Austria · Europe
Moving to Graz
Graz quick facts
Austria at a glance
Europe & Central Asia
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World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Graz
Can you move to Austria?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter Austria — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in Austria
Residence titles through the Styrian authority, and the three-day Meldezettel
Two separate obligations land in your first week. Registration (Meldezettel) is due within three days, applies to everyone including EU citizens, and needs the landlord's signature. The residence title is federal law administered locally, and Graz's authority is smaller and generally faster to get an appointment with than Vienna's — a real, unglamorous advantage of settling here. For third-country nationals, which Rot-Weiß-Rot route you use depends on a shortage-occupation list that is rewritten every calendar year, and Styria's regional listings differ from the nationwide ones.
Read the full step-by-step guideSix months to convert, the air-quality speed limit, and a city better crossed by bike
EU and EEA licences remain valid without exchange. Anything else must be converted within six months of taking up residence, and after that the exchange route closes and only a full Austrian test remains. Whether a practical test is required depends on the issuing country, and for several major countries the exemption covers cars only. Graz itself is small, flat in the centre and heavily cycled — but if you do drive, the greater city is an air-quality remediation area and the 100 km/h limit on the A2 between Graz-Ost and Graz-West outlived Styria's other air-quality speed limits.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account in a student city, and paying a fee for the privilege
Bring the Meldezettel and photo ID; third-country nationals should bring the residence title too. Steiermärkische Sparkasse, Raiffeisen Steiermark, Bank Austria and BAWAG all open accounts for new residents quickly. Austrian banks still charge a monthly account fee, which is unusual in Western Europe, and the spread between packages at the same bank is wide enough to matter. Cash remains genuinely normal in Styria — more so than in Vienna.
Read the full step-by-step guideÖGK, the e-card, and one enormous university hospital
Your employer registers you, an e-card arrives, and treatment with a contracted doctor is free at the point of care. Two things trip people up everywhere in Austria — the Wahlarzt reimbursement that is a percentage of the official tariff rather than of your bill, and the fact that going self-employed moves you to a different insurer with a co-payment. What is local is that almost all specialist and emergency care in Graz funnels into the LKH-Univ. Klinikum, one of Austria's largest hospitals, which shapes waiting times and where you will end up.
Read the full step-by-step guideRegistered SIMs, discounter data, and fibre in a UNESCO old town
Mobile data is cheap here and the discount operators riding the three national networks are where most people land. Every SIM must be registered against ID. Fixed-line service is the harder question: Graz's old town and its surrounding conservation zones are protected under a dedicated state law, and running fibre into a protected building means the agreement of the owners and, in the strictest zones, of the heritage authority.
Read the full step-by-step guideOne national tax office, indexed brackets, and the refund most newcomers never claim
Employees have income tax withheld monthly and many never file, which usually costs them money: the voluntary employee assessment can be filed for five previous years and very often produces a refund, especially for the year you arrived. Austria indexes its tax brackets automatically each January, so a figure from an older guide is stale by construction. The 13th and 14th salary payments are taxed on a separate, much lighter basis, and that is the largest structural difference between an Austrian offer and a German or Swiss one.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
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What to know before you go
Three days to register, and your landlord has to sign the form
CriticalAustria's Meldegesetz allows three days from moving in to file the Meldezettel — not the fortnight most of Europe gives — and the form requires the signature of whoever provides the accommodation. In Graz you file it at a Bürgerinnen- und Bürgeramt; it is free and takes minutes once you have the signature. Late or wrong registration is an administrative offence with a fine of up to €726, and every subsequent step depends on it: the bank account, the e-card, the residence title, the Wohnunterstützung application. Get the signed form at handover, in the same conversation as the keys.
The Altbau rent cap in Styria is set nearly 40% above Vienna's, so it protects you much less
CriticalThe Mietrechtsgesetz's Richtwert system is national, but the Richtwert itself is set per federal state. From 1 April 2026 Styria's is €9.30 per square metre against Vienna's €6.74. The same regulated Gründerzeit flat therefore carries a ceiling in Graz that is close to the local market price rather than far below it, which is why Graz's regulated stock produces nowhere near the bargains Vienna's does. The protection that does still matter here is the rest of the package: legally defined operating costs, strong protection against termination, and the compulsory 25% reduction on a fixed-term lease.
Graz council housing needs a year in the city first, and a settled residence title if you are not an EU citizen
CriticalThe city runs a substantial Gemeindewohnung stock with income limits that are not restrictive — around €49,600 net a year for a single person. What gates it is time and status: you need one year of continuous main residence or employment in Graz, or fifteen years cumulatively, and you must be an Austrian, EU, EEA or Swiss citizen, a recognised refugee, or hold the Daueraufenthalt – EU title. For a third-country national that last condition means five years of lawful residence before the door opens at all. It is a shorter wait than Vienna's two-year rule, but the same underlying lock.
Austrian pay comes in fourteen instalments and the two extras are taxed at 6%
CriticalCollective agreements — which cover almost every job here — provide holiday pay in summer and Christmas pay in November, so an annual salary is normally divided by fourteen. Those special payments are taxed at a flat 6% within the Jahressechstel after a €620 annual exemption, instead of at your marginal rate. That makes an Austrian offer better net than the same headline gross elsewhere, and it is also how the immigration thresholds are measured: the 2026 EU Blue Card floor of €55,678 is annual salary including the special payments. Ask which collective agreement applies to your role, because the 13th and 14th are contractual, not statutory.
