The Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed that a technical fault knocked out electricity on Monday morning at its HZ-complex in Wien-Landstraße – the building that houses several back-office units of the customs and border-police directorates. Fire-safety rules required an immediate evacuation, and public access was suspended for roughly one hour until back-up generators restored lighting and lifts. Although no critical infrastructure – such as the national situation room – was affected, the outage interrupted a small number of scheduled in-person appointments for residence-permit extensions and EU-Blue-Card issuances. Applicants will receive new dates automatically, the ministry said. Phone traffic was redirected to the Vienna Police switchboard, and digital case-management systems remained online via the government data centre. For companies and law firms that courier physical files to the HZ-building, the brief closure is a reminder to factor in contingency time, especially in the current summer rush when ordinary processing already stretches to six weeks. The incident also underlines the ministry’s plan to move more functions to the ID-Austria portal by 2027, reducing dependence on ageing office infrastructure. No injuries were reported, and all staff returned to work before noon. A facilities-management review is under way to determine whether a faulty transformer or construction work in the adjacent Wien-Mitte rail hub triggered the outage.
Source: Bundesministerium für Inneres
