Austrian Registration Act: Amendments and Details

Dec 9, 2022 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte GmbH

With Government Bill 1252 of Supplements XXVII GP, the Austrian Registration Act (Meldegesetz, hereinafter MeldeG) hasundergone a fundamental change in substantive content. On the one hand, the right of intersexual persons to an adequate designation in the Population Register (which was recognised by the Austrian Constitutional Court under VfSlg 20.258 on 15 June 2018) is now implemented, and on the other hand, legally recognised churches and religious organisations will now be permitted to search for members in the Population Register. Finally, the amendment to the annexes to this Federal Act address the problem that not all names can be strictly separated into first and last name only.

The main changes are as follows:

In Section 1 (5a) of the new version of the MeldeG, the section ‘other name’ will now be provided. According to the explanatory notes, second surnames, patronymics, and middle names that cannot be clearly assigned to either the first name or the surname such as in some names of foreign origin can create difficulties when filling out official forms.

Section 20 (7) of the amended version concerns legally recognised churches and religious organisations and their possibility to research member data. Up to now, local Population Register data was used; however, the amendment now stipulates the obligation of mayors to provide names, dates of birth, residence and registration details on request by churches or religious organisations.

Finally, Section 21b introduces a new feature. From now on, all genders shall be addressed, not only women and men as is still the case. According to the amendment, it shall be possible to explicitly leave one’s gender designation open if gender designation is indeed not possible or not yet possible. According to the rulings of the Constitutional Court, options such as ‘diverse’, ‘inter’ but also ‘not specified’ (in German: keine Angabe) shall be possible.

BGBl I Nr. 172/2022 (31.10.2022)