...and I hold the nationality of another EU/EEA country or Switzerland

If you are employed in an EU/EEA member state or Switzerland—i.e. you are not self-employed—your employer can post you to another EU/EEA country or Switzerland to work there under certain conditions. See the section on the posting of employed individuals in the chapter on labour law.

If you are self-employed in an EU/EEA country or Switzerland, you can go to work in one of the other countries. However, this is only permitted if the activity you will be doing in your destination country is similar to what you do in the country you are posing yourself from. See the chapter on labour law and the section on posting self-employed individuals.

For the period of your posting, the social security system in the country you were posted from is still responsible for you, though this might vary according to the expected duration of the posting. 

To do:  Before you are posted as an employee, or you post yourself as a self-employed person, you or your employer must complete form A1 and submit it to the social security authorities in your home country.

You must meet the following requirements for the posting:

• You must have been subject to the legislation of the country you are being posted from for at least one month immediately prior to the posting. Whether and how you were insured during this period is not relevant. You may therefore have been compulsorily insured, voluntarily insured, co-insured, or not insured at all.
• Your organisational and employment ties must remain in place in the country you are being posted from. This means that you can continue working for your employer or as a self-employed person in this country immediately after your return. 

If your employer sends you to another country immediately after you start work, this is also considered to be a posting. The only important condition is that you were subject to the laws of the country you are being posted from for at least one month beforehand. 

Info: Since 2011, the regulations for posting also apply to third-country nationals who are legally resident and insured within the EU/EEA.  

If you work in two or more countries at the same time, or if you work in one country and live in another, you are called a "frontier worker". To be considered a frontier worker, you must travel to another member state at least once a week to work there. 

Example: You live and work in Poland. However, you also commute to the Czech Republic twice a week because you are working on an artistic project there.

Example: You live in Germany. You commute to Austria four times a week because you are employed at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.

You are covered by social security in the country in which you work.  If you work in different countries, you have social security coverage in the country where you work more, i.e. where your professional activity is more pronounced. Your potential insurance provider will decide whether your activity is sufficiently pronounced.

However, if you are employed in one country and self-employed in another, you are insured under the law of the country in which you are employed.

Frontier workers can claim medical benefits both in the country in which they live and in the countries in which they work under the same conditions as other insured individuals in the respective country. 

To do: In order to claim medical benefits in your country of residence, you must complete the S1 form and submit it to your insurance provider. This form is provided by the social security providers in the countries in which you work. In Austria, the S1 form is also called a certificate of residence.

If you want to commute to Switzerland for work, the following special rule applies: your employer must apply for a cross-border commuter permit for you.

If you are insured in an EU/EEA country or Switzerland and receive medical benefits there, these will be settled by your local social security provider.   

However, if you seek medical treatment in a country within the EU/EEA or Switzerland and are not insured in this country, it is possible to receive treatment upon presentation of your European Health Insurance Card (e-card). 

You must present this card when you visit the doctor and, in most cases, you need to fill out special forms. In doing so, you can claim medical benefits according to the same conditions as people who are insured in that country. This applies to short-term and long-term employment relationships in other European countries. 

Attention: Binding information on health insurance coverage abroad must be obtained from the relevant health insurance provider.

In many member states, you must initially pay at least part of the costs yourself. You can then submit these invoices to your social security provider. The amount of money you get back varies from member state to member state: the tariffs for medical treatment and the scope of benefits provided by social security systems vary greatly. Treatments that are free in your country may have to be paid for in other countries. 

Attention: If you are a frontier worker, you should complete the S1 form in advance and submit it to your social security provider.

The requirements for claiming pension benefits in an EEA/EU country or Switzerland depend on the respective national regulations (e.g. retirement age).

In order to claim pension benefits in a country, you must typically have been insured for a certain minimum period in that country. As the different insurance systems of the EU/EEA countries and Switzerland work together, they mutually recognise insurance periods that you have acquired in other EU/EEA countries or Switzerland. 

Example: In Germany, you must have been insured for at least 5 years to be entitled to an old-age pension. Although you only worked in Germany for 3 years, you worked in France for 20 years. As your French insurance period is recognised in Germany, you were insured for a total of 25 years from the perspective of your German insurance provider. You have therefore fulfilled the minimum insurance period of 5 years in Germany and will receive an old-age pension from the German social security provider if you meet all the other requirements according to German law.

If you have worked in several countries and fulfilled the requirements applicable there, you will receive several pensions. The amount you will receive from each pension depends on the pension regulations in the respective country. 

To do: Due to the cooperation of social security systems, you only need to submit a single pension application. You submit this in your country of residence. 

In order to receive unemployment benefits, you must have been insured for unemployment for a certain minimum period in most countries. Here too, EU/EEA countries and Switzerland recognise each other's insurance periods.

The length of your insurance periods and the additional requirements you must meet depend on the regulations of the country in which you wish to receive unemployment benefits.

You can find out about the requirements in Austria in the chapter on unemployment in Austria. 

If you are already receiving unemployment benefits in an EU/EEA country or Switzerland, you must generally also stay in this country. The reason for this is that you should be ready to start a new job that the unemployment office finds for you at any time. 

However, if you can prove that you have a realistic chance of finding work in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, you may stay abroad for a maximum of three months without losing your entitlement to benefits. At your request, the authority paying the unemployment benefits may extend your entitlement for a further 3 months.

To do: Contact the authority that pays your unemployment benefits and submit the U2 form.