From next month

Asylum seeker payment card to be extended to Linz

In future, all asylum seekers should only be able to shop with a payment card.

(Bild: Pail Sepp/Sepp Pail)

Since July, asylum seekers in the Steyr region have been receiving basic benefits on a benefits-in-kind card. This system is now being extended to the central region. According to Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, seven federal states will take part in a tender for a nationwide roll-out.

Since July 14, around 300 refugees who are accommodated in provincial quarters in the Steyr area and in the federal quarters in Bad Kreuzen have no longer been paid in cash. They are the first to be tested in the pilot project of the benefits in kind card. From mid-October, around 700 more asylum seekers in the districts of Linz and Linz-Land are to be added. This was announced by Governor Thomas Stelzer and Integration Councillor Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer (both ÖVP) on Thursday. 

"Not there to pay smugglers"
The aim of no longer giving asylum seekers cash (with the exception of 40 euros pocket money) is to curb abuse, emphasized Hattmannsdorfer once again: "Social benefits are not there to send money abroad or to pay smugglers." The fact that this has happened again and again can be concluded from "ongoing feedback" from the support organizations or from interrogations of arrested traffickers. It is also not possible to pay for gambling or escort services with the card.

The two existing providers of refugee shelters, Volkshilfe and the Red Cross, will now be joined by Caritas. So far, the pilot project for the benefits-in-kind card has run "smoothly" and has been implemented "without any problems", said LH Stelzer, summing up.

Nationwide introduction at the beginning of 2025 
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) also announced in Linz on Thursday that the card is to be introduced nationwide at the beginning of 2025. A tender for this will take place in October, in which seven federal states are currently expected to participate. He is also "confident" that the other two states - Vienna and Lower Austria - will still take part in the tender, says Karner. 

Criticism of the payment card comes once again from the Greens. For integration spokesperson Ines Vukajlović, several questions remain unanswered: "For example, how much the asylum seekers allegedly transfer abroad, how much the card saves on social abuse and what it actually achieves." The card promotes "stigmatization and exclusion. It thwarts any integration work".