The abbreviations and symbols in Austrian residence law, explained
Austrian immigration runs on German, and on a dense shorthand of section symbols and abbreviations that official pages rarely stop to explain. You'll meet them on forms, on the signage at the office, on the government websites, and in the source notes at the foot of the articles on this site. This page decodes them, so that a citation like "§21 Abs 2 Z 6 NAG" stops being a wall and starts reading as an address you can follow.
How to read a legal citation: §, Abs, Z
Austrian statutes are built in a nested structure, and a citation just walks down it. Take the worked example "§21 Abs 2 Z 6 NAG":
- § is the section symbol, spoken as "paragraph" in German usage (Paragraf). §21 is section 21 of the law.
- Abs is Absatz, a numbered subsection inside the section. Abs 2 is its second subsection.
- Z is Ziffer, a numbered item inside the subsection. Z 6 is the sixth item.
- NAG names the law it all belongs to.
So "§21 Abs 2 Z 6 NAG" reads as: section 21, subsection 2, item 6, of the NAG. One more level you'll occasionally see is lit (litera), a lettered sub-point below the Ziffer, as in "Z 6 lit a." That is the whole system. Once you can read the address, any provision quoted on this site can be looked up directly in the official legal database, RIS.1
The laws and the offices
These are names rather than translatable terms, so we keep them as they are. The ones that come up constantly:
| Short form | What it is |
|---|---|
| NAG | Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz, the Settlement and Residence Act. The core law governing non-EU residence; almost every rule on this site traces back to it. |
| NAG-DV | The implementing regulation to the NAG (Durchführungsverordnung), which fills in the details the law leaves to be specified, such as document requirements and card annotations. |
| MA35 | Magistratsabteilung 35, Vienna's immigration and citizenship department. The office a Vienna applicant deals with for permits and renewals. |
| AMS | Arbeitsmarktservice, the public employment service. Handles work permissions for employees who need one. |
| ÖGK | Österreichische Gesundheitskasse, the public health insurance fund. One of the insurance routes MA35 accepts. |
| OeAD | Austria's agency for education and internationalisation, which administers study programmes and scholarships. Its guidance is a reliable reference for Student applicants. |
| ASVG | Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz, the General Social Insurance Act. It matters here because the proof-of-funds threshold is pegged to a reference rate it sets. |
| AuslBG | Ausländerbeschäftigungsgesetz, the law governing employment of non-nationals. The basis for work permissions. |
| BMI | Bundesministerium für Inneres, the Ministry of the Interior. Publishes several of the official residence pages and forms. |
| BMEIA | Austria's foreign ministry, which runs the embassies and consulates where visas are issued abroad. |
| RIS | Rechtsinformationssystem, the federal legal information system. Where the statute texts actually live; the law notes on this site link to it. |
The permit types
Austrian residence titles fall into a few families. The two you'll meet most often are the Aufenthaltsbewilligung, a temporary permit tied to a specific purpose, and the Niederlassungsbewilligung, the settlement-track title. Alongside those sit the points-based worker cards and the long-term-resident title. This is the main landscape; migration.gv.at carries the exhaustive list, and the canonical English labels below are the ones we reuse across the site.2
Aufenthaltsbewilligung (temporary residence permit). Tied to a purpose, granted for a set period, bound to the reason it was issued.
| Term | Canonical English | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Aufenthaltsbewilligung | residence permit (temporary, purpose-bound) | The umbrella for the purpose-tied permits below. |
| Student | Student residence permit | For studying. |
| Schüler | Pupil residence permit | For school pupils. |
| Familiengemeinschaft | "Residence permit – Family" | For joining a family member who holds one of these temporary permits. Literal translation "family community"; the official label is the one to know. |
| Künstler | Artist | For artistic activity. |
| Forscher | Researcher | For researchers, including the EU "mobility" variant. |
| ICT / mobile ICT | intra-corporate transferee | Staff transferred to Austria within a company (mobile ICT: already holding such a permit from another EU state). |
| Betriebsentsandter | posted worker | Sent to Austria by a foreign employer for a defined assignment. |
| Selbständiger | self-employed worker | For contractual self-employed work running longer than six months. |
| Sozialdienstleistender | social service worker | For recognised social-service activity. |
| Freiwilliger | volunteer | For recognised volunteer programmes. |
Niederlassungsbewilligung (settlement permit). The settlement-track title, which comes in several purpose-specific variants.
