Concept

Austrian nationality law

Summary
Austrian nationality law details the conditions by which an individual is national of Austria. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Law, which came into force on 31 July 1985. Austria is a member state of the European Union (EU) and all Austrian nationals are EU citizens. They have automatic and permanent permission to live and work in any EU or European Economic Area (EEA) country and may vote in elections to the European Parliament. During 1812–1918, citizenship in the Austrian Empire (after 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire) was regulated by the Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (ABGB) (§§ 28–30). The system of Heimatrecht was introduced in 1859, defining citizenship at the municipal level: Heimatrecht in a given municipality guaranteed the right of residence in that municipality and social support for destitute individuals. Suffrage (election of the Imperial Council) for all male citizens with Heimatrecht was introduced in 1906. From 1863, municipalities were obliged to keep a record (Heimatrolle) of all citizens. Most citizens would be registered as members of a parish of the Catholic Church (Pfarrmatrikel); for non-Catholics, a separate register (Zivilmatrikel) was introduced in 1870. Citizenship was granted based on either descent or marriage, or via naturalization after ten years of residence (or on the acquisition of an official function). Citizenship could also be retracted in the case of an absence of longer than two years. By a principle of subsidiarity, citizenship in a municipality implied citizenship in the Crown land of that municipality. General Austrian citizenship (allgemeines österreichisches Staatsbürgerrecht) for all Cisleithanian Crown lands represented in the Imperial Council was introduced in 1867, with a separate Hungarian citizenship recognized for the lands of the Hungarian Crown. The First Austrian Republic recognized all citizens of Republic of German-Austria as Austrian citizens, effective 13 December 1918.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.