Types of accommodation

Author

Asylkoordination Österreich Visit Website

At the end of 2022, 27 federal facilities with a maximum capacity of 8,000 were in use. During the reception crisis from October until December 2022, the BBU GmbH built up tents in 4 locations to house asylum applicants.[1] The crisis was a result of a lack of cooperation of the provinces that failed to take over asylum applicants after their admissibility procedure was completed. This led to a backlog of over 8,500 asylum applicants in federal accommodation facilities. The inadequate reception conditions in the tents caused a public uproar.[2] As mentioned above, in 2024, some federal facilities were closed and decommissioned due to a decline in asylum applications – overcrowded federal facilities were not an issue in 2024.

With the exception of the total number of places in private accommodation, all figures above refer strictly to the federal centres (if not explicitly stated otherwise), as it is not possible to provide figures on the number of apartments and houses used at provincial level to accommodate asylum applicants. Asylum applicants are accommodated in facilities of different size and capacity. A quota system requires the federal provinces to provide places according to their population (see Dispersal across Federal provinces).[3]

Each of the 9 federal provinces has a department in the regional government responsible for administering Basic Care. These departments search suitable accommodation places, and conclude contracts with NGOs or landlords, owners of hotels or inns, to provide a certain number of places and Basic Care provisions. Regular meetings of the heads of the provincial departments and the Ministry of Interior take place to evaluate the functioning of the Basic Care system and the level of financial compensation for the federal provinces. According to the Basic Care agreement between the State and the federal provinces, the latter must cover 40% of the expenditures, while the Federal Ministry has to pay 60% of the costs. This share of the Ministry of Interior could rise to 100% if an asylum application is not processed within due time. After 12 months, 100% of the accommodation costs of the provinces are covered by the Ministry.[4]

After the admission phase of the asylum procedure is finished, the responsibility to house asylum applicants during their asylum procedure shifts to the provinces. Throughout 2022, 17,286 asylum applicants were transferred from the EAST to the provinces.[5] There is not data for 2023 at the time of writing. In 2024, 11,604 asylum applicants were transferred to the provinces.[6]

Federal reception capacity

Source: Federal reception centres (blue dots, blue font), See website BBU Gmbh available in German here.

The initial reception centre Bad Kreuzen serves as centre for asylum applicants with an admissibility procedure likely to be rejected. The two initial reception centres in Traiskirchen and in Thalham are reserved for asylum applicants in the admissibility procedure and for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children as long as they are not transferred to reception facilities of the federal provinces. As of January 2025, the maximum capacity in the 10 available federal facilities was 1,430.[7]

The number of asylum applicants in the initial reception centre of Traiskirchen has sharply decreased from 2,000 asylum applicants to about 600 at the end of 2023.[8] At the end of 2024, approximately 1,400 asylum applicants were accommodated in federal care facilities, including 785 in Traiskirchen.[9]

Until 31 December 2018, the law allowed the Ministry of Interior to forcibly open reception facilities in federal provinces that do not fulfil their reception quota. Such centres could be opened even when the facility was not adapted to host asylum applicants, provided that certain special safeguards were ensured such as fire protection and related building regulations.[10] However, the law was only in force until 31 December 2018. Since then, it is no longer as easy to set up federal facilities in the federal states. In 2023 and 2024 existing federal facilities were therefore decommissioned, rather than closed. This has the advantage that, in the event of an increase in asylum applications, the facilities are already available and equipped (beds, tables, chairs, boxes, etc.) and ‘only’ staff need to be employed.

In case of larger numbers of arrivals and difficulties in transferring asylum applicants to reception facilities in the federal provinces, the Federal State may host asylum applicants even after their asylum application is admitted to the regular asylum procedure (this usually occurs within a maximum of 20 days)[11] for a maximum period of 14 days.[12]

In June 2022, the Ministry of Interior and BBU GmbH asked the provinces to fulfil their obligations to take over asylum applicants as agreed in the Basic Care agreement and warned of a possible collapse of the federal reception centres in case of non-cooperation. This lack of accommodation in the provinces has many reasons. First, the basic care system is chronically underfinanced which consequently leads to the fact that costs can barely be covered for the accommodation providers. Second, while financial resources were raised for the provinces in June 2022, implementation in some provinces took almost another half year. During this time, the high cost of living due to high inflation rates already raised the real costs more than the raise of the financial resources would cover. Third, after the start of the Russian aggression around 50,000 Ukrainians had to be accommodated in the basic care system. However, most of the Ukrainians are accommodated in private housing. In 2024, in two provinces there were elections which led to a lack of cooperation in the takeover of asylum applicants due to public debate. As already mentioned above, the number of asylum applications fell significantly in 2024. Therefore, there were no issue in the reception capacity of federal facilities. Nevertheless, federal states only partially increased their accommodation capacities. In terms of quota fulfilment, only Vienna has met their quota for years and is over 200%, followed by Vorarlberg, Burgenland and Styria (see Dispersal of beneficiaries of basic care). The increase in daily rates for UAM, increased care needs and care places in 2024 should improve the situation so that these vulnerable groups do not have to stay in federal facilities for long periods of time.

