Before you start

Meldezettel
Employer registration with the ÖGK, or SVS registration if self-employed
Austrian social insurance number, issued on that registration

Step-by-step

1
Check your employer filed the registration
Employers must register you with the social insurance carrier before your first working day. That produces your Sozialversicherungsnummer and triggers the e-card. No card after three weeks means chasing payroll, not the ÖGK.
Via employerWho: Your employerBefore your first working day
2
Expect the e-card by post, and the annual service fee through payroll
The service fee is charged once a year for the following year and collected in November — €25 for 2026. It is indexed each year and is not charged for co-insured dependants.
Via employerWho: You€25 for 2026, collected in November 2025
3
Find a GP with an ÖGK contract before you need one
Use the ÖGK's own search and filter for a Kassenvertrag. With a contracted doctor you show the e-card and pay nothing. Graz has good coverage but popular practices close their lists, so register while you are healthy.
OnlineWho: YouMonth 1
4
Understand the LKH's role before an emergency
The LKH-Univ. Klinikum on the northern edge of the city is the state's tertiary hospital and where most specialist and emergency care converges. Knowing which entrance and which department you need — and that 1450 will tell you whether to go at all — saves hours.
In personWho: You
5
Price a Wahlarzt properly before booking
A Wahlarzt has no ÖGK contract. You pay the full invoice and are reimbursed 80% of what the ÖGK would have paid a contracted doctor — not 80% of your bill. Where the private fee is a multiple of the tariff, the refund is a small fraction of what you spent.
In personWho: You
6
Self-employed: register with the SVS and halve the co-payment
The self-employed insure with the SVS, which applies a 20% co-payment on most treatment, reduced to 10% for participants in its health-goals programme. Contributions in the early years are provisional and recalculated backwards once profits are known.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

e-card
Meldezettel
Social insurance number
Employment contract or SVS registration
European Health Insurance Card, printed on the reverse of the e-card

Things most newcomers don’t know

Wahlarzt reimbursement is 80% of the official tariff, not 80% of the invoice.

This is the most expensive misunderstanding in Austrian healthcare and it is not explained at the point of booking. A Wahlarzt sets their own fee; the ÖGK refunds 80% of what it would have paid a contracted doctor for the same service. If the private fee is triple the tariff, you recover about a quarter. Long waits for contracted specialists push people toward Wahlärzte without anyone doing this arithmetic for them.

Source: ÖGK

Your insurer is decided by how you work, and switching to freelance changes the terms.

Employees belong to the ÖGK, the self-employed to the SVS, public servants to the BVAEB, and you cannot choose between them. Going freelance therefore moves you to a fund charging a 20% co-payment on treatment that employees never see. That can be halved to 10% by joining the SVS health-goals programme, which is worth doing in the first year rather than the fifth.

Source: SVS; ÖGK

Graz's specialist care concentrates in one hospital complex, which is both the strength and the constraint.

The LKH-Univ. Klinikum is the tertiary referral hospital for the whole of Styria and one of the largest in the country, so the depth of specialist medicine available in a city of 300,000 is far beyond what the population would normally support. The trade-off is a single point of congestion: elective waits are real, and the 1450 health line exists partly to keep non-urgent cases out of its emergency department.

Source: KAGes; oesterreich.gv.at

Call 1450 before you decide whether something is an emergency.

The national health advice line is staffed by trained personnel who triage symptoms and tell you whether to see a GP, use the out-of-hours service on 141, or go to hospital. It is free, available around the clock, and used heavily by Austrians and almost never by newcomers, who default either to A&E or to waiting. In a city where emergency care means one very busy hospital, that call is worth making first.

Source: oesterreich.gv.at

Common mistakes to avoid

Booking a Wahlarzt without realising the refund is a share of the tariff, not of the bill.
Not verifying that your employer actually filed the social insurance registration.
Assuming a spouse or child is co-insured automatically rather than on application.
Going freelance without budgeting for the SVS co-payment and the retroactive contribution true-up.
Heading to the LKH emergency department for something 1450 would have routed to a GP.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.