# Austria — records retrieval dossier > EasyPassport knowledge base for citizenship-by-descent record retrieval. **General > guidance to confirm on the official pages listed under Sources — not legal > advice.** Fees, URLs, offices, and processing times change; verify before quoting. ## Vital records (birth / marriage / death) - **Holding office:** Civil birth/marriage/death records are held by the local civil-registry office (Standesamt / Standesamtsverband) of the place of the event. Since 1 November 2014 any Standesamt in Austria can issue a certificate for an event registered in the Zentrales Personenstandsregister (ZPR / Central Civil Status Register), so the office of physical location no longer matters for ZPR-recorded events. In Vienna the responsible body is Standesamt Wien (MA 63 handles online orders; MA 35 holds the older 'Zivile Altmatrik' and the Zentralkartothek/central card index for locating the right historical Standesamt). - **How to request:** Three channels: (1) ID-Austria holders can self-order extracts from the ZPR for free online via the federal Urkundenservice at oesterreich.gv.at (birth/name/marriage extracts downloaded instantly) — but ONLY if the person's data is already in the ZPR; (2) written/online order to a Standesamt (e.g. Vienna's online form) which is posted back; (3) in person at any Standesamt with photo ID. For an ancestor whose record is not yet in the ZPR you must contact the Standesamt that holds the paper register directly (or, for pre-1939 events, the parish/religious community — see historical records). - **Online portal:** https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/en/landingpages/urkunden - **Who may request:** Restricted. Per Vienna's rules the following may order a civil-status certificate (absent an overriding protective interest of the recorded person): the recorded person themselves, their spouse, their registered partner, ancestors and descendants IN THE DIRECT LINE, and persons with a proven legal interest. Siblings and more distant/collateral relatives have NO entitlement to a certificate. A descendant pursuing citizenship qualifies as a direct-line descendant. - **Cost:** ZPR self-service via oesterreich.gv.at is FREE. A written/online order to a Standesamt carries a filing fee of EUR 21 (reduced to EUR 13 if submitted and signed electronically with ID Austria), EUR 6 per attachment (max EUR 36; EUR 3 each with ID Austria), plus EUR 13.10 per civil-status certificate issued (Vienna figures, June 2026). Fees are set by the federal Gebührengesetz 1957 and apply nationwide, though provinces administer them. - **Timeline:** ZPR online extracts are issued with one click / immediately. Postal orders and archival look-ups take longer; no fixed statutory deadline is published. Note the §58c process itself has no submission deadline. - **Language:** German. Requests should be written in German; Austrian institutions are far more likely to respond to German-language correspondence. The ZPR/Urkundenservice interface is available in English via the EU Your-Europe translation but the underlying service and certificates are German. - **Notes:** Civil registration for the general population began 1 January 1939 (births/deaths) and 1 August 1938 (marriages), when the German Personenstandsgesetz was extended to Austria after the Anschluss. Vienna's online ordering is explicitly limited to births/deaths from 1 Jan 1939 and marriages from 1 Aug 1938. Anything earlier is NOT in the Standesamt/ZPR system and must be sought from the religious community's register (Matriken) — see historicalRecords. IMPORTANT Burgenland exception: because Burgenland was part of Hungary until 1921, Hungarian-style state civil registration there runs from 1 October 1895, so Burgenland records back to 1895 are at the Standesamt, not the parish. ## Historical & church records (before civil registration) - **Parish / church:** For events before civil registration (pre-1 Jan 1939 births/deaths, pre-1 Aug 1938 marriages; Burgenland pre-1 Oct 1895), the records ('Matriken' / church registers) were kept by the religious communities and are obtained from the responsible parish office (Pfarramt) or the community: Roman Catholic parishes, Protestant parishes A.B. and H.B., the Old Catholic Church, the Greek-Orthodox Church, and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (Jewish community). Many diocesan/parish registers are digitized and freely browsable on Matricula Online (data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich) covering nearly all Austrian dioceses plus the Tyrol and Vorarlberg provincial archives; Tyrol and Vorarlberg matriken are held by the Tiroler/Vorarlberger Landesarchiv. For a person with NO religious affiliation or of mixed religion, in Vienna the record is in the 'Zivile Altmatrik' held by MA 35. In small towns without their own Jewish community, Jewish