Conferral of Austrian citizenship
In most cases, acquiring Austrian citizenship by conferral is the final stage in a process of integration in Austria that takes many years. The requirements that must be met in order to be granted Austrian citizenship are very high and must be checked carefully before an application is filed. The most important points are a sufficiently long, continuous and legal residence in Austria as well as a secure livelihood.
In addition to a sufficient period of residence in Austria and the required minimum income, applicants for Austrian citizenship must also fulfil a number of other requirements. These include proof of sufficient knowledge of German (at least B1 level), no serious criminal convictions, no danger to public peace, order and security, an affirmative attitude towards the Republic of Austria and much more.
All necessary requirements are scrutinised by the citizenship authorities. When applying for the granting of citizenship, numerous documents must therefore be submitted in order to prove the requirements for granting citizenship to the citizenship authority. This ranges from general personal documents such as a passport and birth certificate to detailed proof of income and regular expenditure to a list of all stays outside Austria and school attendance certificates for children.
However, even if all the necessary application documents have been submitted in full and the citizenship authority gives positive signals, this does not mean that applications for the granting of Austrian citizenship can be approved without any problems. In some cases, there are obstacles to the granting of citizenship, such as a threat to public peace, order and security. Sometimes even traffic offences committed several years ago are sufficient, provided they exceed a certain threshold of seriousness.
In many cases, however, even if the citizenship authority rejects a decision, the decision can still be changed by lodging an appeal, which usually results in proceedings before the competent provincial administrative court. We are at your side as a reliable partner for the preparation and implementation of legal proceedings in all citizenship matters.
Citizenship due to extraordinary achievements in the special interest of the Republic of Austria
People who have achieved above-average performance in the fields of sport, business, science, culture or art can be granted Austrian citizenship by decision of the Austrian Federal Government if this is in the special interest of the Republic of Austria. The main advantage of this type of acquisition of Austrian citizenship is that no minimum periods of residence and language skills are required and the previous citizenship can be retained. In such cases, dual citizenship is therefore possible.
We advise and accompany such exceptionally successful people in the preparation and substantiation of their application for Austrian citizenship. This includes a thorough analysis of the previous and still expected achievements in the personal field of specialisation, a detailed planning and preparation of the application process and the required application documents as well as the handling of all contacts with the competent authorities.
