New Interior-Ministry figures analysed on 26 November reveal that Austria received only 1,293 asylum applications in October, 49 percent fewer than a year earlier and the lowest monthly total since 2020. Year-to-date filings stand at 14,325, roughly one-third below 2024.
Officials attribute the fall to extended Schengen-internal border checks with Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czechia; tighter family-reunification quotas; and police operations such as "Operation Fox" on Hungarian soil targeting smuggler networks.
![Sharp Drop in Asylum Claims Halves Processing Time for Work-Permit Conversions]()
The breathing space has allowed the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) to slash its backlog of 26,000 cases to fewer than 9,500. As a result, the average processing time to convert an approved asylum seeker’s status into a labour-market residence permit (the so-called „status change to employment”) has fallen from four months to less than eight weeks.
For employers this is more than a bureaucratic tidying-up exercise. Sectors such as elder-care, food processing and parcel logistics rely heavily on refugees already integrated into Austrian society but previously stuck in legal limbo. Faster decisions mean earlier access to the full-time workforce and fewer compliance headaches over tolerated-stay extensions.
Mobility teams should, however, continue to monitor political sentiment. The same statistics are fuelling calls by opposition parties for stricter social-welfare eligibility, a reminder that policy winds can shift quickly.
Officials attribute the fall to extended Schengen-internal border checks with Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czechia; tighter family-reunification quotas; and police operations such as "Operation Fox" on Hungarian soil targeting smuggler networks.
The breathing space has allowed the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) to slash its backlog of 26,000 cases to fewer than 9,500. As a result, the average processing time to convert an approved asylum seeker’s status into a labour-market residence permit (the so-called „status change to employment”) has fallen from four months to less than eight weeks.
For employers this is more than a bureaucratic tidying-up exercise. Sectors such as elder-care, food processing and parcel logistics rely heavily on refugees already integrated into Austrian society but previously stuck in legal limbo. Faster decisions mean earlier access to the full-time workforce and fewer compliance headaches over tolerated-stay extensions.
Mobility teams should, however, continue to monitor political sentiment. The same statistics are fuelling calls by opposition parties for stricter social-welfare eligibility, a reminder that policy winds can shift quickly.
