Small Country, Big Wanderlust
Austria is a small country with a great longing for the world. With a population of around 9 million, Austria has a surprisingly high emigration rate. According to Statistics Austria, around 120,000 people left Austria in 2022, one of the highest rates per capita in Central Europe.
Austria's tradition of emigration is long-standing. In the nineteenth century, Austrians went to America, to colonial territories, and to every corner of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the twentieth century, after the Second World War, hundreds of thousands were drawn to Germany, Switzerland, and overseas. Today, in the twenty-first century, emigration is more individual, more varied, and often reversible.
Why Austrians Leave
The motivations resemble those of their German neighbours but have distinctly Austrian characteristics. Many Austrians cite climate as the main reason: central Austria has cold, long winters, and the desire for sun and warmth is a powerful driver, especially for the over-50s generation.
Professional opportunities are a second important factor. Austria's economy is strong but limited in scale. Those who want to build a career in certain niche areas of technology, science, or the creative industries will find larger ecosystems in Berlin, London, Zurich, or San Francisco.
For younger Austrians, political dissatisfaction also plays a role. Austria is a country where right-wing parties have been strong for decades and where political scandals have eroded public trust. Those seeking a different social climate sometimes find it more easily from a distance.
The Most Popular Destinations
Germany is the most obvious destination for Austrians: the same language, EU freedom of movement, and a larger labour market. Munich is closer to Vienna than many Austrian state capitals. Tens of thousands of Austrians commute daily to Bavaria or have settled there permanently.
Switzerland attracts primarily well-educated professionals. Salaries in Switzerland for comparable positions are often 40 to 80 percent higher than in Austria. For doctors, engineers, and finance professionals, that is a compelling argument.
On the rise: Portugal, Turkey, and Asia. Austrian early retirees and the self-employed are discovering Portugal as a climate and tax refuge. Istanbul is growing as a hub for young creative Austrians who are drawn to the bridge between Europe and Asia.
The Austrian Community Worldwide
Austria, much like Switzerland, has an official organisation for Austrians living abroad. The Auslandsösterreicher-Weltbund (AÖWB) represents an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Austrians permanently resident abroad. The network is active, organises annual gatherings, and keeps the connection to home alive.
What Austrians bring with them wherever they go: Gemütlichkeit in the best sense, coffeehouse culture as a way of life, a love of pleasure, and a gentle irony toward the world. Austrians abroad rarely stand out by being loud, but at some point you notice they are there — and you are glad they are.
Return and Dual Identity
A characteristic trait of Austrian emigrants is their orientation toward return. Many leave for five, ten, or fifteen years, but they are always thinking of the moment when they will drink coffee in Vienna again. Austria is a country that lets its children go but rarely lets them go from the heart.
This emotional bond creates a particular way of life: permanently between two worlds. One foot in Vienna, the other in Lisbon. It opens up a perspective that Austrians living more narrowly within the Alpine country do not have. What you see when you look at your own country from the outside sometimes teaches you more about yourself than anything else.
Vienna or the World? How Austrians Find the Balance
Vienna regularly tops global quality-of-life rankings. The Economist Intelligence Unit Ranking 2023 placed Vienna at the top for the fifth consecutive year. Public transport, culture, safety, green spaces, healthcare: Vienna excels in every category.
Why would anyone leave such a city? Because quality-of-life rankings do not measure everything. They do not measure the constraints of a small country, the longing for something different, the feeling of living in a gilded cage. Austria is manageable in scale. Those who want to rise soon encounter the same faces everywhere.
Many Austrians who have emigrated and visit Vienna describe the same experience: after a weekend in the city they understand again why they left. And why they keep coming back nonetheless. Vienna has a magnetic beauty that no emigrant destination can entirely replace.
The healthy solution many find: never quite leaving Austria, but never quite staying either. An apartment in Vienna, an office in Lisbon, summer in Styria, winter in Portugal. That sounds like privilege. For some, it is simply the truth of modern European life.
Austria as a Base: The Commuter Life Between Two Worlds
A growing number of Austrian emigrants have developed a new way of living: life between two countries. They are officially registered in Portugal, Spain, or Turkey, but spend several months a year in Austria. Digital work makes it possible. EU freedom of movement makes it legal.
These people are not classic emigrants who leave their homeland behind. They are mobile Europeans who combine the advantages of multiple countries: the tax structure of their country of residence, the cultural life of Vienna, the climate of Portugal, and the global connectivity that a flexible lifestyle enables.
Austria has responded to this trend, albeit slowly. The tax authorities are looking more closely at where someone's true centre of life actually is. Anyone formally registered abroad but who in practice spends more time in Austria than in their registered country risks tax consequences.
Nevertheless, the group of mobile Austrians is growing. They are living proof that national identity and an international lifestyle are not a contradiction. Austria remains the home they return to, because nowhere else do they feel quite so at ease.
What Austria Owes Its Emigrants
There is a quiet responsibility that Austria has toward its citizens living abroad: to recognise them, support them, and make use of their experiences. The country has made progress in recent years. The Austrian Abroad Office within the Foreign Ministry coordinates support services, and voting rights for Austrians living overseas are guaranteed.
But there is more potential. Austrians working in Silicon Valley, building careers in London fintech firms, or having built businesses in Singapore bring knowledge and networks home when they return. This capital is still too rarely harnessed in any systematic way.
Other countries manage it better. Israel has a targeted return programme for its diaspora community. India has attracted billions in investment back home through its global diaspora. Austria could learn from these examples.
In the end, the emigration of Austrian citizens is not a problem to be solved. It is a resource waiting to be developed. People who have seen the world without forgetting Austria are the most valuable asset a small country can have.
