Austrian passport holders don't apply for anything before flying to Dubai. Immigration stamps you in on arrival with a permit that stays usable for half a year, during which you can spend a combined 90 days in the Emirates across as many trips as you like, and Austria appears on the UAE's visa-on-arrival list with every other EU state. What the officer needs to see is a passport, not the Personalausweis that covers trips around Europe, and it should still have six months of life left on the day you land.
That makes the passport's expiry date the one thing worth checking the moment a trip is booked. Everything else, from choosing between the direct flights out of Vienna to working out whether a relative on another passport needs a visa, can be settled in an evening.
Passport Running Short? Expresspass, Not Notpass
Austria gives you a fast way out of a passport problem, and a quicker one that won't help. An Expresspass is an ordinary passport that's moved to the front of the queue for production and delivery, and the Austrian government's own guidance puts the turnaround at roughly two to three working days. Apply through your passport authority, which in most places means the Bezirkshauptmannschaft or the Magistrat, and in Vienna any Magistratisches Bezirksamt, and check whether it takes appointments online. Bring a current biometric photo, since a rejected photo is an easy delay to avoid. If you're already abroad when you notice the problem, Austrian embassies can issue passports too.
A Notpass is a different thing. It's issued on the spot, has no chip and is limited to the duration of a single trip, and the government warns that not every country accepts one. Since UAE immigration insists on six clear months before the passport expires, a short-term emergency document is unlikely to satisfy the officers at Dubai's immigration counters, so treat the Expresspass as the real fix and leave the Notpass for genuine emergencies abroad.
Travelling With Children
Children need the same attention as adults. Each child travels on their own passport and is stamped in separately, and a child's passport runs for fewer years than an adult's, so it's often the first one in the family to slip inside the six-month window. Check the children's passports before you check your own, and remember that children can no longer be added to a parent's passport.
When only one parent is travelling with a child, carry an Einverständniserklärung from the other parent. The UAE expects written consent from whoever shares custody when a child arrives with one parent, with another adult, or as a teenager travelling alone, as European foreign ministries point out in their travel advice. Draft it in English or get a translation, list both parents and the dates of the trip, staple on a copy of the absent parent's passport, and pack it alongside the child's own travel document.
Children of an Austrian parent and a parent from another country often hold both nationalities from birth, which Austrian law allows. For the trip, the Austrian passport is the one to use, since it brings the 90-day entry without any application.
Vienna to Dubai: Year-Round and Winter Options
Emirates flies non-stop between Vienna and Dubai throughout the year, which is the simplest option for most of eastern Austria. Austrian Airlines adds its own non-stop service in the winter season, running from late October until the end of March on an Airbus A320neo, which suits travellers who prefer to stay within the Lufthansa Group or collect Miles & More.
Travellers in Tyrol, Vorarlberg or Salzburg often find Munich or Zurich easier to reach than Schwechat, and both airports have non-stop Emirates services to Dubai. The departure airport makes no difference to the entry, which is tied to your Austrian passport. If you connect through Istanbul, Doha or another hub instead, your 90 days only start counting once you pass through immigration in the UAE.
Check-in staff in Vienna, Munich or Zurich look at expiry dates, so a passport missing the six-month mark is normally turned away there rather than in Dubai. That is one more reason to check the expiry date when you book, not when you pack.
Who Else in the Household Needs a Visa?
Many Austrian families include relatives who hold another country's passport, and the UAE looks at each passport separately. The good news is that most of the nationalities common in Austria are also covered on arrival:
| Passport | Entry in Dubai |
|---|
| Austrian, German, Swiss, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish | Stamped on arrival, up to 90 days |
| Serbian, Bosnian, Kosovar, North Macedonian, Albanian, Montenegrin | Stamped on arrival, up to 90 days |
| Ukrainian | Stamped on arrival, up to 30 days |
| Turkish (ordinary passport) | Visa approved before travel |
| Indian, with an Austrian residence permit | Special 14-day route if the permit has six months or more left |
Residence in Austria doesn't change any of this. A Turkish grandmother who has lived in Vienna for thirty years still needs a visa arranged before the trip, while a Serbian cousin visiting from Belgrade can travel on arrival like the Austrians in the group. Indian residents should read our guide to the Indian residence-permit route, as its conditions have changed more than once. Partners holding passports from much of Asia or Africa usually need a visa too, so check theirs before anyone books. Lists like this are revised from time to time, so check them again shortly before travel.
For a relative on a Turkish passport, the right visa depends on how long they'll stay and whether they'll leave the country during the trip. For a fortnight's holiday, the natural choice is our 30-day single entry visa; for longer family visits, look instead at our 60-day single entry visa. Each price shown already includes the government fee, one application can cover the whole family, and our visa tracking tool shows where it stands once it's submitted. When the flights are confirmed, apply for your relative's Dubai visa, and you'll receive the approved visa by email.
