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How could you move to Austria?
Without an EU passport, a move to Austria starts with a visa or residence permit. Move Me To EU, Karte Global's visa and relocation service, compares the visa routes open to Americans in Austria and across the EU.
Have a parent or grandparent from Germany, Italy, Ireland or Poland? You may have a claim to EU citizenship by descent, which carries the right to live in Austria. A 30-minute screening call tells you whether a closer look is worthwhile.
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Best places to live in Austria with every factor weighted equally
The ranking at the top of this page starts with all 12 factors at the same weight. On that footing, these 10 of the 34 places score highest; the number beside each is its match score out of 100. Treat the list as a starting point, not a verdict: raise the factors you care about and the order changes. Select a place to open its full breakdown.
- 1(Vienna)91Strongest on international community (100), healthcare (100) and restaurants and bars (100). Weakest on housing cost (4). International community: 36.1% of residents have a foreign citizenship (2024) (Austrian average 20%).
- 277Strongest on cultural scene (100), walkability (99) and restaurants and bars (97). Weakest on international schools (29). Cultural scene: the average resident has 55.7 museums, theatres, cinemas and galleries within 3 km.
- 376Strongest on long-distance trains (100), walkability (96) and bike friendliness (91). Weakest on international schools (29). Long-distance trains: 126 long-distance departures a day (main station Linz Hbf). Wien 1 h 15 min, Graz 3 h 11 min, Salzburg 1 h 08 min, Innsbruck 3 h 17 min.
- 473Strongest on restaurants and bars (100), walkability (100) and cultural scene (96). Weakest on housing cost (0). Restaurants and bars: the average resident has 79 restaurants, cafes and bars within 1 km.
- 573Strongest on international schools (100), walkability (96) and bike friendliness (93). Weakest on housing cost (28). International schools: 12 within 25 km, found by name.
- 671Strongest on international community (99), cultural scene (99) and long-distance trains (97). Weakest on housing cost (4). International community: 33.1% of residents have a foreign citizenship (2024) (Austrian average 20%).
- 762Strongest on airport access (100), international schools (100) and healthcare (88). Weakest on cultural scene (18). Airport access: 6 min by public transport to Vienna.
- 861Strongest on international community (100), long-distance trains (91) and bike friendliness (87). Weakest on international schools (0). International community: 34.1% of residents have a foreign citizenship (2024) (Austrian average 20%).
- 960Strongest on restaurants and bars (85), walkability (80) and cultural scene (75). Weakest on international schools (29). Restaurants and bars: the average resident has 43 restaurants, cafes and bars within 1 km.
- 1057Strongest on long-distance trains (97), housing cost (83) and cultural scene (77). Weakest on healthcare (10). Long-distance trains: 126 long-distance departures a day (main station St. Pölten Hauptbahnhof). Wien 29 min, Graz 2 h 49 min, Linz 44 min, Salzburg 1 h 54 min, Innsbruck 4 h 03 min.
Best places in Austria by priority
Each starting point is a preset in the tool above. It raises the factors named and lowers a few others. The five highest-scoring places under each:
Family raises access to nature and international schools to 5, and healthcare and walkability to 4.
- Wien (Vienna): 92
- Mödling, Niederösterreich: 79
- Klosterneuburg, Niederösterreich: 74
- Innsbruck, Tirol: 72
- Perchtoldsdorf, Niederösterreich: 69
Budget first raises housing cost to 5, and bike friendliness, healthcare, long-distance trains, public transit and walkability to 4.
- Graz, Steiermark: 80
- Linz, Oberösterreich: 79
- Wien (Vienna): 76
- Wels, Oberösterreich: 69
- Salzburg: 66
Car-free raises bike friendliness, public transit and walkability to 5, and long-distance trains to 4.
- Wien (Vienna): 100
- Linz, Oberösterreich: 91
- Salzburg: 88
- Graz, Steiermark: 86
- Innsbruck, Tirol: 83
Frequent flyer raises long-distance trains and airport access to 5, and international community, restaurants and bars and cultural scene to 4.
- Wien (Vienna): 100
- Linz, Oberösterreich: 86
- Salzburg: 83
- Graz, Steiermark: 81
- Innsbruck, Tirol: 78
Questions about where to live in Austria
What is the best place to live in Austria?
It depends on what you need from a place, which is why the Austria City Finder re-ranks as you set your priorities. With all 12 factors weighted equally, Wien (Vienna), Graz and Linz score highest of the 34 places compared. Change the starting point and the answer changes: Family puts Wien (Vienna) first, Budget first puts Graz first, Car-free puts Wien (Vienna) first and Frequent flyer puts Wien (Vienna) first.
What are the best places to live in Austria for families?
The Family starting point raises access to nature and international schools to 5, and healthcare and walkability to 4. With it, Wien (Vienna), Mödling, Klosterneuburg, Innsbruck and Perchtoldsdorf score highest.
Which places in Austria are easiest to live in without a car?
