Vienna, once the heart of a vast European empire, is undergoing one of the fastest demographic shifts in Europe. Recent data highlights a profound change driven by high immigration, differing birth rates, and integration challenges.
Key Verified Statistics
Newborns and Citizenship: In recent years (likely 2024-2025 data), 40.5% of babies born in Vienna lack Austrian citizenship at birth, up from around 20% two decades ago. This reflects Austria's jus sanguinis citizenship laws (based on parental citizenship, not birthplace). In districts like Favoriten, Ottakring, and Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, over 50% of newborns are non-citizens. Many of these children have parents with migration backgrounds, and some later naturalise.
Overall Population: As of early 2025, 40.9% of Vienna's residents are foreign-born, and 36.4% hold foreign citizenship. About 46.3% have a "migration background" (foreign citizenship or born abroad). Over 50% have both parents born overseas in some estimates.
Schools and Language: For the first time in 2025, over 50% (50.9%) of first-graders in public elementary schools require special German language support, indicating insufficient proficiency to follow lessons. This has risen sharply in recent years.
Religion in Schools: In the 2024-2025 school year, 41.2% of students in Vienna's primary, secondary, and special schools identify as Muslim, surpassing combined Christian affiliations (34.5%, including 17.5% Roman Catholic and 14.5% Orthodox). 23% report no religion. This shift correlates with migration from Muslim-majority countries.
These figures come from reliable sources like Statistics Austria, the City of Vienna, and the Austrian Integration Fund, though often amplified by outlets like Remix News.
Political Reactions and the "Replacement" Narrative
The FPÖ has been vocal:
Security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer: "Austrians will soon be strangers in their own country."
Youth leader Maximilian Weinzierl: "This is no longer immigration, this is displacement... the direct result of replacement migration, asylum abuse, and the denial of reality by the SPÖ, ÖVP, and Greens."
This echoes the "Great Replacement" theory, positing deliberate demographic engineering through migration and higher migrant fertility rates.
Integration issues are real: rising school violence, language barriers, and reports of anti-Semitism or cultural clashes in diverse areas. Left-leaning voices advocate automatic citizenship or better integration courses, while centrists push mandatory kindergarten and language assessments.
Broader European Context
Vienna exemplifies trends in many Western European capitals (e.g., Brussels, London, Paris), where urban areas see faster diversification due to concentrated migration. Austria overall has ~22.7% foreign-born residents, far lower than Vienna's 40.9%. Projections suggest Vienna's foreign-born share could reach 44% by 2053, with ongoing debates over policy responses like stricter asylum or "remigration" (deportation of non-integrated migrants).
This transformation is undeniable and accelerating, especially post-2015 migration waves and recent conflicts (Ukraine, Syria). The data shows native Austrians are becoming a minority in key segments of Vienna's youth and births. It really is the Great White Replacement on steroids and growth hormone.
https://rmx.news/article/40-of-all-babies-born-in-vienna-do-not-have-an-austrian-passport/