Updates - English Changes to the Rot-Weiß-Rot Form in October 2022

The forms to apply for the Rot-Weiß-Rot card in Austria were changed in October 2022. Let's find out what the changes are, what information you don't have to provide anymore and what extra questions have been added.

General

In October 2022 the Austrian government announced changes to the Rot-Weiß-Rot (Red-White-Red) card application process and there have been changes made to the necessary forms to apply for it which we will have a look at in this article. To a large degree the changes are a vast improvement and will ask for less information but there is one major change regarding nationatlies which affects many parts of the form.

Users of workineurope.com will only see minor changes on the platform and we wil generate the new forms for you automatically. Any information that you have entered before that is still compatible with the new forms (90%) will be automatically converted to the new format.

The new forms are available at ministry of internal affairs: application form, employer declaration form

What has changed in the Application Form for Rot-Weiß-Rot Cards in October 2022?

In the past there were different application forms for the different types of Rot-Weiß-Rot card. This has now been unified into one primary form that you use to apply for all types of the card and other immigration types. This consolidation is a good step even though it does mean you must find and download the appropriate instruction set for your application type and only fill out those parts of the form that you really have to (without forgetting the ones you need for your type).

We will go through each section that has changed one by one:

Family, Children and Parents

  • For applicant's with family, the nationality of all children must now be specified and for your partner you will need to specify the Austria social security number, type of residency permit and expiry date if available.
  • Unless you are a minor you no longer have to provide any information about your parents. If you are, additional information about them is necessary.

Funds, Livelihood and Expenses

  • You now have to specify where your funds originated. If families or relative have provided them, you need to give their personal details.
  • In addition you must specify if the money is your own (or of the persons you have provided contact details for) and you don't have to share it with anyone else.
  • Previously there were no specific categories for the recurring expenses. This has now been added and includes rent, debt, seizures, aliment payments and other.

If you have someone that is providing for your livelihood, you don't have to provide the contact information on the form itself anymore, but simply declare that they exist and append a declaration letter from them in your application package.

Statistics

The last pages of the application form are the statistical questionnaire. In the past this part was completely anonymous (with the exception for information about an optional legal representative). This has changed and they now ask for your personal information, sex, date of birth and address.

The previous forms were confusing with regard to the number of years you studied for your degree. This has been simplified to a single question and two questions were added regarding where and with which degree you completed your education.

The fields of education were updated and reduced to broader categories (e.g. Natural sciences and mathematics are now a combined category).

Similarly there are no more subcategories in the questions about professions you have worked in.

What has changed in the Employer Declaration Form (Arbeitgebereklärung für Rot-Weiß-Rot Karten) in October 2022?

Most of the form is identical to the last version, but there are some minor changes:

  • The question regarding if senior or elderly employees have been let go is not asked anymore.
  • You are not asked which specific social security provider the candidate will be registered with upon employment.
  • When providing information about employees and workers the national workers are grouped together with EWR and CH residents and only third-country (non EWR) persons are counted separately.
  • You can no longer opt-out of getting placement suggestions from the public employment service (AMS) directly on this form. This will be now done automatically for the skilled worker applications and if they can find suitable candidates you have the option of declining them but need to provide a valid reason for doing so.
  • If the candidate is receiving a restricted employment contract then you now need to specify if that could turn into an unrestricted one in future.

Why use workineurope.com to create an application for a Rot-Weiß-Rot card?

Our platform is still the purpose-made way to create an perfect application package including the new forms and documents you require. Instead of making you find and read the complicated instruction manual of what data to provide, what it means in English and which supporting documents are necessary, our system gudies you through each section step-by-step and only asks you the necessary information for your specific type of application.

Also you only have to enter the information once. If the same data is used multiple times (which you can find many examples of) then we just copy it and generate all the official forms for you. In the end you get a neatly packages PDF file that you can print or send to the authorities as a binder.