The province of Burgenland fell short of fulfilling the quota after the Head of the province, Hans-Peter Doskozil, announced in February that Burgenland would not take more than approx. 300 asylum applicants in province basic care in 2024.[13] Indeed, in practice, the province took very few asylum applicants in 2024.[14]

Source: asylkoordination österreich, unpublished (data by Ministry of Interior, Basic Care System, unpublished)

The light orange line represents accommodation of asylum applicants in the federal reception centres (January 2023: 7,000 to April 2025: 932). The other lines represent the development of the accommodation figures of asylum applicants accommodated in the provinces.

In 2023, there were almost 60,000 asylum applications of which half of the applicants continued to travel on to other countries and their procedures were discontinued. In the same time, the provinces Tirol, Vorarlberg and Upper Austria increased their accommodation places in the basic care system by a couple hundred places maximum per province while the other provinces have not reacted or even reduced accommodation capacity. This has not led to another collapse of the federal reception centres like in October 2022, when the CEO of the BBU GmbH announced that asylum applicants would have to be accommodated in tents on the grounds of the federal reception centres, due to the high number of onward travels.[15] In 2024, the number of federal reception centres were reduced to 9 (2023: 32) due to the decrease in the number of applicants.

Reception capacity at provincial level

In practice, most federal provinces do not provide the number of places required under their quota, which is partly due to the fact that provinces such as Vienna exceed their quota (almost double of the quota agreed). At the end of 2024, the entire Austrian reception system hosted a total of 68,161[16] persons (including beneficiaries of temporary protection, international protection and rejected asylum applicants), out of which 13,173 were asylum applicants in 2024.

Information on distribution across the federal provinces is provided in the section on Freedom of Movement. While Vienna continues to exceed its relative reception share, other federal provinces only reached 50-60% of the quota agreed. Due to the high number of Ukrainians entering Austria after 24 February 2022, the basic care system in the provinces had to accommodate a large number of refugees in a dysfunctional basic care system. Around 78% of the Ukrainian refugees were accommodated privately at the start. This share had gone down to 56.49%[17] at the end of 2024. Refugees from Ukraine are the responsibility of the basic care systems of the provinces as there is no admissibility phase (during which the basic care system in the federal centres would be responsible). For further information, please see the annex on temporary protection.

NGOs or owners of hostels and inns, who run reception centres under the responsibility of the federal provinces, have contracts with the governmental department of the respective federal provinces. While in most federal provinces almost all asylum applicants are placed in reception centres (e.g. 72% of asylum applicants in Styria and 80.8% in Burgenland), private accommodation is more often used in other states such as Vienna, where 83% of applicants lived in private accommodation in 2024.[18]

Source: Basic care, Information Ukraine refugee coordination unit 14 January 2025 unpublished.

[1] Ministry of Interior, Answer to parliamentary request, 12699/AB, XXVII. GP, 13 January 2023, available in German here.

[2] Kurier „Asyl: Zelte in Kärnten wegen Schneefalls geräumt“, 23 November 2022, available in German here.

[3] Article 1(4) GVV-Art.15a.

[4] Article 10, 11, GVV-Art. 15a.

[5] OÖ Landesregierung, Beantwortung einer Anfrage an LR Hattmansdorfer, Beilage 13124/2023, XXIX. GP, 5. April 2023, available in German here.

[6] Ministry of Interior, Answer to parliamentary request 630/AB, XXVIII GP, 19 May 2025, available in German here.

[7] Ministry of Interior, Answer to parliamentary request, 17218, XXVII. GP, 5 April 2024, available in German here.

[8] NÖN.at, Flüchtlingsbewegung als Herkulesaufgabe, 20 November 2018; available in German here.

[9] Information from the Ukraine refugee coordination unit, 14 January 2025, unpublished.

[10] Bundesverfassungsgesetz: Unterbringung und Aufteilung von hilfs- und schutzbedürftigen Fremden. BGBl 120, 28 September 2015, available here.

[11] Art 28 (2) AsylG 2005.

[12] Art 6 (2) GVG-Bund.

[13] „Doskozil will Obergrenze bei Grundversorgung und 10.000 Asylanträge“, kurier.at, 01 February 2024, available in German here.

[14] asylkoordination österreich, NGO exchange meetings March, June, Sept & Dec 2024, unpublished.

[15] ORF.at, „Asyl: Bund stellt Zelte in Thalham auf“, 14 October 2022, available in German here.

[16] Ministry of Interior, basic care information, unpublished.

[17] Information ukraine refugee coordination unit 14 January 24, unpublished.

[18] Basic care, Information ukraine refugee coordination unit, 14 January 2025, unpublished.