Where to live in Austria
We track 4 cities in Austria: Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Vienna. Average temperatures run from 10°C to 12°C. We estimate a couple needs €3,462 to €3,826 a month to live centrally. Austria sits in our high tax tier. For citizens from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
12 questions, about 4 minutes, no account needed. Taking the quiz is free, and so is seeing your #1 city. Full results for both of you are a one-time US$12 (€12 in Europe).
- Tax tier
- High
- High personal income tax
- Languages
- German
- Good English
- Safety
- 75/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 79/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~80 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The 4 cities we track
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally.
Taxes
Austria sits in our high tax tier: high personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions, for people from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Long-term residency runs mainly through the employment-based Red-White-Red Card and EU Blue Card for skilled workers, a quota-limited settlement permit for people with sufficient private means, or a self-employed key-worker route requiring a substantial business investment.
Citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Austria:
- Income: about $3,045 a month (Austria settlement permit - gainful employment excepted, requires double the ASVG equalisation-supplement reference rate at EUR 2,616.78/mo for a single applicant, converted at EUR/USD 1.1637; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $116k (Austria Red-White-Red Card for Self-employed Key Workers, sustained transfer of investment capital of EUR 100,000, converted at EUR/USD 1.1637; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 105 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).