| Term | Canonical English | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Niederlassungsbewilligung | settlement permit | The settlement-track title; the variants below narrow it by purpose. |
| Niederlassungsbewilligung – Angehöriger | Settlement permit – Dependant | Family member of certain settled residents. |
| Niederlassungsbewilligung – ausgenommen Erwerbstätigkeit | Settlement permit – excluding gainful employment | Settling without taking up work. |
| Niederlassungsbewilligung – Forscher / Künstler | Settlement permit – Researcher / Artist | Settlement variants for researchers and artists. |
| Niederlassungsbewilligung – Sonderfälle unselbständiger Erwerbstätigkeit | Settlement permit – special cases of employment | A narrow set of employment situations. |
Worker cards and the long-term title. Separate routes, mostly for qualified workers and for the eventual permanent stay.
| Term | Canonical English | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Rot-Weiß-Rot – Karte | Red-White-Red Card | Points-based permit for qualified workers; tied to a specific employer, issued for 24 months. |
| Rot-Weiß-Rot – Karte plus | Red-White-Red Card plus | Free access to the labour market; also the family-reunification route for card holders. |
| Blaue Karte EU | EU Blue Card | For the highly qualified. |
| Daueraufenthalt – EU | Long-term resident – EU | The long-term ("permanent") settlement title, reachable after five years. |
One pair worth separating: Familiengemeinschaft and Familienangehöriger both translate loosely as "family," but they're different permits. Familiengemeinschaft is for the family of someone on a temporary Aufenthaltsbewilligung; Familienangehöriger (family member) is for the family of an Austrian, an EEA citizen, or a settled resident.
The procedural terms you are likely to encounter
The words that turn up on forms, in letters from the office, and in conversation:
| Term | Canonical English | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Termin | appointment | The booked slot for an office visit. There are no walk-ins, so almost everything at MA35 runs on a Termin. |
| Anmeldung | registering your residence | The act of registering where you live. De-registering is Abmeldung.3 |
| Meldezettel | the registration form | The form you fill in and hand over when you register, signed by you and whoever provides your accommodation. |
| Meldebestätigung | confirmation of registration | The certificate you receive and keep afterwards. This is what you actually carry to a bank, the tax office, or an MA35 appointment.4 |
| Haftungserklärung | declaration of liability | A formal commitment by a third party to cover your costs, usable as proof of funds for some permits but not others. |
| Beschäftigungsbewilligung | employment permit | The work permission an employer files for you with AMS. |
| Notvignette | emergency sticker | Officially a confirmation that you filed a renewal on time; lets you travel while the renewal is still pending. |
| Verbesserungsauftrag | request to correct a deficiency | The notice MA35 sends when something in your application needs fixing, usually a single point, usually answerable by email. |
How to use this page
None of this is the kind of thing you memorise in one sitting. Bookmark the page and come back when a letter or a form puts an unfamiliar word in front of you. The terms recur constantly once you're inside the process.
Official sources
- migration.gv.at — residence-title types overview and the "Residence permit – Family" label (migration.gv.at) ↩
- City of Vienna — "Residence registration" (wien.gv.at) ↩
- oesterreich.gv.at — "Confirmation of registration" (oesterreich.gv.at) ↩
The law behind this
- NAG and NAG-DV, consolidated current versions; statute structure (§ / Abs / Z / lit) as used throughout the Austrian legal database (ris.bka.gv.at) ↩