Austrian citizenship for descendants of persecuted families

This route is not an immigration programme. It is Austria's answer to the injustice done to its citizens after 1938. It has been open to descendants since 1 September 2020, and in its extended form since 1 May 2022. How Section 58c fits in with the other routes through your ancestors is set out in the overview Citizenship by descent.

What Section 58c of the Citizenship Act provides

Section 58c of the Austrian Citizenship Act 1985 (Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz, StbG) is a special provision. It does not grant citizenship at the authority's discretion; it creates a legal entitlement. You do not file an application in the usual sense. Instead, you submit a written notification (Anzeige) to the authority. If the requirements are met, the authority confirms in an official decision (Bescheid) that you acquired citizenship on the day your notification reached it.

Three things make this route stand out:

• No residence in Austria. The law does not require you to live in the country.
• No proof of language skills and no proof of income. Section 58c only refers to the requirements of a clean record and of security in Section 10 StbG, not to residence, means of support or knowledge of German.
• No need to give up your passport. For Section 58c, Austria expressly does not require you to renounce the nationality you already hold.

The figures show how widely families use this route. According to the Austrian Foreign Ministry, almost 33,000 people acquired citizenship this way between the opening for descendants in September 2020 and September 2024, a good half of them under 35. In 2025 alone, Statistik Austria counted 9,521 descendants and 10 persecuted persons themselves naturalised under Section 58c, 99.8 percent of them living abroad. Most of them were nationals of Israel (4,956), the United States (2,827) and the United Kingdom (913).

Which ancestors count as persecuted

The entitlement depends on your ancestor. The law names several groups of people who suffered persecution by organs of the Nazi party (NSDAP) or the authorities of the German Reich, or who had good reason to fear it. People persecuted for standing up for the democratic Republic of Austria are treated the same way.

The provision also covers people who had lost Austrian citizenship shortly before they left because they had acquired a foreign nationality through marriage.

Main residence is decisive

One point surprises many families: as a rule, what counts is your ancestor's main residence within the federal territory in its present-day borders. Someone who lived in Prague, Czernowitz or Lemberg as a citizen of a successor state of the Monarchy gives rise to no claim under Section 58c, even if the family saw itself as Austrian. Nor do ancestors count who emigrated before the First Republic was founded on 12 November 1918.

Grounds of persecution

The Foreign Ministry lists, among other grounds of persecution, political reasons, descent, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, disability and being branded "asocial". Any document showing that your ancestor belonged to a persecuted group helps, for example a birth certificate that states the religion.

Which descendants are entitled

The right to file a notification belongs to descendants in the direct descending line: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on. The law sets no fixed limit on the number of generations. Children adopted as minors also count as descendants.

Every adult in the family files their own notification and fills in the questionnaire themselves. Parents, siblings and cousins all rely on the same ancestor. If the family files together, the documents on the ancestor only need to be submitted once.

Spouses who do not themselves descend from a persecuted person have no claim under Section 58c. They are left with ordinary naturalisation, for which the Foreign Ministry names, among other things, six years of lawful and uninterrupted residence in Austria and five years of marriage with a shared household.

Section 58c(5) draws one line: anyone who was Austrian before and lost that citizenship by acquiring a foreign one cannot acquire it again under Section 58c, unless they did not know at the time that they were Austrian.

How to get Austrian citizenship as a descendant

The route is clearly laid out and, as a rule, runs through the Austrian embassy or consulate in your country of residence.

1. Fill in the online questionnaire

The Foreign Ministry developed an online questionnaire in consultation with the Vienna state government. It gives you a first orientation and collects the details on you, your minor children and your ancestor. At the end you receive an information sheet listing the certificates you need for your case, together with the completed notification form. You give free-text answers in German or English.

2. Gather the documents

You collect your own certificates, the documents of your persecuted ancestor and the birth and marriage certificates that prove the line between you. How to find your ancestors' records in archives is explained in Genealogy for your passport.

3. File the notification

You hand in the notification form and its enclosures at the Austrian embassy or consulate general responsible for your main residence. The mission forwards the notification to the authority in Austria. For people who were not born in Austria and do not live there, that is the Vienna state government, Municipal Department 35 (MA 35). If you live in Austria, you contact the office of the government of your federal state.

4. The decision

The authority examines your information. It may call in the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism as an expert. If the requirements are met, it confirms in an official decision that you are Austrian, backdated to the day your notification reached it.

5. The passport

You apply for the Austrian passport in a separate procedure once the positive decision has been served on you. For this you appear in person at the embassy or consulate, which takes your fingerprints. The passport is produced in Austria and delivered to the mission within a few weeks. As a rule, the citizenship decision or proof of citizenship is enough; you do not have to submit the certificates from the procedure again. How to renew the passport abroad later is explained in the guide to renewing an Austrian passport abroad (in German).

Which documents you need for the notification

For yourself, you submit:

• a valid travel document
• a recent photo
• your birth certificate
• civil status documents such as your marriage certificate, especially if your name has changed
• a recent criminal record certificate, no older than eight months when you file

On top of that come the documents of your persecuted ancestor and certificates proving descent in the direct line, such as the birth and marriage certificates of the generations between them and you.

