Having all the documents mentioned in the first part of this entry is the first step of the process. After having all of them, let’s go to the Austrian embassy in Lisbon to apply for the visa. Although I put all of my experiences here, I still suggest you to go to the embassy once before handing in all the documents, or send them an email to LISSABON-OB@bmeia.gv.at
The Austrian embassy in Lisbon is located at number 43 Infante-Santo. It’s not far from Cais do Sodré. You can take the train from Cais do Sodré and get off at Alcânta-Mar station, the second stop, then walk from the station to the embassy in about 15 minutes. Another option is walking from Cais do Sodré which took me 40 minutes. I prefer to go to the embassy by train and walking back, because it opens at 9:30am and closes at 1:30pm :-) One thing needs to be concerned: go to the Internet and check for Austrian and European’s holidays before you decide to go. We had a painful experience going to the embassy on 28th of May which is a national holiday of Austria, then one morning was wasted just for going back and fort, paying transportation, and making ourselves tired :-(
According to the consultant in the Austrian embassy in Lisbon, it usually takes 3 months to get the visa. This information made me so scary that I tried to complete my documentations as soon as possible and handed them in on 12th of June. About one month later, I received an email from the embassy saying that my student residence permit had been issued by the authority in Wien and I had to go there to pick it up in person by 14th of September. This information was really surprising and I had to change my plan in order to adapt it. Later when I received my residence permit, I knew that it was issued on 15th of June which was just 3 days after my application process completed. It was quite quick and I think that the reason is that I am Erasmus Mundus student and we Erasmus Mundus students have lots of priorities in some administrative procedures.
So, depend on your situation, you should choose an appropriate date to hand in your document. For me, the best day should be some days in the middle of July, so that the due day for me would be in the middle of October, which would be really nice, then I would be able to go to Austria to start the winter semester and get the residence permit as well. Notice that in order for you to go to Austria to pick your residence permits up, the Austrian embassy in Lisbon will provide you a free Austrian national visa to enter there with a special reason and the period of this visa is 3 months, quite convenient :-)
In Wien, it’s quite fast to get the residence permit. Just go to the following address: Magistrat der Stadt Wien (city administration) Magistratsabteilung 35 (department 35) Gruppe Einwanderung, Außenstelle der Bezirke 1sowie 4-9 (department of immigration) Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 3 / Erdgeschoß (ground floor) 1082 Vienna
and spend one morning here. Also the working time is important. It’s closed on Wednesday (another painful experience for me – you know why I say this :-P) and is open from 8:30am to 12:30am every other weak day, except on Thursday you can go there in the afternoon.
Hope that this entry will help you especially for your strategy to get the residence permit with a perfect schedule. You can combine it with a traveling plan as well.
Have fun living in Portugal and Austria :-)