Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Social Statistics Directorate (Statistics Austria)
Department V/8/a (Federal Ministry of the Interior)
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
Statistics Austria
Guglgasse 13
1110 Vienna
Austria
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
4 June 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
16 September 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
16 September 2025
3.1. Data description
Data collection on the residence permits (RESPER) statistics contains statistical information based on the principles stated in the Union legislation on migration Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 and the Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/2010 implementing the categories of reasons for residence permits.
The main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits,
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay,
Residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
3.2. Classification system
See table 3.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration and asylum – Residence permits statistics.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.5. Statistical unit
Number of permits
3.6. Statistical population
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.7. Reference area
Austria
3.8. Coverage - Time
See table 3.8. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of persons.
Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The Federal Statistics Act 2000, Federal Law Gazette I No. 163/1999 as amended, provides the general legal framework and contains the basic provisions for the compilation of federal statistics.
Statistics Austria and the Federal Ministry of the Interior signed a contract regarding the compilation and transmission of statistics to Eurostat in accordance with the Regulation (EC) 862/2007
as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 and the Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/2010.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
The Federal Statistics Act 2000, Federal Law Gazette I No. 163/1999 as amended, provides the general legal framework and contains the basic provisions for the compilation of federal statistics. Article 17 of this document regulates confidentiality of statistics.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Statistics Austria receives anonymised data from the Ministry of the Interior and applies the "need2know"-rule, i.e. only staff responsible for this project can access the data. Microdata are not accessible in any form for external users.
8.1. Release calendar
Statistics Austria does not release/publish/disseminate RESPER statistics/data in any form.
8.2. Release calendar access
Not applicable, see 8.1.
8.3. Release policy - user access
Not applicable, see 8.1.
Data are published yearly by Eurostat.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
There are no press releases by Statistics Austria on RESPER statistics.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Parts of RESPER statistics are included in the annual publication "Niederlassungs- und Aufenthaltsstatistik" by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Please find information at this website (Statistiken) : Fremdenwesen Jahresstatistiken.
There are no publications by Statistics Austria on RESPER statistics.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
None besides the ESTAT database.
10.3.1. Data tables - consultations
Not applicable.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Micro-data are not disseminated.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
There are no other dissemination formats by Statistics Austria on RESPER statistics.
Continuous quality assessments of data retrievals by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and their division of ICT (Information- and Communicationtechnology). This also includes general plausibility checks and some data is also checked at random during the reference year. Any inconsistencies are reported to the competent authorities by means of a clearing house.
Quality evaluation cycle between the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Statistics Austria based on the annual data exchange.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Quality of provided data is good as it is derived from the Austrian Central Foreigners Register, which includes all cases. However, not all breakdowns can be provided (see 12.3).
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
The statistics collected under the Regulation 862/2007 are widely used in official publications and by a wide range of users at national, European and International level. The Residence permits statistics produced are regularly used by national administrations, academic researchers and civil society groups working on a wide range of topics including the integration of immigrants, the development and monitoring of national asylum and immigration procedures, and the projection of the future population and labour force.
At European level, the main users of Residence permits statistics are Eurostat and DG Migration and Home Affairs. These statistics are used in several publications of the Commission, as well as in the preparation of regular reports, policy proposals and analysis. These statistics also provide an input to the European Migration Network (EMN) studies and reports that address specific issues of current policy importance.
Main users at national level are government bodies and NGOs. Parts of the data are however published on the website of the Ministry of the Interior and thus accessible to the general public.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not available.
12.3. Completeness
See table 12.3. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
Not applicable.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Overall high accuracy: The reported statistics measure accurately the target population because the database includes all cases. Some cases that are entered into the database after data are retrieved for the data submission to Eurostat and therefore missing, which amounts to an underestimation of less than 1% in total.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3.1. Coverage error
Not applicable.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not applicable.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Not applicable.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
Not applicable.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
National rules allow for retrospective entries of permits into the database within six months after a decision on permits has been taken. This means that data for permits issued at the end of December would only be final by the end of June. Adding sufficient time for processing this would translate into data delivery by the end of August. However, as this occurs in only few cases, it is sufficient to extract the database four months after the end of the reference period and transmit data within the six months allowed by regulation 862/2007.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not applicable.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not applicable.
