Moving from Austria to Germany (2026): Complete Guide

Moving from Austria to Germany is an intra-European relocation — both countries have been full members of the EU customs union since Austria joined in 1995, and both belong to the Schengen area. That fact changes almost everything about how this move works compared with a move to or from a non-EU country: there is no customs process for your furniture and belongings, and no visa or work-permit process for you. What remains is administrative — de-registering correctly in Austria, registering correctly in Germany, and moving your health cover, tax status, driving licence and vehicle across in the right order. This guide is written for Austrian residents relocating to Germany in 2026, for work, study or family reasons, and is sourced to official Austrian, German and EU authorities.

Key takeaways

• No customs, no duty, no import declaration. Because Austria and Germany are both in the EU customs union, household goods move freely between them with no customs clearance, duty or VAT on your personal belongings — this is a core feature of the EU customs union.
• You don’t need a visa or work permit. As an EU citizen you have the right to live and work in Germany under EU free-movement rules; the German Federal Foreign Office confirms no residence permit is required.
• De-register your Austrian address within days of leaving. Giving up your Austrian home requires an Abmeldung at the Meldeamt, to be done within three days before or after moving out — see oesterreich.gv.at.
• Register in Germany within two weeks of moving in. The Bundesmeldegesetz requires an Anmeldung at the local Bürgeramt/Bürgerbüro within two weeks of taking up residence — see Munich’s official registration guidance as a worked example; this replaces any visa formality.
• Unlimited tax liability in Austria ends when your residence there ends — there is no separate exit-tax notification form, but the change must be reported to your Finanzamt, per BMF guidance on personal tax liability.
• Your EU driving licence stays valid — no mandatory exchange for a move alone. A valid Austrian (EU) licence can be used to drive in Germany without being converted, per Your Europe; only categories C/D carry Germany’s shorter validity periods.
• Pets travel on an EU pet passport, not a certificate process — microchip plus valid rabies vaccination is all that’s needed between EU states, per Your Europe pet travel rules.

1. Free movement of goods: why there is no customs process

Because Austria and Germany are both EU member states inside the same customs union, your move is legally a domestic-style transfer of goods, not an import. The European Commission’s customs union overview confirms goods circulate between member states with no customs duties, no import VAT and no customs declaration. In practice this means:

• No customs broker, no HS-code inventory submitted to a customs authority, and no "Transfer of Residence" relief application — that EU relief mechanism exists for people moving into the EU from outside it, under Council Regulation 1186/2009 on duty relief, and simply does not apply to an Austria–Germany move.
• Your moving company still prepares a standard household inventory for insurance and logistics purposes, but this is a commercial document, not a customs filing.
• If your move (or a leg of it) ever touches Switzerland, Norway or Iceland — none of which are in the EU customs union — the picture changes: Switzerland requires a formal customs declaration with duty-free relief available for genuine removal goods, and Norway/Iceland, while in the EEA, sit outside the EU customs union and require their own removal-goods customs formalities. None of that applies on a direct Austria–Germany route.

For the practical side of the move – crews, customs paperwork and a fixed price – start here: international movers for Austria.

2. Leaving Austria: what to close out before you go

Residence de-registration (Abmeldung). When you give up your Austrian home without registering a new one in Austria, you must actively de-register it at the Meldeamt — this doesn’t happen automatically the way it does when you move within Austria. The window is three days before to three days after moving out, done in person, by post, or online via ID Austria, per oesterreich.gv.at. The Austrian Foreign Ministry’s relocation-abroad overview is a useful checklist covering this alongside the other steps below.

Ending Austrian tax residency. Unlimited tax liability (unbeschränkte Steuerpflicht) in Austria lasts as long as you maintain a residence or habitual abode there; it ends when both are actually given up. There is no dedicated "exit" form as in some other countries — you notify your Finanzamt of the change and, for the year of the move, income is generally split between a period of unlimited and a period of limited liability, per the BMF’s overview of personal tax liability.

Health insurance. Austrian statutory cover (ÖGK) generally ends once your residence and employment there end. Your European Health Insurance Card, printed on the back of your e-card, remains usable for the transition period; check the ÖGK’s EHIC page and the ÖGK’s guidance on moving abroad with dependents, since co-insured family members are normally only covered while their habitual residence is in Austria. Once you start work or register in Germany, you enrol in German statutory health insurance instead (see Section 4).

