Austria is 23 out of 31 in the Expat Insider 2026 survey, but the real problem for it is social integration.
The country is 29th on the Ease of Settlement Index (placing it in the bottom three for how welcoming and 'connected' life is for new arrivals), which is a very stark contrast to Austria's very high quality of life score, which is 5th overall.
Austrian strengths are in the day to day liveability, with 5th place in travel and transit and 4th in environment and climate which sees it finish 5th in the quality of life index. 97 percent of respondents rated the natural environment positively.
One US American survey respondent described Austria as offering 'a wide range of affordable cultural activities, quiet safe and attractive cities and very affordable and excellent public transport'.
Healthcare is 11th, leisure 18th and safety and security 8th. 87 percent of people feel safe in Austria and 72 percent have a positive view of the country's political stability. Both of those are above the world average.
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On the working abroad index, Austria is 18th. Immigrants are 15th on salary and job security, 23rd on career prospects, 21st on work culture and satisfaction. Work and leisure is 15th, but personal career opportunities are very poor at 26th, and overall job satisfaction is 25th.
The Expat Essentials Index is a bit of a mixed bag, 25th overall. Language is a real problem at 27th, admin is considerably better at 17th. Housing is 13th, digital life is down at 27th. Personal finance is up at 11th, general happiness is only 22nd. Overall 67 percent of respondents are happy with life in Austria (slightly below the global average of 70 percent).
Settling is still hard
Ease of settling in is where foreigners have the hardest time in Austria. The country ranks 29th out of 31 for 2026, with local friendliness at 30th.
Finding friends is also hard for immigrants, as the country ranks 26th for that and 28th for culture and welcome. Sixty percent of respondents say it's difficult to make friends here, and 47% say their friends are almost all other foreigners. So people like the infrastructure and scenery but still feel far from home and disconnected from the local population.
A Cuban respondent in the 2025 survey made the same comment: "It's a real struggle to make friends here. They're not unfriendly at all, it's just a very distant culture in comparison to us Latinos".
How Austria compares
The top end of the 2026 league table is all about the destinations where the foreigner reports greater satisfaction with their finances, their social lives and their day to day living.
Panama, Mexico and Thailand are at the top of the rankings overall, with the UAE, Brazil and Spain following. Singapore, Portugal, Malaysia and Luxembourg complete the top ten.
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Within the European quality of life elite (Spain 1st in that index, Denmark 7th, Switzerland 8th, France 9th and Luxembourg 10th) Austria is of course very much in the mix.
Austria is also very easy to settle in (ranked 13th) and is one of the countries immigrants find the most socially difficult to settle in. Norway (31st) and Sweden (30th) are the only countries worse than Austria, with Germany (28th), Czechia (27th) and Switzerland (26th) completing the list.
Who's moving to Austria?
The Austria sample is slightly female-skewed (57 percent), with an average age of 50.3. 20 percent moved after applying for or securing a job in the country, 12% came to study, and 10% moved for love.
The big ones by far are IT (12 percent), education (10 percent) and finance (8 percent). On the future question, 28 percent said they want to stay forever, 17 percent said they want to stay in the distant future, and 34 percent were undecided.
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The Ease of Settling In Index is a combination of three sub-indexes: Local Friendliness, Finding Friends and Culture & Welcome. Each of these is measured by two or three factors. A country has to have a minimum sample of 50 to be ranked. In 2026, there were 31 countries that qualified, based on a broader survey of 7,786 respondents from 162 nationalities.
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