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Urgently need information: Living in Austria, Working abroad.

Last activity 03 April 2019 by seb.kol

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Peter-Michael

Hi there guys & gals, I hope one of you has a solution for me. This is quite long.

(tl;;dr: I live and work in Austria currently, but wish to work overseas. I have 18 months left on my current Aufentalts before I have to apply for the 3rd one which will be valid for 5 years. How does it work when you want to leave the country to work overseas, but are living in Austria on a Family aufentalts?)

I generally work on Islands as a specialist chef/cook, and have not been doing so for the last few years as I live in Austria. However, considering how poorly Austrians (and pretty much anywhere in the world) pays chefs, I kept my feelers out to find something better and new on the islands. Unfortunately, in the 3 years and several restaurants I have worked in, nothing worth staying and working here (In terms of work, not my family :P) for has popped up money to time ratio wise.

I have been offered a job to work in the Maldives again, with incredible pay that makes it worth working the 16 hour days. Problem is, no one at the BH (So far) has a cooking clue how it affects my Aufentalts.

ENTER: You/Someone with experience in working abroad as an expat living in Austria. (I hope)

N.B: So to start this post out: I have spoken to the BH and have an appointment next week, and as is usual each person I speak to has a different answer for me, thus the need to find someone that has actually done this that can provide me a solid answer. I have looked everywhere online, all of the websites, and found only one site from the bh that says it may be possible under work circumstances, but it doesn't mention what those circumstances are.

I am currently here on a family aufentalts, and on my 2nd card (This means it expires in 2019 Oct, and the next one I do for the integrations agreement will mean It will be valid for 5 years before a citizenship test and B1 language test).

According to the 1st lady I spoke to in person, leaving the country for Work reasons, while keeping my permanent residence in Austria would mean I could leave for 2 years for the job without an issue, as long as I pay taxes here and come back and complete the next Aufentalts.

According to the 2nd lady I spoke to via email (Same BH, no joke), It would be impossible for me to work overseas for longer than 6 months without having to either restart the entire Integration process (ie, start over from Aufentalts 1, which is valid a year and then go to Aufentalts 2 and then 3: A process of 5 years.)

According to the 3rd lady who phoned me regarding my email (Again, the same BH, this time via telephone), she has no clue and I need to speak to the boss (Thus the termin next week), but she thinks my validity of Aufentalts would create a problem.

SO. This terrifies me.
____________________________________________________
A little story about this BH:

In 2016, my wife and I decided to go backpacking in the Himalayas for 5 months, starting in the North of India and working our way up. We spoke to the lady (Lady 1, in this story), about getting my Aufentalts issued/applied for earlier so it would be ready on time. She got annoyed at me and told me that I should trust the system, and that I can book everything and get ready, but only apply 6 weeks (Earlierst possible) for the new Aufentalts.

I did exactly that.

Booked flights, got everything organized, bought a motorbike that side and so on and so forth.

Lo and behold, it was not ready, and I was officially illegally in Austria for a week, while she played catch up with a puckered ***hole. She then assured us that they would send it via Ambassadorial (Botschaft), post to New Delhi where I could pick it up. So we left the country, not wanting to waste thousands of euros on travel plans that would not be refundable, not to mention other peoples time we would have wasted in organizing everything on that side.

This was also not the case. I was stuck in New Delhi, without identification to get back to Austria and had to apply for a normal visa just to get back in, which is a whole other story.

(If you happen to work in the Delhi embassy and read this, I can't thank you enough for your assistance at the time! You guys really really helped us out of a sticky situation)
____________________________________________________

So you can imagine my concern. I personally can't imagine that the government would not allow for people to work abroad even though they are married and have a house in Austria (As this would create a system in which people that work as specialists, that seek gainful occupation overseas would be unemployed for 5 year periods, which is something the system doesn't really allow for considering insurances etc.). But at the same time, considering my past experience with the BH here in Steyr, I wouldn't put it past them to leave out information or buggle something that comes back to bite me in the ass in a year or two when I want to come back to my home.

Does ANYONE have any idea or experience with this specific situation?

(tl;;dr: I live and work in Austria currently, but wish to work overseas. I have 18 months left on my current Aufentalts before I have to apply for the 3rd one which will be valid for 5 years. How does it work when you want to leave the country to work overseas, but are living in Austria on a Family aufentalts?)

Peter-Michael

Issue has been resolved.

Well, if anyone ever faces the same issues as me, then here is the answer:

Nope, nope and more nope.

There exist no laws to accomodate specialists/specific career paths outside of the country with exception of short term out of country tasks that can only be issued by a company within Austria. ie. If I work for BMW and they send me to India for 6 months to open a new factory or something.

The only option you have is to either wait the entire first 5 years worth of Aufentalts out and then get your long term one, in which case you can only leave for 1-2 years in a 5 year term (Including holidays and whatnot), OR as we are doing: Say fuckit, you don't want to be stuck somewhere and have to work for far less then you would usually earn (Not the case with everyone, I know, so it only applies to specific skillsets), and leave only to come back once a year to renew the first level Aufentalts. Every year.

That's about it.

You can happily settle down and restart the process of gaining citizenship in the future when you feel the time is right, it just means that you have to start from ground 0 again.

Also, so anyone knows, the A1 and first Aufentalts now comes with a basic history test alongside it before you get the card (They upped the difficulty a little, but it is still super easy if you just do some studying).

Hope you all have fun, and a good year!

All the best wishes - Peter.

seb.kol

That's very useful information, thanks for the write up

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