement about whether Austria gains from the work. One further feature is worth knowing before applying. Abs. 2 requires the authority, once the permit is granted, to send it with a copy of the contract and the AMS finding to the Amt für Betrugsbekämpfung, the anti-fraud office, and to tell the applicant so at the time of application.

The other title that circulates in remote-work forums is the Niederlassungsbewilligung ausgenommen Erwerbstätigkeit under NAG § 44, described as a way to live in Austria on savings or passive income. NAG § 8 Abs. 1 Z 5 calls it a title for fixed-term settlement "ohne Ausübung einer Erwerbstätigkeit". The exclusion is in the name.

Its three conditions are in NAG § 44 Abs. 1 and two are routinely understated. It needs the general conditions of Part 1; a quota place, a Quotenplatz, the annual quota being fixed by ordinance; and fixed regular monthly income "der Höhe nach dem Zweifachen der Richtsätze des § 293 ASVG", twice the reference rates of § 293 of the General Social Insurance Act.

Twice, not once. The general subsistence condition in NAG § 11 Abs. 5 is income at those rates, reduced by regular outgoings such as rent, credit and maintenance; § 44 doubles it. migration.gv.at publishes the 2026 rates: EUR 1,308.39 a month for a single person, EUR 2,064.12 for a couple, EUR 201.88 for each child. A single applicant in 2026 therefore shows EUR 2,616.78 a month, as fixed regular income rather than as a balance, and the rates are reset annually.

Nothing above is a remote-work route, because Austria has none. This is what a third-country national can use instead.

Two lines run through everything above, drawn in different places, which is why people cross one without noticing the other. The first is 90 days in any 180, the ceiling on a visa-free stay and on a Schengen visa C. The second is six months, at which Austria's settlement law takes over: NAG § 1 Abs. 1 Z 1 gives the Act's scope as residence titles for third-country nationals "die sich länger als sechs Monate im Bundesgebiet aufhalten oder aufhalten wollen", who stay or intend to stay longer than six months. Intent counts, and oesterreich.gv.at puts the same threshold in English.

The same six months does a second job with nothing to do with immigration. BAO § 26 Abs. 1 gives a person a tax residence wherever they keep a dwelling in circumstances suggesting they will keep and use it, and Abs. 2 adds that unlimited liability on a habitual abode "tritt jedoch stets dann ein, wenn der Aufenthalt im Inland länger als sechs Monate dauert", then reaching back over the first six as well. EStG § 1 Abs. 2 extends it to worldwide income. None of that depends on which visa you hold, and our guide to income tax in Austria sets it out in full. A third consequence follows from self-employment rather than from time: it carries compulsory social insurance, which is why FPG § 2 Abs. 4 Z 16 excludes any GSVG § 2 case.

Austrian law puts the two exposures on two different people.

The split matters. The AuslBG penalty is aimed at the employer or the business receiving the work, not at the worker, which is part of why the remote-work case sits awkwardly: often there is nobody here for it to fall on. The FPG penalty reaches the individual through the lawfulness of the stay rather than through the work, because FPG § 31 Abs. 1 makes a stay lawful only while the conditions attached to the entry title or the visa-free period are kept.

We are a company-formation provider and not immigration lawyers, so this page states the provisions and stops. What it will not do is tell you any of it is unlikely to be enforced.

An Austrian company is often suggested as the way through this, and the suggestion is half right.

What is true: a non-resident can own an Austrian company and be its managing director. The Firmenbuch asks about the entity, its capital, its seat and the people who represent it, not about immigration status.

What is not true: that the company produces a right to live here. A founder's residence runs on its own tests in AuslBG § 24, which ask about the activity, the capital and whether the founder personally controls the business. Forming a company first buys a company, not a title.

What it does change is the company side, and that is real work: which shell is right, the registered seat and whether it is a real place of operation, the register filing, whether the activity is a regulated trade needing a Gewerbeberechtigung, and the compulsory social insurance that follows from being a director. Our guides to starting a business in Austria and to the Austrian GmbH cover that half.

One route fits a small number of people exactly and is almost never mentioned here. Austria operates Working Holiday Programmes under bilateral agreements, and the Foreign Ministry lists them: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, open to people between 18 and 30.

The ministry is explicit about its shape: employment and training are not the primary reason for the trip but an addition to it, the point being to let a young person part-finance a holiday stay and gain practical experience. It is not a remote-work permit. Applications go to the Austrian representation abroad.

• NAG 20004242 (as amended by BGBl. I Nr. 81/2026): §§ 1, 8, 11, 44, 60, and §§ 58 to 69 by heading.
• FPG 2005 20004241 (BGBl. I Nr. 39/2026): §§ 2 Abs. 4 Z 16, 20, 24, 31, 120. AuslBG 10008365: §§ 3, 18, 28, and § 24 named once. BAO § 26 and EStG § 1 Abs. 2; GSVG § 2, named once. All read as open data from the Bundeskanzleramt.
• bmeia.gv.at, Visa and Working Holiday Programmes; migration.gv.at, Temporary residence; oesterreich.gv.at, Third-country nationals. All read 17 September 2026.

If the plan is to found something here. Read the Red-White-Red card guide for the two founder routes and what the company has to look like before the residence file is complete.

Company Registration Austria: SVS: Social Insurance for the Self-Employed in Austria Self-employment in Austria carries compulsory social insurance with its own contribution base and deadlines, and it is the consequence people are least often warned about.

Tell us what the company side looks like and where you want the seat: ask about the company side of your plan, or start your onboarding if you are ready to engage.