Global labour history emphasises the fact that there is no universal, linear and unquestioned tendency towards free, documented wage labour in the modern world. There are and always have been various ways in which people made a living in the course of their lives, by alternating and combining jobs, by performing formal and informal, waged and unwaged, remunerated and unremunerated forms of work and livelihood practices more or less voluntarily or by force. Questions of categorization, distinction and hierarchization of this variety are attracting increased interest. My paper will take identity- and work documents (Arbeits- und, Dienstbotenbücher) in the Habsburg Empire (Cisleithania) as a starting point for discussing the relation between the formal categorization and the documentation of work and wages. I will sketch out regulations and official reasoning behind such papers while also illustrating how they could be practically used in interactions of authorities, employers and workers/servants to establish and negotiate wages, terms and conditions of work. Written documents as a proof of identity and of an orderly termination of employment were required already in the 18th century. In the 19th century Habsburg Empire – in contrast to other countries like Germany and France – the obligation to possess such papers was extended to include ever more categories of wage labour and service. Such documents could serve manifold purposes of identification and control, and they were related to wages in several ways: Firstly, they categorized (and distinguished) labourers and servants in addition to documenting their training, work experience and performance, something which was fundamental for determining and negotiating wages individually or collectively. Secondly, obligatory papers were used to regulate job mobility and wages by hindering workers or servants from “running away” and terminating work individually or collectively (e.g. by striking) before their work contract ended, before they finished a task or before they worked off advances. Thirdly, a person without appropriate papers and a regular work record could be persecuted as workshy vagrant. This could result in having to accept any work irrespective of payment or conditions and having to avoid any illegitimate means of subsistence. Yet, fourthly, at the same time these documents enabled workers to travel and search for a job and – since they gave access to travel support – to take on posts selectively and within one’s occupation. Wayfarer’s relief stations can be understood as a first step towards the state organization of labour intermediation and the “invention of unemployment”. However, this particular form of early state social policy was directed toward skilled wage labourers, excluding “unskilled” or agricultural labourers, servants and women. Lastly: documents, registration and work records were one aspect of emerging new forms of public regulation, legal protection and supervision of work conditions (e.g. by trade inspectors and trade courts.) Whereas authorities and employers argued that such papers were necessary for security and order, organisations of labourers and servants heavily criticised these papers as instruments of coercion, abuse and humiliation. Yet, in practice we find broad variety of ways in which these papers could be perceived, used, abused or neglected by employers, workers/servants as well as by authorities when establishing and negotiating terms and conditions of labour. Up to the end of the Empire there was neither a consensus nor a strict enforcement of these regulations. The categorisation and remuneration of work were frequently disputed. Nevertheless, despite all their irregularities and conflicts these documents can be regarded as a part of a long-term process in which distinctions between occupations, between skilled and unskilled labour, wage labour and service, formal/documented and informal/undocumented work, makeshift and decent work became more clearly established and formalized. They contributed to the emergence of a new standardized notion of (and expectation on) vocational wage employment as a source of sufficient and exclusive income and a basis for social security.