Red-White-Red Card: Cooperation between Immigration Authority and Labour Market Service
How do the Immigration Service and the Labor Market Service work together when applying for a Red-White-Red – Card?
Luana is an Albanian citizen and studies at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. As she does not receive any financial support from home, Luana is forced to work while studying. She makes full use of the maximum permissible working time of 20 hours per week on the basis of her residence permit as a student. However, Luana’s success in her studies suffers from her intensive professional activity and at the latest when she only just reaches the 16 ECTS per academic year required for the extension of her residence permit, she decides to take a temporary break from her studies in order to work full time for a while and save enough so that she can devote herself exclusively to her studies in one or two years.
Luana is now thinking about how she can secure her stay in Austria permanently, even if she does not continue her studies. A friend who works as an accountant for a tax consultant tells Luana that payroll accountants are currently in great demand on the labour market and that with such a job one can obtain a Red-White-Red card as a skilled worker in a shortage occupation. To become a payroll accountant, Luana has to attend a demanding course, but a degree is not required for such a job.
Luana applies to her friend’s tax consultancy and immediately receives an offer in which the company agrees to pay for Luana’s payroll course if she agrees to work for the company for at least two years after successfully completing the training.
Luana agrees to this arrangement, successfully completes the course as a payroll accountant and the associated examination and now only needs to obtain a red-white-red card before she can start in her new job.
Competence of the authorities in issuing the Red-White-Red Card
The special feature of the Red-White-Red Card is that the applicant is granted both a residence permit and an employment permit with only one document and by only one authority. However, this (unfortunately) does not mean that only one authority will actually deal with an application.
Applications for a Red-White-Red Card must be submitted to the competent settlement and residence authority. The authority first checks whether the general requirements for the issuance of a residence title are met and whether there may be reasons why a residence title may not be issued.
If the general requirements for issuing a residence title are met and there are no obstacles to issuing such a residence title, the competent settlement and residence authority shall forward the application to the regional office of the Labour Market Service responsible for the employer’s place of business.
The regional office of the Labour Market Service then only checks whether the specific admission requirements for the Red-White-Red Card applied for are met.
After hearing the regional advisory board of the Labour Market Service (administrative bodies of the Labour Market Service consisting of representatives of employees, employers and the Labour Market Service ), the Labour Market Service has to confirm within four weeks to the competent settlement and residence authority whether the admission requirements are met so that the latter can subsequently issue the Red-White-Red Card applied for.
If the admission requirements are not fulfilled, however, the corresponding rejection is not made by the settlement and residence authority, but by the Labour Market Service itself, which does not send the negative decision directly to the applicant, but forwards it to the settlement and residence authority.
What does this mean for Luana’s application – which authority decides?
Even if the application for a Red-White-Red Card is only submitted to one authority and the residence title applied for can also only be issued by one authority, a negative decision can be made by two different authorities, namely by the settlement and residence authority as well as by the Labour Market Service. In both cases, it is possible to appeal against a rejection decision within four weeks of the notification of the decision. However, there is an essential difference in the administrative court to which the corresponding appeal is to be addressed. The regional administrative court of the respective province (Bundesland) in which the authority is located decides against decisions of the settlement and residence authority. In the case of a dismissive decision by the Labour Market Service, the Federal Administrative Court, which has branch offices in several cities in Austria, decides in all cases on an appeal against a decision.
Fortunately, this question does not concern Luana, because her application for a Red-White-Red Card as a skilled worker in a shortage occupation was decided positively and she was granted the residence permit she applied for, so that she can finally start in her new job.