Vienna Business Agency Expat Centre & Business Immigration Office — integrated talent-welcome service

Vienna's Wirtschaftsagentur Wien (Vienna Business Agency) — a permanent fund of the City of Vienna — runs two complementary services for international talent under its 'Expat Relations' team:

**Expat Centre (since 2010):** provides free, confidential individual consultations on daily-life matters (housing, schools, healthcare, bureaucracy) to internationally mobile professionals and their families, as well as to HR managers of Vienna-based companies. The Expat Club, founded in 2014, has grown to 2,800 members — a professional and social network for the international community.

**Business Immigration Office (BIO, opened October 2021):** a joint facility co-located with the City of Vienna's Immigration and Citizenship Department (MA 35) and the Austrian Employment Service (AMS Wien). Four specialist advisers provide free, multilingual consultations on Austrian residence and work permits — Red-White-Red Cards, EU Blue Cards, settlement permits for researchers and artists, intra-corporate transfers — for qualified third-country nationals and the companies that employ them. Co-location eliminates the need for applicants to visit multiple offices.

**Measured results:** Consultations across both services grew from 1,481 in 2019 to 5,180 in 2024, covering professionals from 116 nationalities in more than 15 languages, all free of charge (source: digitales.wien.gv.at). In 2023, 227 international companies chose Vienna as their new business location, investing a collective €430 million and creating approximately 1,300 jobs. Over 20 years (2004–2024), 3,000 foreign companies have relocated to Vienna, creating 25,000 jobs and investing nearly €5 billion (source: presse.wien.gv.at, May 2024).

**Why it matters:** The integrated model brings together the three public bodies that international talent must navigate — immigration authority, employment service, economic development agency — under one roof, reducing friction for qualified workers considering Vienna.

Sources: https://viennabusinessagency.at/consultation-for-international-professionals-in-vienna/ | https://digitales.wien.gv.at/internationale-spitzenkraefte-fuer-wien/ | https://presse.wien.gv.at/presse/2024/05/02/hanke-wien-weiterhin-im-internationalen-aufwind

Read the full analysis: https://digitales.wien.gv.at/internationale-spitzenkraefte-fuer-wien/