Foreign certificates generally need an apostille or diplomatic legalisation, unless a treaty exempts them. Documents not written in German or English must be accompanied by a translation from a sworn and court-certified interpreter.

When proof already exists

If your ancestor held a victim's identity card (Opferausweis), received payments from the National Fund or has already reacquired Austrian citizenship under Section 58c since 1993, you generally do not need to provide any further proof about them. If documents are missing altogether, you give everything you know about your ancestor. The authorities then search archives and registers themselves and take into account every document and piece of evidence that helps to clarify the case.

What Austrian citizenship costs for descendants

In government fees, this route costs you almost nothing. Under Section 58c(9) StbG, the notification, the decision and the documents to be produced in the procedure, in particular certificates, civil status records and translations, are free of fees. For people who were not born in Austria and do not live there, Vienna does not charge any state fees either.

The real effort lies not in money but in time: finding certificates from three or four generations and several countries, having them legalised and piecing them together without gaps. The Foreign Ministry names no fixed processing time. Complete documents and a carefully completed questionnaire shorten the procedure.

Dual citizenship: Austria and Germany

As a German, you are on the safe side with the notification. With the Act to Modernise Nationality Law, Germany repealed the loss provision in Section 25 StAG. Since 27 June 2024 you no longer lose German nationality when you acquire another one by application. You then hold the passports of two EU states. What that means for military service, taxes and travel is covered in Dual citizenship for Germans.

The Austrian Foreign Ministry advises everyone planning a notification to check first with the authorities of their home country whether they would lose their existing nationality automatically. For Israel, the USA, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Australia, the Foreign Ministry currently expects no loss. If you also hold the nationality of a third country, check its rules before you file.

Order is everything: Section 58c and a further passport

This is the biggest trap in the whole procedure. As soon as you are Austrian, Section 27 StbG applies to you. Anyone who acquires a foreign nationality on the basis of their own application, declaration or express consent automatically loses Austrian citizenship, unless they were granted permission to retain it beforehand. Because citizenship under Section 58c applies retroactively from the day your notification reaches the authority, every acquisition from that day on counts. And after a loss, a new notification is no longer possible.

The Austrian Foreign Ministry therefore recommends: if you are planning a further nationality, file the notification only after you have acquired it.

For your planning, that means:

1. Further passports first. A passport through an investment programme, a naturalisation abroad or a second route by descent comes before the Austrian notification.
2. Then the notification under Section 58c. You keep the nationalities you already hold at that point.
3. After that, only with permission. For any later acquisition you first need permission to retain Austrian citizenship.

How strict this rule is for Austrians is shown in Second citizenship for Austrians. If you are looking at a passport through a citizenship programme at the same time, fix the sequence of steps in advance. How investment and naturalisation work together is explained in CBI and naturalisation.

Children, military service and duties as an Austrian

Your children

Children born after you acquire citizenship are Austrian by descent. Every child already born, or born before the acquisition takes effect, needs a notification of their own. You include minors in the same questionnaire and form, so you do not have to submit certificates twice. Both parents with custody must consent to the notification for the child. How to plan passports for the whole family is shown under Family.

Military service

Austrian men are, in principle, liable for military service from their 17th to their 50th birthday. If you live permanently abroad, according to the Foreign Ministry you only register with the embassy or consulate as liable for service. If you move to Austria, you register with the military command within three weeks; a call-up for the six-month basic military service is then possible between your 18th and 35th birthday. Anyone who voluntarily joins the armed forces of a foreign state loses Austrian citizenship. Compulsory military service in another state does not count.

Living in the EU

With an Austrian passport you are an EU citizen. For descendants in Israel, the USA or the United Kingdom, that opens up freedom of movement across the whole European Union. If you want to move to Austria itself, you will find taxes, costs and daily life covered under Moving to Austria (in German).

Austria and Germany compared

Austria is not the only country that opens the way back to the descendants of persecuted families. Germany has a similar entitlement: under Article 116(2) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG), former German nationals who were deprived of their nationality on political, racial or religious grounds between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945, and their descendants, are to be renaturalised on application. Section 15 StAG extends this to descendants of persecuted people who lost their German nationality in some other way, were excluded from acquiring it or had to give up their habitual residence in Germany.

Spain also has routes of its own for descendants. Which of them are still open today is covered in Spain: citizenship for descendants. Many families have roots in more than one of these countries and therefore look at several routes side by side. The traces Austrian families left in the United States after their escape are told in Austrians in America (in German).

A passport as a right, not a favour

For your grandparents' generation, a passport decided whether you made it across a border or not. A visa can be refused and revoked. Citizenship is a right. Acquiring it under Section 58c is not an act of clemency but an entitlement laid down in law, and you pass it on by descent to the children born after you.

For Germans, the Austrian passport is also a safeguard for your own. If your German passport is lost, stolen or withheld abroad, you travel on lawfully with the second one. And you give your children more than a passport: a piece of the history that was taken from your family.

Frequently asked questions