Austria's seasonal quotas and the AMS employment permit
Section 5 of Austria's Foreign Employment Act caps a seasonal permit at six months and at nine months in twelve. The AMS runs a replacement worker check first.
Seasonal work by third country nationals in Austria runs through quotas under section 5 of the Foreign Employment Act. A single permit may not exceed six months, and one worker may hold permits totalling at most nine months in twelve. The AMS issues them.
Austria therefore controls this access by volume rather than by a list of occupations, and the volume is decided afresh each year. For hotels and for agricultural holdings that means the question is not whether the occupation is open but whether places remain for the period in question.
Who sets the quota and how long it carries
Under section 5 the Federal Minister for Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection may set quotas by ordinance where a temporary additional need for labour cannot be met domestically or with nationals of the European Economic Area or Switzerland. The ordinance is issued after consulting the federal provinces and the employer and employee interest bodies. The maximum duration of the individual permit appears in the ordinance itself, capped by the statutory ceiling of six months.
The AMS describes three forms in practice. The seasonal permit runs six months, exceptionally nine. Harvest workers have their own and much shorter permit of six weeks. And registration as a Stammsaisonier, a returning seasonal worker, takes the person out of the quota altogether.
| Form | Duration | Counts against the quota | Replacement worker check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonal permit | 6 months, exceptionally 9 | Yes, under the annual ordinance | Yes |
| Harvest worker | 6 weeks | Yes | Yes |
| Registered returning seasonal worker | Recurring once registered | No | No |
| Total per person | At most 9 months in 12 months | Statutory limit in section 5 | Not applicable |
Registration as a returning seasonal worker is the lever companies use least. It requires lawful employment of at least 90 days per calendar year in agriculture and forestry or in tourism in at least three of the preceding five calendar years. Registration happens once and holds indefinitely. Periods in different sectors cannot be added together: two years in a hotel and two years in fruit growing do not meet the condition.
The replacement worker check decides the permit
Before issuing the permit the AMS checks whether an Austrian worker, a national of the European Economic Area, or a third country national with a residence right is available for the vacancy. The company is not a spectator in this. It has to describe the post so the AMS can refer candidates, report which referred candidates applied and which did not, and give reasons for each rejection.
Two behaviours regularly cost an employer the permit. The first is rejecting candidates on grounds that do not count in law. The second is inflated requirements in the vacancy notice that are visibly tailored to exclude domestic applicants. A requirement profile that suddenly demands three languages and five years of experience for a seasonal service post is read by the AMS as exactly that.
The employment permit is issued for a fixed term of at most one year at a time, renewable on application. For seasonal posts section 5 brings that term down further.
What the mistake costs and what it delays
Where a company employs a foreign worker without the required permit, the Foreign Employment Act provides for administrative fines of 1,000 to 10,000 euro, doubling to 2,000 to 20,000 euro for a repeat. The count runs per affected worker, which for a crew of eight is the difference between an uncomfortable sum and an existential one.
The more common damage is lost time. An application returned in the replacement worker check is not corrected and passed on; it starts again, and the season does not wait. An employer planning for May should have the post with the AMS early enough for the referral attempts to be complete before travel is booked.
The third point concerns pay audits. Seasonal workers fall under the same inspections as everyone else, and for underpayment the penalty range runs far higher than for a missing permit; the tiers are set out in wage inspections under Austria's LSD-BG. How Germany covers the same demand through an ordinance rather than a quota is shown in seasonal employment in Germany, and a third model running on bilateral arrangements is described in the Greek seasonal quota.
For a company that brings the same people back every year, returning seasonal worker registration is the only measure that permanently detaches access from the quota. It does require a clean multi year history, and that history only exists if employment days are documented per person and per sector. How Werklist keeps those records across several seasons is set out on our employers page.
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