records were often kept by the local Roman Catholic parish. Note: Jewish community records were heavily disrupted/looted 1938–45; the IKG Wien holds surviving Vienna-area registers (births/marriages/deaths in Vienna and adjoining Lower Austrian communities, plus post-1945 registrations and deportation data). - **National / state archive:** Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives), Nottendorfergasse 2, 1030 Wien, tel +43 1 795 40 (oesta.gv.at / statearchives.gv.at) is the recommended body for genealogical research. Relevant sub-archives: Archiv der Republik (all records from 1918 on, incl. military personnel records of the Austrian Army and the German Wehrmacht 1938–45); Kriegsarchiv (Austro-Hungarian army personnel records to 1918); Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (nobility, ennoblements to 1918); and the Provincial Archives (Landesarchive) for each Bundesland. Austrian military-register (Militärmatrik) certificates are obtained from the Staatsarchiv. - **Notes:** There was NO central residence registry in Austria before 2001, and Austrian data-privacy rules are strict — look-ups often require proof of descent or a power of attorney. Critical historical-geography trap: for a person born before Nov 1918 within the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, the birthplace may only be researchable in Austria if it lies within TODAY's Austrian borders; places now in Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia etc. are held by those successor states' archives. The Austrian Red Cross Tracing Service (Suchdienst) and, for Jewish ancestry, the IKG Wien assist with locating persons; the National Fund / General Settlement Fund records also document Nazi-era victims. ## Apostille / legalization - **Competent authority:** There is NO single Austrian apostille office — competence is split by which authority issued the document (governed by the Apostillegesetz, ApostG, BGBl. Nr. 28/1968). For CIVIL-STATUS certificates (birth, marriage, partnership, death certificates), multilingual register extracts, registration confirmations and criminal-record certificates, the competent apostille authority is the Amt der Landesregierung (office of the provincial government) of the province where the document was issued (its Beglaubigungsstelle) — e.g. in Vienna the Vienna provincial government/MA 35. For documents issued by FEDERAL ministries: the Bundesministerium für europäische und internationale Angelegenheiten (BMEIA) — Legalisierungsbüro / Büro für Konsularbeglaubigungen, Leopold-Figl-Gasse 5, 1010 Wien. For COURT and NOTARIAL documents: the President of the competent first-instance civil court (Präsidium des Landesgerichts). - **URL:** https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/de/lexicon/A/Seite.991011 - **Process:** Take/send the original public document to the correct authority for its type (no appointment needed at BMEIA's Büro für Konsularbeglaubigungen; document intake Mon–Fri 09:00–12:30, Leopold-Figl-Gasse 5, in person, by representative, or by post). Provincial-government offices (e.g. Vorarlberg) accept a written apostille application (form provided). Electronic apostilles on e-issued documents (e.g. e-criminal-record certificates transmitted without media break) are issued by BMEIA. CRUCIAL: an Austrian civil-status certificate can only be apostilled if it is the INTERNATIONAL (multilingual, 'Siegel und Unterschrift') version — the standard NATIONAL certificate is German-only, carries an electronic official signature, and CANNOT be apostilled. Always order the 'internationale Urkunde' when the certificate is destined for use abroad. - **Cost:** Per the Gebührengesetz 1957: EUR 24.20 per legalisation/apostille (EUR 21.00 federal fee + EUR 3.20 federal administrative charge); EUR 26.00 for citizenship-related documents; plus a EUR 21.00 filing fee for written applications. - **Notes:** Austria is a full member of the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, so an apostille (not consular legalisation) is the correct authentication between Austria and other member states. KEY POINT for §58c descent applications: documents about the PERSECUTED ANCESTOR do NOT need an apostille or translation at all — Austrian authorities retrieve/verify them from their own archives. It is the DESCENDANT's OWN foreign documents (their birth/marriage certificate, criminal-record certificate) that need an apostille — and that apostille is issued by the competent authority IN THE APPLICANT'S country of residence, not by Austria. Austria's own apostille authorities above are relevant only if you are exporting an Austrian-issued certificate. > **Apostille authority — verification (✓ confirmed against HCCH, 2026-07):** The core apostille structure is CONFIRMED by the official HCCH Austria authority page (hcch.net/en/states/authorities/details3/?aid=308, Art. 