Useful information for you

There are faster procedures for applying and simplifying the eligibility criteria for receiving the RWR card:

Regular workers/regular seasoners:

• Regular seasoners who are registered with the AMS receive an RWR card regardless of age and qualifications.
• Regular employees are seasonal workers who have been employed as registered regular seasonal workers in the same industry for at least seven months per calendar year for two calendar years.
• The permanent season employee regulation has also been changed so that in future employment in the previous five calendar years will be decisive for registration as a regular season employee.
• In addition, regular seasonal employees who were registered by April 30, 2012 based on the old regular seasonal employee regulations and are still being applied for by the companies as seasonal workers will be treated the same as the “new” regular seasonal employees with regard to the permissible duration of the permit. The adjustment of the regulation also makes it easier for the affected workers to enter and stay because no new visa is required in the event of continuous employment.

In order to better coordinate the applicant's complex procedural steps relating to the interaction between the right of residence and access to the labor market, the ABA unit "Work in Austria" was expanded into a service point:

•     Support for companies and applicants with multilingual and digital information
•     Advice on submitting applications for RWR cards
•     Receive basic information about basic legislation
•     Support in the individual steps of the process

• In order to reduce barriers to entry to the RWR card for other key workers (not in shortage occupations), the statutory minimum gross salary was reduced to 50% of the maximum monthly contribution base (for 2023 € 2,925 gross/month).
• Completed vocational training abroad simply has to be comparable to a domestic apprenticeship qualification. Formal equality with domestic vocational training is not required (see decree GZ BMASK-435.006/0014- VI/AMR/7/2011 of June 28, 2011). Training completed in a company can also be taken into account.
• Knowledge of English is considered equivalent to knowledge of German if the company language is English.
• In the future, apprenticeship qualifications will be equated with university qualifications in terms of points in shortage occupations and will therefore be valued more highly.
• In the future, the RWR card will be expanded to include additional points for Spanish, French and Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, which will particularly benefit applicants in tourism