Pension and social security. You remain covered under EU coordination rules (Regulation 883/2004) as you move between Austria and Germany, so pension contribution years are not lost. It’s recommended to notify the Pensionsversicherungsanstalt of your move; Austrian pensions already in payment can continue to be transferred to a German bank account, per PV.at’s guidance on Austrian pensions abroad.

Vehicle. If you’re taking your car, de-register it at your Austrian insurer/registration office (this is free and is noted on both parts of the Zulassungsschein), per oesterreich.gv.at on de-registering a vehicle. Keep the deregistration confirmation, ownership proof and any COC papers — you’ll need them for German re-registration, and driving around Germany long-term on Austrian plates can be treated as tax evasion.

3. How your household goods actually travel

Austria–Germany moves run entirely by road; there’s no realistic case for air or sea freight on this corridor. The routing and timing below are freight-industry estimates, not fixed schedules — actual transit depends on pickup/delivery regions, load consolidation, and ordinary EU road traffic (there are no border stops to factor in):

• Vienna–Munich (A1/A8, roughly 430–450 km): same-day to next-day for a dedicated truck; 2–5 working days on a groupage service.
• Vienna–Berlin (roughly 670–700 km): 1–2 days direct; 3–6 working days groupage.
• Western Austria (Innsbruck, Vorarlberg) to southern Germany: often under 200 km, frequently within 24 hours direct.

With no customs step, the main variable is truck/crew availability and whether you choose a dedicated vehicle (fastest, priciest) or a shared groupage load (cheaper, wider window). Confirm the specific estimate with your mover once postcodes are fixed.

4. Arriving in Germany: registering as an EU citizen

Address registration (Anmeldung). This is the single task that matters most on arrival. German law (the Bundesmeldegesetz) requires anyone taking up residence to register at the local residents’ registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt/Bürgeramt/Bürgerbüro) within two weeks of moving in, per Munich’s official registration guidance and the Bundesportal’s service page for registering a residence after moving from abroad. Online pre-registration via wohnsitzanmeldung.gov.de is being rolled out nationwide, but a move from abroad still generally requires an in-person appointment. Bring your passport/ID and a landlord confirmation (Wohnungsgeberbestätigung).

There is no separate visa or residence-permit step: EU citizens have not needed to apply for a residence permit in Germany since 2005, per the German Federal Foreign Office’s FAQ for EU citizens. The old "freedom of movement certificate" (Freizügigkeitsbescheinigung) that some EU citizens used to obtain was abolished without replacement in January 2013 — today your passport or ID card, plus your Anmeldung confirmation, is what you show as proof of your right to stay, per the City of Düsseldorf’s official notice on the certificate’s abolition.

Tax ID. Once you register, your data is automatically forwarded to the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (BZSt), which issues your 11-digit Steueridentifikationsnummer by post — this is a lifelong number, unrelated to your Austrian tax number, per BZSt’s official information on the tax ID. If it doesn’t arrive within a few weeks, you can request it directly from BZSt.

Health insurance. As an EU citizen who was statutorily insured in Austria, you can continue in the German statutory system (gesetzliche Krankenversicherung); if you take up employment, your employer registers you with a Krankenkasse automatically. Continuity between the two systems is coordinated at EU level (Regulation 883/2004) — carry your S1/portable document if relevant, and see the Your Europe overview of registering residence in another EU country for the general registration-and-healthcare sequence that applies EU-wide.

Driving licence. Your Austrian licence, being an EU licence, is valid to drive in Germany without conversion — you’re only required to exchange it once it comes up for renewal (older, non-standardised EU licences must be exchanged by 2033 at the latest), per Your Europe’s driving-licence exchange and recognition page. Category C/D licences are an exception, since Germany applies its own (often shorter) validity periods to those regardless of what’s printed on the foreign document.

Vehicle re-registration. Bring your Austrian de-registration confirmation, ownership documents and, for newer vehicles, the COC papers to a German Zulassungsstelle to register the car on German plates; Austrian and German authorities can coordinate the de-registration/re-registration directly. Registration should be completed promptly after import — driving around long-term on Austrian plates risks fines.

5. Moving pets

Cats, dogs and ferrets travel between EU countries on an EU pet passport, not a customs or quarantine process. Requirements, per Your Europe’s official pet-travel rules:

• A microchip meeting the ISO 11784/11785 standard, implanted before the rabies vaccination (or a pre-2011 tattoo).
• A valid rabies vaccination, administered after the microchip and recorded in the passport. If it’s your pet’s first (primary) rabies vaccination, you must wait at least 21 days after the injection before travelling — plan pet transport around this if you’ve only recently adopted or vaccinated.
• The EU pet passport itself, issued by any authorised vet — it’s valid for your pet’s lifetime as long as vaccinations stay current.