6 designation) and the oesterreich.gv.at portal URL resolves live (HTTP 200, official "Certificate service"/ZPR extract page). Austria's competence is genuinely split three ways exactly as the research states: (1) BMEIA for documents issued by federal bodies (Federal President, Parliament, federal government, a federal ministry, Constitutional/Administrative/Supreme Court, Court of Audit); (2) the presidents of the first-instance civil courts (Landesgerichte) for court, prosecutor, notary and bar/chamber documents; (3) provincial governors/provincial governments (Landeshauptmann / Amt der Landesregierung) for ALL OTHER documents — which is the bucket civil-status certificates, register extracts and criminal-record certificates fall into. The law citation is right (Federal Act of 31 May 1967, BGBl. Nr. 28/1968). Minor factual corrections to the research: (a) BMEIA address per HCCH is Minoritenplatz 8, A-1010 Wien — NOT "Leopold-Figl-Gasse 5"; the official contact is beglaubigungen@bmeia.gv.at, tel +43 50 11 50-0. (b) HCCH does not use the labels "Legalisierungsbüro / Büro für Konsularbeglaubigungen"; that is the office handling incoming/foreign-document legalisation, distinct from the outgoing-Apostille function — safest to just say "BMEIA (Beglaubigungen)". (c) Fees for reference: € 17,50 at BMEIA, € 14,40 at the regional courts. The "Vienna = MA 35" detail is a plausible but unverified sub-office attribution; HCCH only says the Vienna provincial government (Amt der Wiener Landesregierung / Magistrat). None of these affect the substantive verdict: the named authorities and the split-by-issuer model are accurate. ## Translation - **Requirement:** For a §58c declaration, documents that are not in German OR English must, at the request of the competent authority, be submitted with a GERMAN translation. English-language documents do NOT require translation unless the authority specifically asks. Translations must be done into German. - **Notes:** The translation must be produced by a sworn and judicially certified translator ('gerichtlich beeideter und zertifizierter Übersetzer' — court-certified sworn translator). No additional authentication/apostille of the translation itself is required. Embassies/consulates will NOT translate documents for you. In practice translation is often only requested when needed to establish facts, so wait for the authority's request before commissioning translations to avoid unnecessary cost. ## Emigration & naturalization (the chain-break) - **Emigrant / exit records:** Emigrant/exit records: the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Archiv der Republik for the 20th century; Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv and provincial Landesarchive for earlier records) and FamilySearch's Auswandererlisten (emigrant lists, e.g. 1850–1914) help trace an ancestor who left. For Nazi-era emigration/flight and victim status specifically, look to the Austrian State Archives, the IKG Wien (deportation and post-1945 registration data), and the records of the Nationalfonds and the Allgemeiner Entschädigungsfonds. Because there was no central residence registry before 2001, locating an emigrant usually requires the exact name, date and place of birth and religious affiliation. - **Destination naturalization:** For MOST descent regimes the chain-break question is 'did the ancestor naturalize abroad BEFORE the descendant's birth?' — but §58c INVERTS this. The ancestor's flight from Austria and even their acquisition of a foreign citizenship is the QUALIFYING event, not a disqualifier: the Austrian Administrative Court (VwGH) held in 2001 that Nazi victims were forced to leave and therefore did NOT voluntarily acquire foreign citizenship, so did not lose Austrian citizenship (the basis of the 'Feststellungsverfahren'). A descendant should therefore check the ANCESTOR's foreign-naturalization/emigration records not to prove the chain survived, but to document the persecution and departure (a US/UK/Canada/Israel/etc. naturalization certificate showing a 1938–45 arrival is strong corroborating evidence). The chain-break that DOES matter here is the DESCENDANT's own citizenship history: if the descendant already held Austrian citizenship and lost it AFTER 1 May 2022 by voluntarily acquiring a foreign citizenship (or renounced/had it revoked), a new §58c declaration is barred. - **Notes:** Eligibility cut-offs: the persecuted ancestor must have had Austrian citizenship (or been a citizen of an Austro-Hungarian successor state — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia — with principal residence in present-day Austria) and left/was unable to return due to persecution between 30 Jan 1933 and 15 May 1955. Descendants of persons who left before the First Republic (12 Nov 1918) are NOT eligible. If the ancestor already re-acquired Austrian citizenship under §58c, held