Austria’s classrooms are becoming more international. But the numbers used to describe that change can give very different impressions of what is happening in schools.
A new factsheet published by the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF) shows that 26 percent of pupils had a non-German Umgangssprache, or everyday language, in the 2024/25 school year. And 20.9 percent had foreign citizenship.
Those figures overlap, but they tell us different things. Neither tells us whether a child can actually understand enough German to follow lessons.
Austria measures that separately.
A non-German everyday language does not mean poor German
The 26 percent figure covers pupils recorded as having an everyday language other than German.
In Vienna, the share was much higher, at around 49 percent in 2024/25. The differences within the capital are also huge, ranging from 22 percent in the Innere Stadt to 74 percent in Favoriten.
Across Austria, however, the proportion has actually fallen slightly since reaching around 27 percent in 2021/22.
But Umgangssprache tells you what language a pupil uses in everyday life, with their family. It’s not (as many foreign parents will know) a German test.
The Education Ministry describes many pupils as having a broad linguistic repertoire and using different languages in different areas of their lives. Austrian schools provide support both for German and, in some cases, pupils’ first languages.
Citizenship is also, perhaps surprisingly for some, quite unrelated to language. A child with a foreign passport may speak German fluently while an Austrian citizen may still struggle with the language used at school.
The latest Vienna figures show the difference. Among pupils starting school in the 0th and 1st school stages in 2025/26 who were given außerordentlicher status because of insufficient German, 23.4 percent were Austrian citizens.
The Local has previously looked in more detail at how foreign pupils are integrating into Austrian schools.
READ ALSO: 'Each parent sticks to own language': Tips for raising multilingual children in Austria
So which figure actually measures German support needs?
To get closer to that, you need another Austrian school category: außerordentliche Schüler, literally “extraordinary pupils”.
The name sounds unusual in English, but it has a specific bureaucratic meaning. These are pupils whose German has been assessed as insufficient for them to follow ordinary lessons without additional language support.
According to the latest ÖIF figures based on Statistik Austria data, 50,813 pupils had this status in 2024/25.
That was 4.4 percent of pupils overall, down slightly from 4.6 percent the previous year.
The picture changes for younger children. Around 11 percent of primary school pupils nationwide had außerordentlicher status. In Vienna, it was roughly one in five.
A separate Education Ministry figure covering Austria’s compulsory schools put the number at around 48,400 in 2024/25, about 54 percent more than in 2020/21. The slightly lower total reflects the narrower group of schools covered by that ministry figure.
So the gap between the headline statistics is substantial — and is already being used for political purposes. Around 26 percent of pupils have a non-German everyday language (far-right party members will use this figure a lot), compared with around 4.4 percent who were formally classed as needing the level of German support associated with außerordentlicher status.
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How does Austria decide whether a child needs German support?
Schools use MIKA-D, short for Messinstrument zur Kompetenzanalyse - Deutsch, to assess whether a pupil has enough German to follow lessons.
Important changes are coming for the new 2026/27 school year. A revised MIKA-D 2.0 is being rolled out nationwide. Schools also have more freedom to decide how they organise German support.
They can keep the established system of Deutschförderklassen and Deutschförderkurse, or develop their own school-level model.
Around 52 percent of schools with pupils who have außerordentlicher status have drawn up their own language-support concept and will use the new autonomous option in 2026/27, according to the ministry.
The government has also put considerably more staff and money into German support. From 2025/26, the number of planned teaching posts rose from 577 to more than 1,324, backed by an additional €62 million a year.
READ ALSO: Does Austria's German test for schoolchildren do more harm than good?
What does this mean for international families?
A child is not automatically put into German support because another language is spoken at home or because they have a foreign passport.
What counts is their German when the school assesses whether they can follow ordinary lessons.
There is also more variation between schools this year. If a child receives außerordentlicher status, it is worth asking the school how it organises German support.
Some will continue with the traditional German-support classes and courses. Others will now follow their own school-level model.
READ ALSO: What will change in Austrian schools to help foreign children learn German
Key vocabulary
Umgangssprache - everyday language
außerordentlicher Status - status given to a pupil who needs additional German support to follow lessons
MIKA-D - the assessment used to determine whether a pupil’s German is sufficient for ordinary school status
Deutschförderklasse - German support class
Deutschförderkurs - German support course
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