The chancellor of Austria, officially the federal chancellor of the Republic of Austria (German: Bundeskanzler der Republik Österreich), is the head of government of the Republic of Austria.
Twenty-nine people have served as chancellor. The current holder of the office Christian Stocker was sworn in on 3 March 2025 as chancellor.
Kurt Alois Josef Johann von Schuschnigg (German: [ˈkʊʁt ˈʃʊʃnɪk]; 14 December 1897 – 18 November 1977) was an Austrian politician who was the Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria from the 1934 assassination of his predecessor Engelbert Dollfuss until the 1938 Anschluss with Nazi Germany. Although Schuschnigg considered Austria a "German state" and Austrians to be Germans, he was strongly opposed to Adolf Hitler's goal to absorb Austria into the Third Reich and wished for it to remain independent.
When Schuschnigg's efforts to keep Austria independent had failed, he resigned his office. After the Anschluss he was arrested, kept in solitary confinement, and eventually interned in various concentration camps. He was liberated in 1945 by the advancing United States Army and spent most of the rest of his life in academia in the United States. Schuschnigg gained American citizenship in 1956.
Politics in Austria reflects the dynamics of competition among multiple political parties, which led to the formation of a Conservative-Green coalition government for the first time in January 2020, following the snap elections of 29 September 2019, and the election of a former Green Party leader to the presidency in 2016.
Austrian politics takes place within the constitutional framework of a federal semi-presidential republic, with a President (Bundespräsident) serving as head of state and a Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) as head of government. Governments, both local and federal, exercise executive power. Federal legislative power is vested both in the Federal Government and in the two chambers of Parliament; the National Council (Nationalrat) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat). The Judiciary of Austria is independent of the executive and legislative branches of government.
The Federal Chancellery of Austria (German: Bundeskanzleramt, abbreviated BKA; historically also Hofkanzlei and Staatskanzlei) is the ministry led by the chancellor of Austria.Since the establishment of the First Austrian Republic in 1918, the Chancellery building has served as the venue for the sessions of the Austrian cabinet.It is located on the Ballhausplatz in the centre of Vienna, vis-à-vis the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Like Downing Street, Quai d'Orsay or – formerly – Wilhelmstrasse, the address has become a synecdoche for governmental power.
Leopold Figl (2 October 1902 – 9 May 1965) was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the first Federal Chancellor after World War II. He was also the youngest Federal Chancellor of Austria after the war before Sebastian Kurz.
The president of Austria (German: Bundespräsident der Republik Österreich, lit. 'Federal President of the Republic of Austria') is the head of state of the Republic of Austria.
The office of the president was established in 1920 by the Constituent National Assembly of the first republic following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburg monarchy in 1918. As head of state, the president indirectly succeeded the emperor of Austria. The power and role of the presidency has varied drastically over time. During the early first republic, the president was an utterly powerless figurehead. After a 1929 amendment, the president's powers were greatly expanded on paper, but they were swiftly taken away again following the abrogation of the Constitution and the erection of a corporatist dictatorship in 1934. When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the presidency was completely abolished. Following the liberation of Austria by the allied forces in 1945, the republican Constitution was restored and so was the office of the president. Though the president nominally regained the broad power vested in him under the 1929 amendments, the president voluntarily chose to serve as a ceremonial and symbolic figurehead, allowing the chancellor to remain de facto chief executive instead. Since the institution of the popular vote in 1951, only nominees of the Social Democratic Party and the People's Party were elected to the presidency, until Green-endorsed incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen won it in 2017.
Ballhausplatz is a square in central Vienna containing the building (with the address Ballhausplatz 2) that for over two hundred years has been the official residence of the most senior Austrian Cabinet Minister, the State Chancellor, today the Chancellor of Austria (Prime Minister). As a result, Ballhausplatz is often used as shorthand for the Austrian Federal Chancellery. Until 1918 the Foreign Ministry of Austria-Hungary was also housed here. Similar to Downing Street or the Hotel Matignon, the word Ballhausplatz (or Ballplatz for short) is a synecdoche for the seat of power.
Ballhausplatz is located in the first district Innere Stadt in central Vienna, a few minutes' walk from the Austrian Parliament Building and on the edge of the grounds of Hofburg Imperial Palace. Until 1754 the square itself did not exist, as an imperial hospital was located there. Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, erected a real tennis house there, the Ballhaus (ball house). Later the building was used for the Imperial Court Construction Office (Hofbauamt). At the end of the 18th century, the Ballhaus was ripped down.
Bruno Kreisky (German: [ˈbʁuːno ˈkʁaɪ̯ski]; 22 January 1911 – 29 July 1990) was an Austrian social democratic politician who served as foreign minister from 1959 to 1966 and as chancellor from 1970 to 1983. Aged 72, he was the oldest chancellor after World War II.
Kreisky's 13-year tenure was the longest of any chancellor in republican Austria and, as an influential political figure in Western European social democracy, he worked closely with like-minded leaders Willy Brandt of West Germany and Olof Palme of Sweden in the Socialist International.
The Second Kurz government (German: Zweite Bundesregierung Kurz or Kurz II for short) was the 33rd Government of Austria. Led by Sebastian Kurz as chancellor and Werner Kogler as vice-chancellor, it was sworn in by President Alexander Van der Bellen on 7 January 2020. It was officially dissolved and succeeded by the Schallenberg government on 11 October 2021.
This government represents many firsts. Headed by a former chancellor who had been ousted in a parliamentary vote of no confidence and made a comeback by winning the 2019 legislative election, it marks an alliance of a centre-right Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) with the centre-left The Greens as junior partner in the national government; it was the only such coalition in Europe until June 2020. It also features a majority of female cabinet members. Chancellor Kurz himself is the youngest member of his own government and the youngest chief executive of any of the European Union's member states for the second time. The new political alliance is closely watched in Europe, especially in neighbouring Germany, as it could become the prototype for a new type of politics in which ascendant conservatives make common cause with green parties to tackle climate change, which has become a salient concern of voters.
Legislative elections were held in Austria on 29 September 2019 to elect the 27th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The snap election was called in the wake of the Ibiza affair in May, which caused the resignation of Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and the collapse of the governing coalition of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The government subsequently lost a motion of no confidence in parliament, before ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was replaced by non-partisan Brigitte Bierlein on an interim basis.
The conservative ÖVP achieved its best result since 2002, improving its vote share six percentage points. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) won just 21.2%, its worst result in over a century. The FPÖ suffered a substantial loss of almost ten points. The Greens re-entered the National Council after falling out in 2017, and achieved their best ever result with 13.9% and 26 seats. NEOS improved from 2017, rising from 10 to 15 seats.