No further certificate or import step applies for an Austria–Germany move; this is materially simpler than moving a pet from outside the EU.

6. Money, banking, and things people forget

• Banking. Both countries use the euro and SEPA, so you can keep your Austrian bank account and transfer between accounts at no extra cost — you don’t strictly need a new German account, though most employers and landlords in Germany expect a German IBAN for salary and rent.
• Rundfunkbeitrag. Germany’s public-broadcasting fee is billed per household and is largely enforced through an automatic data match between your Anmeldung registration and the Beitragsservice — if you don’t register with them yourself, expect a letter once the periodic Meldedatenabgleich picks up your new address; there is no equivalent GIS-style opt-in delay.
• Mail forwarding. Set up mail redirection with Österreichische Post before you leave and, once you have a German address, register it with Deutsche Post so nothing gets lost during the handover period.
• Insurance. Austrian household contents and liability policies typically end or need cancelling on de-registration — arrange equivalent Hausrat- and Haftpflichtversicherung in Germany rather than leaving a gap.
• Family benefits. If you receive Austrian Familienbeihilfe, this needs to be reported as part of the move — cross-border family benefit coordination follows EU rules, so don’t assume it continues or stops automatically without checking with the relevant authority.
• Old addresses. Update your address with your Austrian bank, insurers and subscriptions — with no customs "clean slate" moment to prompt you, it’s easy to forget precisely because the move feels this simple.

How Flyto handles your Austria to Germany move

Flyto runs its own offices, warehouses, crews and vehicles across Northern, Central and Southern Europe, and the Austria–Germany corridor is one we operate on regularly with our in-house teams. Where a route, delivery window or specialised service calls for it, we bring in a carefully vetted partner network so your move still runs on one coordinated plan and one point of contact, without the customs overhead that would apply on a non-EU route.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to declare my furniture and belongings to customs when moving from Austria to Germany?
No. Because both countries are inside the EU customs union, household goods move freely with no customs declaration, duty or import VAT — see the EU customs union overview.

Do I need a visa or residence permit to move to Germany from Austria?
No. As an EU citizen you have the right to live and work in Germany without a visa or residence permit; you only need to register your address, per the Federal Foreign Office’s FAQ.

How soon do I need to register my new address in Germany?
Within two weeks of moving in, per the Bundesmeldegesetz — see Munich’s official registration guidance as an example.

Do I have to exchange my Austrian driving licence for a German one?
Not to simply drive — an EU licence remains valid in Germany. You only need to exchange it once it comes up for renewal, per Your Europe; categories C and D are the exception, since Germany applies its own validity periods to those.

What happens to my Austrian tax liability when I move?
Your unlimited tax liability in Austria ends once your residence and habitual abode there are actually given up, and you should notify your Finanzamt of the change; the move year is normally split into a period of unlimited and a period of limited liability, per the BMF.

Can I bring my pet without a quarantine or customs process?
Yes. A microchip, a valid rabies vaccination and an EU pet passport are all that’s required for a dog, cat or ferret to travel between EU countries — just allow at least 21 days after a first rabies vaccination before travelling, per Your Europe.

Sources

• EU customs union in action — European Union
• Duty relief (Regulation 1186/2009) — European Commission Taxation and Customs Union
• Abmeldung des Wohnsitzes — oesterreich.gv.at
• Übersiedlung ins Ausland — Außenministerium Österreich (BMEIA)
• Persönliche Steuerpflicht — BMF
• Europäische Krankenversicherungskarte (EKVK) — ÖGK
• Mitversicherung bei Umzug ins Ausland — ÖGK
• Österreichische Pension im Ausland — PV.at
• Kraftfahrzeug abmelden — oesterreich.gv.at
• Elektronische Wohnsitzanmeldung — wohnsitzanmeldung.gov.de
• Wohnsitz bei Zuzug aus dem Ausland anmelden — Bundesportal
• Residence registration — Landeshauptstadt München
• FAQ: EU citizens working in Germany — Auswärtiges Amt
• Wegfall der Freizügigkeitsbescheinigung — Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
• Steuerliche Identifikationsnummer — BZSt
• Registering residence abroad — Your Europe
• Driving licence exchange and recognition — Your Europe
• Travelling with pets and other animals in the EU — Your Europe
• Informationen zum Meldedatenabgleich — Rundfunkbeitrag