Since July 2023 a tenant answering a listing pays no agency commission
ImportantAustria switched residential lettings to the Bestellerprinzip on 1 July 2023: whoever instructed the agent pays, and the fee cannot be passed on or shared. Reply to a public advertisement and the landlord instructed the agent, so you owe nothing — the old two-months-plus-VAT norm is gone for rentals, though it survives for sales. The workaround some agents attempt is a search mandate signed at the viewing, which makes you the instructing party. In a student city with a September rush, that document circulates more than it should. Read before you sign.
The rental year turns on the academic calendar, and winter air is a real consideration
Good to knowRoughly one in six people in Graz is a student across four universities and several Fachhochschulen, so the market empties in June and July and tightens sharply through September. Arriving in late summer means competing with tens of thousands of students; arriving in spring means choice. Separately, the city sits in a basin with poor winter ventilation and is a designated remediation area for particulates and NO2 — which is why solid-fuel secondary heating can be restricted during episodes and the 100 km/h limit persists on the A2 between Graz-Ost and Graz-West even after Styria dropped most of its other air-quality speed limits. If you have asthma or small children, ask what a flat is heated with.
Top industries & employers
Automotive engineering & contract manufacturing
Magna Steyr, AVL List, ACstyria cluster members
Magna Steyr in Graz-Thondorf builds complete vehicles under contract for several global brands on one line, and AVL List — headquartered here — is the world's largest independent powertrain and mobility engineering firm. Between them they anchor a supplier cluster of several hundred companies.
Semiconductors & sensors
ams-OSRAM (Premstätten), NXP Semiconductors (Gratkorn), Infineon design teams
The corridor immediately outside Graz is one of Central Europe's denser sensor and secure-chip clusters — ams-OSRAM is headquartered on the city's southern edge and NXP's Gratkorn site is a global centre for smart-card and identification silicon.
Industrial plant & machinery
Andritz AG, Knapp AG, Anton Paar, Binder+Co
Andritz, headquartered in Graz, is one of Austria's largest listed industrial groups; Knapp in Hart bei Graz builds warehouse automation for retailers worldwide; Anton Paar's precision measuring instruments are a quiet global monopoly in several niches.
Higher education & research
University of Graz, TU Graz, Medical University of Graz, KUG, FH Joanneum
Four public universities and several Fachhochschulen in a city of around 300,000 — TU Graz's engineering faculties feed the automotive cluster directly, and the medical university runs the LKH-Univ. Klinikum, one of Austria's largest hospitals.
Health & life sciences
LKH-Univ. Klinikum Graz, Human.technology Styria, VTU, Biobank Graz
The state hospital complex is among the biggest single employers in Styria, and the Biobank Graz is one of Europe's largest clinical biobanks — the reason a distinct biotech and medtech scene exists here at all.
Design, culture & tourism
UNESCO City of Design office, Kunsthaus Graz, Styriarte, Steirischer Herbst
Graz's old town and Schloss Eggenberg are UNESCO World Heritage, and the city was named a UNESCO City of Design in 2011 — an unusually institutionalised creative sector for a city this size.
Where to go in Graz
Schlossberg & the Uhrturm
Landmark · Dead centre, above the old town
A wooded crag rising straight out of the city, topped by the clock tower that survived when Napoleon's troops demolished the fortress around it.
Local tip: There is a funicular and a lift, and there are also 260 steps from Schlossbergplatz — the steps are free and take eight minutes. Inside the hill is a network of wartime tunnels now used as a passage and an events space, which most visitors never notice.
Kunsthaus Graz & Murinsel
Culture · Lend, west bank of the Mur
The blue biomorphic 'friendly alien' contemporary art museum, and a floating steel island in the river a few hundred metres upstream.
Local tip: Both were built for the 2003 European Capital of Culture year and both are still working buildings rather than monuments — the Murinsel has a café in it and the Kunsthaus's exhibition programme is genuinely worth a membership if you are here more than a year.
Lend & Gries
Neighborhood · West of the Mur
The two districts across the river — historically the poorer, most immigrant and most interesting part of Graz, now also the one with the bars.
Local tip: Lendplatz market on a Saturday morning is the best food shopping in the city and half the price of the old-town delis. The area changes character street by street: Mariahilferstraße is bars and galleries, three streets west is ordinary working Graz.
Schloss Eggenberg
Landmark · Western edge, tram 1
A Baroque palace built as a calendar in stone — 365 windows, 31 rooms per floor, 24 state rooms — with a walled park full of peacocks.
Local tip: The park costs almost nothing and is where locals actually go; the state rooms are guided-tour only and worth doing once. It is part of the same UNESCO World Heritage listing as the old town, which is unusual for a site four kilometres outside it.
Südsteirische Weinstraße
Nature · 45–60 minutes south by car
Ridge roads through steep vineyards along the Slovenian border, with Buschenschank taverns at the top of most of them.
Local tip: This is the reason people accept a job in Graz. Sauvignon Blanc and Welschriesling from these hills are Austria's best, the Klapotetz windmills are real working bird-scarers rather than decoration, and a Buschenschank is legally only allowed to serve its own wine and cold food — which is why the food is so good.
The Schlossberg tunnels and the Dom im Berg
Hidden gemCulture · Inside the Schlossberg
Six kilometres of tunnels dug as air-raid shelters in 1943, part of which is now a concert hall inside the rock.
Local tip: You can walk the main gallery straight through the hill as a free public passage between Schlossbergplatz and Karmeliterplatz, which almost nobody who has not been told does. The Dom im Berg hosts club nights and concerts in a space that is unheated, enormous and acoustically strange.
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