an Opferausweis (victim ID), or received a National Fund / General Settlement Fund payment, no further proof of persecution is needed. ## Gotchas - Wrong office by date: Austrian state civil registration only starts 1 Jan 1939 (births/deaths) and 1 Aug 1938 (marriages). Earlier events are NOT at the Standesamt or in the ZPR — you must go to the religious community's parish register (Matriken). Burgenland is the exception (state registration from 1 Oct 1895, because it was Hungarian until 1921). - National vs international certificate: the ordinary German-only 'national' certificate CANNOT be apostilled. You must specifically order the multilingual 'international' certificate ('mit Siegel und Unterschrift') if it will be used/authenticated abroad — a very common and costly mistake. - Apostille authority is split, not one office: civil-status certificates are apostilled by the provincial government (Amt der Landesregierung), NOT the foreign ministry; only federal-ministry documents go to BMEIA and court/notarial documents go to the Landesgericht president. Sending a birth certificate to BMEIA for apostille is the classic error. - Present-day-borders trap: an ancestor 'born in Austria' before 1918 may actually have been born in a place now in Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy or Croatia — those records are in the successor state's archives, not Austria's. Verify the birthplace against today's Austrian borders before searching Austrian archives. - §58c inverts the usual authentication burden: documents about the PERSECUTED ANCESTOR need neither apostille nor translation (Austria researches them itself), while the APPLICANT's own foreign documents need an apostille from THEIR home country plus originals sent by post — many applicants waste money apostilling/translating ancestor documents unnecessarily. - Strict access + no pre-2001 residence registry: Austrian privacy law limits who can obtain a certificate (direct line only; siblings excluded) and there was no central Meldewesen before 2001, so locating an ancestor's record often needs exact name + date + place of birth + religion, and a proof of descent or power of attorney for third-party look-ups. - Jewish-community records gap: IKG Wien registers were looted/disrupted 1938–45 and cover essentially only Vienna and adjacent Lower-Austrian communities; surviving coverage is patchy, and in small towns Jewish vital events were sometimes recorded by the local Roman Catholic parish instead. ## Sources - [oesterreich.gv.at — Apostille (lexicon: split competence among BMEIA, Landesgericht presidents, Landeshauptmänner/Amt der Landesregierung)](https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/de/lexicon/A/Seite.991011) - [BMEIA — Beglaubigung, Apostille (Büro für Konsularbeglaubigungen, Leopold-Figl-Gasse 5, 1010 Wien)](https://www.bmeia.gv.at/reise-services/urkunden-und-beglaubigungen/beglaubigung-apostille) - [Land Vorarlberg — Apostille und diplomatische Beglaubigung (Amt der Landesregierung competent for Personenstandsurkunden; Apostillegesetz BGBl. 28/1968; fees)](https://vorarlberg.at/-/apostille-und-diplomatische-beglaubigung) - [BMEIA — §58c Citizenship for persecuted persons and descendants: FAQ (documents, authentication, translation, procedure, fees)](https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/consular-section-of-the-austrian-embassy-in-washington/service-for-citizens/citizenship-for-persecuted-persons-and-their-direct-descendants/frequently-asked-questions-faq) - [IKG Wien — Austrian citizenship for victims of Nazi persecution and descendants (the 'Anzeige' process; MA 35 Vienna; embassy filing)](https://www.ikg-wien.at/en/news/austrian-citizenship-for-victims-of-nazi-persecution-and-descendants) - [oesterreich.gv.at — Certificate service / ZPR Urkundenservice (free ID-Austria online extracts)](https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/en/landingpages/urkunden) - [Stadt Wien — Urkunden Online-Bestellung (registration cutoffs 1939/1938, who may request, fees, national vs international certificate, parish/altmatrik/Staatsarchiv routing, Burgenland 1895)](https://www.wien.gv.at/amtswege/urkunden-online-bestellung) - [BMEIA (Consulate General New York) — Family and genealogical research (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Matriken pre-1938, no central residence registry before 2001, borders trap, IKG/Red Cross)](https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/austrian-consulate-general-new-york/service-for-citizens/family-and-genealogical-research) - [Matricula Online — Austria (digitized parish registers by diocese/province)](https://data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/) --- General guidance, not legal advice. EasyPassport is a document-organization tool, not a law firm. Confirm your own case with the relevant authority or a qualified professional.