Dear users,

Some of you might still know me from a few years ago when I wrote a lot of postings in this forum, I hope most of you remember me in a positive way, and for the others, I hope you have forgiven me in the meanwhile if there was anything to forgive …

I haven´t been too active over the last 2 years, mainly due to a busy private and professional life, but I am now part of a new project in this city which Silvia has allowed me to introduce to you in this way, for which I really have to say “Thank you!” to her, also for all the other work she has done for this community over the years !

Since November of this year, I am working as a consultant to the

VIENNA EXPAT CENTER.

This is a new information- and consulting center funded and run by the City of Vienna and the Vienna Business Agency (VBA).

The aim of this center is to offer consulting and advice to both individual expats, unimportant if they are currently just thinking about moving to Vienna, are already on the move or maybe already live here for years, as well as directly to Austrian and International companies who are employing a number of expats.

This is generally a FREE service by the city; there is no charge for consulting-appointments or interventions by our team.

What can the Expat-Center do for you?
– Act as first-stop information point on all aspects of living and working in Vienna
– Inform you about the general structures of the city administration
– Help you not to forget the first most important steps and legal to-do´s when arriving in town freshly
– Act as a connection hub to other City Magistrates such as the City Immigration office or similar ones …
– Inform you about funding and support if you want to start a business in Vienna …
– Help you getting connected to the Viennese or the Vienna Expat-Community
– Speak to you in German, English, French, Italian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and even Chinese
– And a lot more ….

Things we (unfortunately) cannot do are …
– Go to all the city offices together with you in person (we are a team of 3 for approx. 100.000 expats in Vienna)
– Act instead of your chartered accountant, lawyer, translator, tax-advisor
– Replace a professional relocation agent
– Get you a job somewhere
– Make you pay less tax (though we might be able to help you find somebody who can do that) or lift traffic fines you might have got ….
– Directly sponsor your company or club (due to the city´s tight budget, we are currently searching for private sponsors ourselves …)
– Buy you a drink on the mayor´s tab 🙂

One of our main tools for this work is our new website

http://www.expatcenter.at .

It went online two weeks ago, and I would like to invite you all to visit and give me some feedback on, it’s still a work in progress, you might find some mistakes or some missing information which you might feel is needed, pls. let me know, preferably by sending me a mail to my new office mail address bruckner@wirtschaftsagentur.at ,we will do our best to optimize the page then !

If you have any questions relating to this, or might already have a topic you want our help with, pls. feel free to use our service, our general opening times for walk-in clients are below, I know they are not too consumer-friendly, but we also do appointments outside these hours if needed and agreed before, so just give me ring at work (+43 1 4000-87091) and I will make sure we find a time-slot suitable for you, either with me or with one of my colleagues, depending on the topic you need information in !

With kind regards and best wishes for the Christmas and New Year´s season to come,

Fritz

Expat Center Vienna – A Service offered by the City of Vienna
Schmerlingplatz 3 (underground stop Rathaus or Volkstheater)
1010 Vienna (1st district)
T +43-1-4000-86949
F +43-1-4000-86188
info@expatcenter.at
http://www.expatcenter.at
Opening times: Monday – Thursday 09:00 – 16:00, Friday 09:00 – 12:00, closed on public holidays