The Car-free starting point raises bike friendliness, public transit and walkability to 5, and long-distance trains to 4. With it, Wien (Vienna), Linz, Salzburg, Graz and Innsbruck score highest.
Where is housing most affordable in Austria?
On the housing cost factor, the highest scores go to Leoben, Kapfenberg, Amstetten, Wolfsberg and St. Pölten. Leoben: Median sale price 1,638 € per m², apartments, 2024 and 2025 average.
Where does the data come from?
The Austria City Finder compares 34 places on 12 factors using official statistics and open data. The figure behind every score is shown beside it, and each source is listed under How the scores work and at the foot of this page. The methodology sets out how every city finder turns figures into scores.
Does the City Finder tell me whether I can move to Austria?
No. It is an informational research tool that compares places using general statistics. It does not assess eligibility for any visa, residence permit or citizenship, and nothing in it is legal, immigration, tax or financial advice. For visa and residence routes, see Move Me To EU.
About the Austria City Finder
The Austria City Finder compares 34 places across Austria on 12 factors: housing cost, bike friendliness, access to nature, international community, healthcare, long-distance trains, airport access, public transit, restaurants and bars, cultural scene, walkability and international schools. Every factor starts at the same weight. Raise the ones you care about, lower or switch off the ones you don't, and the ranking and map re-sort as you go. You can shortlist places, compare them side by side, and copy a link that reopens your exact setup. Wien, Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck open up into their neighborhoods.
It is built for Americans weighing a move to Austria, whether through citizenship by descent, a visa or another route, who want to turn a long list of places into a shortlist worth visiting. Wien (Vienna), Graz and Linz are on the list, and so are smaller places that rarely make the usual rankings. Scores are built from official statistics and open data, the figure behind each score is shown next to it, and the sources are listed at the foot of this page. The methodology explains how a figure becomes a score.
For visa and residence routes, see Move Me To EU, Karte Global's visa and relocation practice. Considering more than one country? Browse every city finder, or compare places across the whole EU on one scale in the EU City Finder.
How the scores work
Each figure is turned into a 0 to 100 score. Most factors are scored half by comparison and half on a fixed scale. The comparison half ranks the places against each other: the weakest twentieth score 0 and the strongest twentieth score 100. The fixed half measures each place from zero up to the level of the strongest, so a city is not marked zero merely for coming last on a list of good options. Housing cost and journey times have no natural zero and are scored by comparison only. Public transit is already a percentage of residents and is used as it stands, and cycling is scored on a fixed scale (see the table).
Cities are compared with the other cities on this list. Neighborhoods are compared only with other neighborhoods of the same city, so a neighborhood score of 80 in Graz and 80 in Wien are not the same thing. A score is a comparison, not a grade, and the figure behind every score is shown next to it.
Your overall match is not a flat average. Weights are squared, so a factor at 5 counts nearly three times as much as one at 3. The result is stretched so that strong matches separate from middling ones. A place that excels on something you rated 4 or 5 earns a small bonus, shown as "strong fit"; one that does badly on it takes a penalty, shown as "weak fit". Where a place has no figure for a factor, that factor is left out of its match and the others carry the weight.
Badges: Measured a published official statistic or survey result. Derived calculated by us from published data. Editorial written or judged by us: only the short notes, which never affect a score. Planned not in the score yet.
Why there is no safety score. Austria's police publish crime figures for the country and its nine states only, not for towns or neighborhoods. A state figure would give Graz and Leoben, or Innsbruck and Kitzbühel, the same score, so safety is not scored. Each place's note shows its state's 2025 figure for reported violent offences per 100,000 residents, against 956 for Austria as a whole. Crime is counted where it happens, so states with big cities, tourism and nightlife record more per resident.
Reading the train and airport figures. Train counts and journey times come from the published timetables for one ordinary Tuesday, 10 November 2026. Engineering works and seasonal changes move these figures, most of all for smaller stations. Only long-distance trains are counted: ÖBB Railjet, Intercity and EuroCity, WESTbahn, and the international trains in the open feeds. Regional and S-Bahn trains, including REX, are not. Stations within 2 km of a place's boundary count, so a town beside a big station (Leonding beside Linz, Kapfenberg beside Bruck an der Mur) shares its trains. Airport access counts Vienna and, for western Austria, Munich and Zurich as the hubs. Treat these two factors as a snapshot of this season, and check a route you would rely on.
Neighborhood view uses Wien's 23 districts, with their 2026 populations, foreign citizenship and 2024 to 2025 apartment prices, and Innsbruck's statistical neighborhoods (Stadtteile; its two business parks are left out). Graz, Linz and Salzburg use their city districts as mapped in OpenStreetMap, because the cities do not publish their district boundaries as open data in a form we could use. Outside Wien a neighborhood's residents, and the share born outside Austria that stands in for the international community, are estimated from the 2021 census grid of 1 km squares, so figures near neighborhood edges are approximate. Neighborhood view uses only the factors that can be measured inside a city; housing cost is scored for Wien's neighborhoods only.