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My husband and son are EU citizens but I am not. We lived for the past nine years in Germany where I had the regular Aufenthaltskarte (residence card; not the Daueraufenthaltskarte for permanent residence) issued to non-EU family members of EU citizens. We recently moved to Austria and so I have applied for an Austrian Aufenthaltskarte, which I am told will be issued in two to three months.

In the meantime I want to take my son to visit my family in Russia. We will be flying out of and back to Vienna. What do I need to do/have to ensure that I have no problems re-entering Austria? In lieu of the Austrian Aufenthaltskarte I could present any or all of the following:

  1. My German Aufenthaltskarte. This is probably no longer valid since we de-registered our residence in Germany, but maybe the Russian airline and Russian/Austrian border officials wouldn't know that, or would accept it anyway even if they could check its validity.

  2. My Einreichbestätigung (i.e., the official confirmation from Vienna's Municipal Department for Immigration and Citizenship that I have applied for a residence card). This is available only in German so it might not satisfy Russian officials.

  3. ID or copies thereof proving my identity and my marriage to an EU citizen and our residence in Austria: my passport, a copy of my husband's passport, our marriage certificate, a copy of my husband's Anmeldebescheinigung (Austrian registration certificate), and our Meldezettel (municipal registration certificates).

And of course, I will be travelling with my son who has an EU passport and Austrian registration certificates.

Would these documents be sufficient, or do I need to go to the trouble of applying for a Schengen visa? If so, since I am already in Austria, where in Vienna would I apply? All the information about Schengen visas I can find online states that I need to apply at an Austrian consulate, but of course there are no Austrian consulates in Austria.

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  • You'll probably be denied boarding on your way back to Austria. If you tavel back by land, you should get a chance to prove your right to enter with other means, but an airline won't chance taking a fall for you. Source: had a similar situation a few months ago.
    – Ewige Studentin
    Apr 2, 2019 at 8:18

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If you are traveling with a visa-required passport, you should apply for a Schengen visa in Russia. It should be issued free of charge as soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure (Article 5(2)). The airline won't board you without a visa or a residence card. You can try showing your German card, and that might work, but then again it might not.

If you have a visa-exempt passport, you do not need a visa or residence card; you can show your proof of relationship and so on at the border.

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    Is there no way to get the visa in Austria? I would rather not spend time during my trip to apply for the visa. I think doing so is risky anyway since in my experience the documents they ask for don't always match what is written on the consulate website, and I don't want to take a valuable mountain of paperwork "just in case".
    – saule4u
    Apr 2, 2019 at 8:25
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Check with your local Bezirkshauptmannschaft if they will give you a temporary paper while your documents are being processed.

My wife is Russian and we live in Austria. During the waiting period for her permanent residence card, she got issued some paper that essentially said she has a residence permit, it's just not printed yet. We didn't need it, so no first-hand experience how it would go at the border.

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  • The border is the least of the potential problems. The more significant question is whether the airline would accept the document you mention.
    – phoog
    May 29, 2019 at 13:17

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