Fact Check: How Much Money Do Asylum Seekers Really Receive in Austria?

Especially before elections, the topic of migration and asylum is often used by various parties for propaganda. Recently, calculations in an article in a daily newspaper caused a stir shortly before the Vienna election. Also, in a TV show, false information was spread through the use of unclear terms.

Assessment: When it comes to statements about specific amounts of money that refugees receive in Austria, caution is always advised. Due to the many different terminologies - asylum seeker, person entitled to asylum, person entitled to subsidiary protection - and the dependent social benefits, which are also regulated differently in the federal states, there are always uncertainties, often also deliberately spread misinformation. It is definitely worth taking a closer look.

Verification: A correct classification of financial aid and their payment amounts requires a distinction between the eligible groups. In the discussion about financial aid from countries or the federal government, four groups should generally be distinguished: persons entitled to asylum, asylum seekers, persons entitled to subsidiary protection, and displaced persons from Ukraine. They receive different monetary benefits, primarily basic care or social assistance, which is also referred to as minimum security.

Persons entitled to asylum, i.e., people who have gone through the asylum process and have been granted asylum, are entitled to social assistance or minimum security from the moment they are granted refugee status. For single individuals and single parents, the amount of social assistance in 2025 is a maximum of approximately 1,209 euros (twelve times a year). For couples, the maximum amount is around 1,693 euros.

Persons entitled to asylum are thus equated with Austrian citizens. They not only have full access to the labor market but also are entitled to other social benefits such as family allowance, childcare allowance, and care allowance.

An asylum seeker, i.e., a person waiting for the final conclusion of their asylum procedure, is entitled to benefits from the so-called "basic care" in Austria. It is aimed at covering daily basic needs (accommodation, food, medical care, clothing assistance, school supplies, and information and counseling) and varies from federal state to federal state, depending on the form of accommodation (private or organized).

Adult asylum seekers who are accommodated in an organized facility in Vienna receive around 200 euros per month for food, an additional 40 euros per month as pocket money, and 10 euros per month for leisure money. Additionally, an amount of 150 euros per year is paid for clothing and 200 euros (per school year) for school supplies for school-age children.

People whose asylum application has been rejected due to lack of persecution but who have been granted temporary protection from deportation are referred to as persons entitled to subsidiary protection. These are mostly Syrian, Afghan, or Russian nationals. They have full access to the labor market, unlike asylum seekers, and under certain conditions, are also entitled to minimum security.

If persons entitled to subsidiary protection live privately, their basic care is topped up to the level of needs-based minimum security. In this case, they must closely cooperate with the employment service (AMS) or work at least 20 hours per week and participate in integration measures such as German courses.

Refugees from Ukraine are covered by the Displaced Persons Regulation of March 11, 2022. Therefore, they do not have to apply for asylum and receive a temporary right of residence as well as an ID for displaced persons. Financial support is only paid within the framework of basic care and through a possible receipt of family allowance (see Paragraph 55, Section 57 FLAG 1967).

Persons with a legally binding negative outcome of the asylum procedure and persons without a residence permit, if they cannot be deported for legal or factual reasons, do not fall into any of these groups. However, they are also entitled to basic care.

Basic care is the nationwide regulated minimum amount that people officially living in Austria are entitled to. The maximum cost rates are regulated in the Basic Care Agreement and are the same in all federal states. Basic care is paid out by aid organizations at the state level.

Social assistance - which has replaced minimum security but is often still referred to as such - is also paid out at the state level. Its maximum rates in 2025 are 1,209.01 euros for a single person and 1,692.61 euros for a couple in a shared household.

The maximum rates for children vary from state to state. Four federal states pay the same amount for each child, while all others stagger. Vorarlberg pays the highest rates for up to five children, only from seven children is the per capita amount highest in Vienna, as shown by a table from the city of Vienna available to APA-Faktencheck.

The higher rates for children in Vorarlberg are due to the higher costs for childcare there, according to the city of Vienna. In three other federal states (Salzburg, Tyrol, and Vienna), exceeding the maximum social assistance due to higher housing costs is possible by up to 30 percent.

Social assistance is rarely paid out in full: On average, the payout amount per capita (including children) is 802 euros according to data from Statistics Austria. In 2023, Vienna was at the national average with 805 euros. In Vienna, only about one-seventh of minimum security recipients receive the full amount.

62 percent of recipients in Vienna are not Austrian citizens according to the latest annual data. 12.5 percent of all non-Austrians receive minimum security in Vienna, overall this figure was seven percent in Vienna. Almost half of the asylum beneficiaries in minimum security are minors. Subsidiary protection beneficiaries make up only a small part of the minimum security recipients in Vienna.

The inconsistent handling at the state level, as well as exceptions and special cases both in the classification of recipients and in the financial benefits, makes the distinction particularly difficult. This further facilitates the instrumentalization of this emotionally charged topic and repeatedly leads to deliberately or unintentionally spread misinformation.

"The ten different basic care systems in Austria now result in a life-foreign, Kafkaesque confusion," criticized Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz from the Asylum Coordination Austria to APA-Faktencheck. Hardly any area is so much in the focus of public debates and at the same time so "non-transparent and incomprehensible" for those affected and authorities alike as the basic care of those seeking protection.

The need for reform is urgent, Gahleitner-Gertz demanded a standardization and more transparency in the basic care system. There are currently indeed efforts to standardize the regulations across the entire federal territory for both basic care and social assistance. These are also recorded in the current government program.

(APA/Red.)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.