Have three things ready for the form: a sharp image of the Turkish passport's data page, which must stay valid for half a year after the trip ends, a fresh colour photograph on a pale background, and where and when your relative will be staying. If the relative holds a Turkish special or service passport instead, the rules differ, so mention it before applying. Our overview of Dubai visas for Turkish passport holders explains those cases. Aim to apply a few weeks before departure: every visa carries a date by which it must be used, so an application made months early can expire before the holiday starts.
Relatives Flying In From Elsewhere
Family members don't always travel with you from Vienna. A relative flying direct from Istanbul or Ankara to meet you in Dubai goes through the identical process, because the form records nationality and departure country as two separate answers. Their visa then works for whichever flight brings them in, as long as they arrive before its enter-by date.
One Nationality, Usually
Austria generally doesn't allow dual citizenship, which shapes how these households travel. Someone who became Austrian by naturalisation will normally have given up their previous nationality, so an old Turkish or Bosnian passport kept in a drawer may no longer be theirs to use. Austrians who acquire another citizenship voluntarily lose their Austrian one unless they obtained a retention permit, the Beibehaltungsbewilligung, beforehand.
The main exception is children who received two nationalities at birth, who can keep both. In that case, use the Austrian passport for the booking, the check-in desk and both passport controls, and leave the second one at home or packed away, so that the record of your entry and exit sits on one document.
Register Your Trip With the Foreign Ministry
Before you leave, it's worth two minutes on the foreign ministry's travel registration, either through its Auslandsregistrierung website or the Auslandsservice app. It asks for little more than your contact details and travel dates. Registering means the ministry can reach you quickly if a crisis affects the region while you're away, and the app also stores the contact details of every Austrian embassy, including the one in Abu Dhabi, which handles consular help for Austrians across the Emirates.
For emergencies, the ministry's round-the-clock hotline is +43 501150 4411. Call it if your passport goes missing in Dubai, after reporting the loss to the local police, and the embassy will advise on replacement travel documents. The embassy can help with documents, contacts and information, but it can't pay fines or override local rules, which is one more reason to keep insurance and paperwork in order.
The ministry's travel information also gives a security level for each country. Check the current level for the UAE shortly before you travel, since it's the quickest way to see whether anything has changed in the region.
Business Trips to the Emirates
The 90-day entry covers the kind of visit most Austrian companies make to the region: meetings with customers and distributors, exhibiting at or attending a trade show, or speaking at a conference. Paid work for a UAE employer, or hands-on project work that amounts to a job, is a separate matter that needs a permit arranged in the UAE before it starts. Carry your trade fair registration or meeting invitations in your hand luggage, as they help if anyone asks about the purpose of your visit.
ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA, the Austrian Economic Chamber's trade network, runs an office in Abu Dhabi within the embassy's commercial section, and it helps Austrian firms with market information and finding partners in the Emirates. Should a colleague in the delegation travel on a Turkish or other non-eligible passport, our 14-day business visa covers short trips of this kind; an invitation or event registration may be asked for.
Insurance, Study and Living in the Emirates
The e-card and the European health insurance card printed on its back only work within Europe, so they won't pay for a doctor or hospital in Dubai. Treatment there is billed privately, so a travel policy that explicitly includes the Emirates and pays for medical repatriation is worth arranging before departure, especially for older travellers and longer winter stays. Pack regular medication with an English copy of the prescription; anything with codeine in it requires a doctor's certificate on entry to the UAE.
A semester or degree at a university in the Emirates calls for a student residence visa sponsored by the institution, not the visit stamp, and admissions teams usually walk students through it. Residents of the Emirates with Austrian passports travel on their residence permit instead, which takes the 90-day limit out of the picture, and the ministry asks them to register as Austrians living abroad.
Longer Stays and Repeat Visits
Ninety days in total across six months covers almost any holiday or business programme. It matters more for Austrians spending much of the winter in Dubai, or travelling back and forth with family. Every day inside the UAE counts toward the 90, days spent outside don't, and once six months have passed since your first entry, the next arrival brings a new permit and a new allowance.
Once the allowance is exhausted, coming back before the half-year has passed means arranging a visit visa ahead of time; Austrian nationals are eligible for one, approved before departure. Overstaying, even briefly, brings fines on departure, so keep your own record of arrival and departure dates. A job in the Emirates comes with a residence visa organised by the employer, and because Austrians land without needing a visa, that paperwork can start once you're there.
For a typical Austrian trip, the checklist is short: a passport comfortably inside its validity, a flight from Vienna or a nearby hub, and a quick look at the passports of everyone travelling with you. If one of them needs a visa, ask our visa team and we'll help you choose the right option for their dates.
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