Settlement Permit
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | „Niederlassungsbewilligung“ as of 2026-08-12[9][11] NAG § 8 Abs. 1 Z 4. The title has no qualifying suffix, unlike the other Niederlassungsbewilligung variants. |
|---|---|
| Official name (English) | Settlement Permit as of 2026-08-12[4] Rendered by the administering portal as 'a settlement permit (Niederlassungsbewilligung)' which 'entitles its holder to fixed-term settlement and the pursuit of the self-employed occupation'. Marked as the portal's translation rather than a statutory English name. |
| Legal basis | NAG § 43 as of 2026-08-12[9] § 43 Abs. 1 is the follow-on title for holders of a Red-White-Red Card under § 41 Abs. 2 Z 4; § 43 Abs. 2 is a separate limb for third-country nationals who enjoy freedom of establishment under an act of European Union law; § 43 Abs. 3 covers holders of certain asylum-law residence titles after twelve months and was not researched. |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-08-12[11] NAG § 8 Abs. 1 Z 4: entitles the holder to fixed-term settlement and to self-employed gainful activity. |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EEA, EFTA as of 2026-08-12[2][3] |
|---|---|
| Criminal-record condition | No as of 2026-08-12[5][6] Austrian residence law imposes no clean-criminal-record condition as such. NAG § 11 Abs. 1 lists the mandatory grounds of refusal and none of them is a conviction in general: the only conviction-based ground is Z 6, a final penalty in the last twelve months for circumventing border control or unlawful entry. A criminal record can still defeat an application through the public-interest test in NAG § 11 Abs. 2 Z 1, which is why migration.gv.at records that many authorities ask for a police-record extract not older than three months with a first application. So the answer here is "no" in a narrow sense: a clean record is not a condition of this permit, but a conviction can still cost an applicant the permit. |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | 12 months as of 2026-08-12[8] NAG § 20 Abs. 1: fixed-term residence titles are issued for twelve months, or for the longer period this Act determines, unless a shorter period was applied for or the travel document does not run that long. § 43 sets no longer period, so the twelve-month default applies. No bound marker is set: the source states a term with two narrow exceptions rather than a ceiling or a floor. |
|---|---|
| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-08-12[2][8] NAG § 20 Abs. 1a provides for issue for three years on the conditions recorded in renewal_duration, which presupposes a further title; migration.gv.at states that after a completed total settlement period of two years a settlement permit for three years can be issued. |
| Renewal duration | 3 years as of 2026-08-12[4][8] NAG § 20 Abs. 1a: titles under § 8 Abs. 1 Z 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 — which includes this one (Z 4) — are issued for three years where the person has fulfilled Module 1 of the Integration Agreement (IntG § 9, A2 German) and has been lawfully settled in the federal territory without interruption for the last two years. |
| Work rights | self-employment only as of 2026-08-12[11] NAG § 8 Abs. 1 Z 4: fixed-term settlement and the pursuit of a self-employed gainful activity. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-08-12[10][11] Settlement title; five years of uninterrupted actual settlement under NAG § 45 Abs. 1. |
|---|---|
| How this time counts toward citizenship | 1 as of 2026-08-12[12] StbG § 10 Abs. 1 Z 1 counts lawful residence in the federal territory, of which at least five years must have been as a settled person (niedergelassen). All four routes in this record are settlement titles under NAG § 8 Abs. 1, so time on them counts in full toward both limbs. Recorded because the counting rule is explicit in the statute, per schema §6.4. |
Requirements
| Minimum capital | Not applicable as of 2026-08-12[9] NAG § 43 sets no capital condition. Abs. 1 requires the general conditions of Part 1 of the Act and two years' exercise of an activity under AuslBG § 24 Abs. 1 that is to be continued; the capital question is answered, if at all, in the earlier Red-White-Red Card procedure. |
|---|---|
| Business plan required | Not established from a qualifying source |
| Endorsement required | No as of 2026-08-12[9] NAG § 43 Abs. 1 states its conditions exhaustively — the Part 1 general requirements and the two-year activity condition — and does not require a fresh Public Employment Service opinion, unlike NAG § 41 Abs. 2. Recorded on that closed list; the Public Employment Service's role at this stage was not separately researched. |
| Innovation criterion | No as of 2026-08-12[9] No innovation condition appears in NAG § 43. |
| Own means requirement | 1 × equalisation supplement reference rate per month as of 2026-08-12[3][6][9] |
Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Not established from a qualifying source |
|---|---|
| Eligible relations | Not established from a qualifying source |
| Family may apply at the same time | Not established from a qualifying source |
| Family members' work rights | Not established from a qualifying source |
Your next step
Read the requirements above considering your own situation: the income multiple, the absence limits, who you can bring. Check the country record for the reference figure those amounts are calculated from, and for anything that has changed recently.
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Verification
| Sources cited | 12 |
|---|---|
| of which official (tier 1) | 12 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-08-12 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-12 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-17 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Integrationsgesetz (IntG) § 7 — Integrationsvereinbarung: Modul 1 (A2) and Modul 2 (B1)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [2] Other forms of settlement — settlement permit gainful employment excepted, researchers, artists, special cases, long-term resident EU; general requirements and fees
migration.gv.at (Federal Ministry of the Interior and partner ministries) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [3] Permanent immigration — Red-White-Red Card groups and general requirements for issuing residence permits (incl. the equalisation supplement reference rate from 1 January 2026)
migration.gv.at — joint portal of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection and the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [4] Self-employed Key Workers — Red-White-Red Card: conditions, documents, procedure, fees
migration.gv.at (Federal Ministry of the Interior and partner ministries) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [5] Temporärer Aufenthalt — the Aufenthaltsbewilligung (temporary residence permission) catalogue: general conditions, 2026 equalisation supplement reference rates including the reduced rates for pupils and students, labour-market access for pupils and students
migration.gv.at — joint portal of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection and the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 · Archived copy - [6] NAG § 11 — Allgemeine Voraussetzungen für einen Aufenthaltstitel (incl. Abs. 5: subsistence measured against the § 293 ASVG reference rates)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [7] NAG § 13 — Niederlassungsverordnung (the annual quota ordinance and the exhaustive list of quota-bound residence titles)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [8] NAG § 20 — Gültigkeitsdauer von Aufenthaltstiteln (12-month default, three-year issue after Module 1, five-year long-term-resident document, EEA absence rule)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [9] NAG § 43 — „Niederlassungsbewilligung“
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [10] NAG § 45 — Aufenthaltstitel „Daueraufenthalt – EU“
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [11] Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsgesetz (NAG) § 8 — Arten und Form der Aufenthaltstitel (consolidated federal law, version in force on the access date)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2026-08-07 · Accessed 2026-08-12 - [12] Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz 1985 (StbG) § 10 — Verleihung (ten years' lawful residence, five of them settled; renunciation rule; constitutional discretionary limb in Abs. 6)
Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Bundeskanzleramt · statute · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-12