During 2026, there are over 3,000 British Nationals and family members who are likely to be renewing and upgrading non-permanent Article 50 cards (valid for 5 years) to permanent residency (valids for 10 years).
As with our successful “mystery shopping” of the residence authorities throughout Austria – from Bregenz to Burgenland, Freistadt to Ferlach, British in Austria is collecting people’s feedback about how the Article 50 upgrade process went in order to be able to help others.
We use various channels to interact with the British Embassy in Vienna and the Austrian Ministry of the InteriorBMI The Bundesministerium für Inneres (BMI) - Austria's Ministry for the Interior - is the competent ministry for issues related to residency and citizenship. (BMIBundesministerium für Inneres The Bundesministerium für Inneres (BMI) / Ministry for the Interior (UK counterparty: the Home Office) is competent for public security, policing, border control as well as residency and citizenships. It is also responsible for elections and direct democracy instruments as well as the civil service in the respective provinces, as well as municipal level where they are not covered by the Federal Chancellery.) to spot inconsistencies and issues at an early stage and also to identify when things go well! We also accept feedback from anyone who renewed/upgraded in 2025.
Submissions are voluntary, and the form should only take a few minutes to fill out. Any information passed on is anonymised before doing so.
Please note that as a volunteer group, we are unable to respond to all submissions individually. Responses received may be categorised and prioritised to ensure assistance is provided where most needed.