As of January 1st, 2025, around 1.86 million people living in Austria hold non-Austrian citizenship. This means 20.2 percent of the population are foreign nationals, up from 19.7 percent in 2024, according to Statistics Austria.
Austria is thereby home to a diverse mix of cultures, especially in the capital, Vienna, where many different languages and cultures coexist.
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Vienna, Vorarlberg and Salzburg are home to biggest number of foreigners
The proportion of foreign nationals varies significantly across the countries provinces.
Vienna, the most international city and the country's capital, has the highest share, with 36.4 percent of its population coming from other countries.
According to figures from the City of Vienna, the city has been transformed since 1961 when the census started registering migration flows.
At that time, Vienna’s population was stagnant.
In the 60s the capital's population began to shrink as well as age, but then over the following decades grew into the international city it is today, with a younger demographic. The main reason for the change being international immigration.
However, other provinces also have high proportion of foreign residents such as Vorarlberg (20.9 percent of the population are non-Austrian) and Salzburg (20.8 percent), which offer strong economies, high quality of life, beautiful nature, and closeness to borders with other countries, also have higher-than-average numbers of foreign nationals.
In contrast, Carinthia has the smallest percentage of foreign national residents (13.6 percent), followed by Lower Austria (12.5 percent) and Burgenland (11.5 percent), where international migration is not as common.
Citizens from EU countries make up the majority of international residents in Austria. The largest groups of foreign nationals in Austria come from countries such as Germany, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Ukraine, and Poland.
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Where is the overall population increasing and decreasing?
Austria’s overall population has slightly grown over recent years with 9.2 million people living in the country at the beginning of 2025.
This represents an increase of 0.4 percent—or 39,464 more residents—compared to the beginning of 2024, a growth rate slightly lower than in 2023.
"Austria's population continues to grow, but not as strongly," said Statistics Austria Director Tobias Thomas.
Vienna was once again the state with the strongest growth, with an increase of 1.1 percent. At the beginning of 2025, a total of 2.1 million people lived in the capital city.
The second-largest population increase in Austria was recorded in Vorarlberg, with a growth of 0.4 percent. This was followed by Upper Austria, which saw a rise of 0.3 percent.
Salzburg, Lower Austria, Tyrol, and Styria all experienced a similar population growth of 0.2 percent, meanwhile Carinthia had a modest increase of 0.1 percent.
The population in Burgenland, however, declined slightly, with a drop of 0.04 percent.
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