14.2. Punctuality
See table 14.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
Not applicable.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Statistics are comparable between geographical areas within Austria.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Not applicable.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Overall data are coherent across RESPER domains. Exception: RESPER statistics by age and sex also include permits with a validity of less than 3 months; RESPER statistics by reason do not.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Not applicable, as no subannual data are submitted to ESTAT.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Statistics are consistent within a given dataset.
Since administrative data are used, there are no costs/burden on respondents.
17.1. Data revision - policy
On national level, monthly statistics are revised when annual results (based on a retrospective data extract) become available, usually in spring of the following year. There is no need to revise data sent to Eurostat, as those data are derived from the final annual statistics.
17.2. Data revision - practice
See table 17.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
On national level: monthly, annually
18.3. Data collection
Applications for residence permits have to be submitted at the Austrian representative authority abroad. Certain groups of persons may also file first applications in Austria (e.g. family members of nationals or EU-citizens, children with foreign citizenship born in Austria, researchers etc. - for an exhaustive list please refer to §21 (2) of the Austrian Residence Act [NAG]). The applications are entered into a centralised database (IZR) by the competent authorities. The permits are granted by the competent authorities for Settlement and Residence of First Instance (Provincial Governor, district commission or magistrate) in Austria after the person has entered Austria by visa or, if enabled, without visa (as specified in regulation EC 539/2001).
Data on residence permits (containing personal information as well as status information) are processed by the competent authorities and transmitted by file transfer to the Central Foreigners Register (Zentrales Fremdenregister - IZR).
The department responsible for statistical analyses at the Federal Ministry of the Interior receives data extracts from IZR on a daily basis for evaluation purposes. These are stored in a separate database, of which Statistics Austria receives extracts of individual data for data processing of European RESPER statistics.
Prior to 2014 data has been stored in a different database called Foreigners Information System (Fremdeninformationssystem - FIS). The main advantage of moving data to the IZR is that this database contains all relevant administrative information on foreigners in a single database - stretching from possible asylum applications via asylum decisions to any residence permit issued and also possible information of the foreign police.
18.4. Data validation
Validity checks include:
Checks of totals consistency.
Checks of magnitude of changes over time.
Checking the data integrity over each processing step.
Checking the consistency between EU Blue Cards from first permits (RP3) and EU Blue Cards data collection (BC1-BC3).
Checking the consistency between flow and stock data (RP1-RP4 vs RP6).
Checking the consistency between statistics by "reason" and statistics by "age" and "sex" categories.
Data collection on the residence permits (RESPER) statistics contains statistical information based on the principles stated in the Union legislation on migration Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 and the Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/2010 implementing the categories of reasons for residence permits.
The main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits,
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay,
Residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year,
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
16 September 2025
See table 3.4. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
Number of permits
See table 3.6. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
Austria
Calendar year.
Overall high accuracy: The reported statistics measure accurately the target population because the database includes all cases. Some cases that are entered into the database after data are retrieved for the data submission to Eurostat and therefore missing, which amounts to an underestimation of less than 1% in total.
Number of persons.
Not applicable.
See table 18.1. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
Data are published yearly by Eurostat.
National rules allow for retrospective entries of permits into the database within six months after a decision on permits has been taken. This means that data for permits issued at the end of December would only be final by the end of June. Adding sufficient time for processing this would translate into data delivery by the end of August. However, as this occurs in only few cases, it is sufficient to extract the database four months after the end of the reference period and transmit data within the six months allowed by regulation 862/2007.
Statistics are comparable between geographical areas within Austria.
See table 15.2. in annex ‘Quality report tables RESPER’.
