Legislation
Duits recht (NeuRIS)
Gesetze-im-internet.de is the German federal statute book: the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and the Federal Office of Justice make almost all applicable federal law available there free of charge, in the version in force at the time of consultation. Consolidation is carried out continuously by the documentation unit of the Federal Office of Justice; the federal legal information system competence centre runs the service and juris GmbH provides the technical delivery. For Dutch practice this is the first place to check a German provision in the original language rather than through a translation or a textbook.
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What this source does not give you
The site says so itself: the consolidated statutory texts available here are not the official version — that is the Federal Law Gazette, which since 1 January 2023 is published exclusively in electronic form on the federal promulgation platform. The database also holds only federal law and only the base statutes and ordinances: Land law, case law, administrative rules and the amending acts themselves are in other, separate services.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the text on gesetze-im-internet.de the official version?
- No. The site expressly warns that the consolidated statutory texts available online are not the official version. That official version is in the Federal Law Gazette. Under German constitutional law, statutes are, pursuant to article 82 of the Basic Law, executed by the Federal President after countersignature and promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette, and ordinances by the body that issues them, normally the Federal Government or a ministry. The consolidation on this site is documentary work serving readability, not promulgation.
- Where do I find the promulgated text, then?
- On the federal promulgation platform. Since 1 January 2023 the official version of the Federal Law Gazette is issued there in electronic form; before that date the official version appeared exclusively on paper. For the earlier period the government maintains a freely accessible archive with digital copies of the gazettes issued in paper form — copies, that is, alongside the paper that had formal status at the time. If you need a German provision as evidence, take the Federal Law Gazette reference with you, not just a printout of the consolidated text.
- Does this site also contain German case law?
- No, that is in a different database. Gesetze-im-internet.de holds the consolidated versions of federal statutes and ordinances, and expressly not the amending acts and ordinances. For case law the site points to Rechtsprechung im Internet, a database of decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court, the supreme federal courts and the Federal Patent Court. For the law of the Länder there is the Landesrecht link to the joint federal and state justice portal, and for administrative rules of the highest federal authorities the Verwaltungsvorschriften im Internet database. German research therefore means visiting four separate sources, not one.
- How do I know whether the text I am reading is up to date?
- Through the 'Stand' indication at the top of the full edition of a norm. It refers to the date of execution of the base statute or of the most recent amending act. The nuance the site adds matters: where an amending act prescribes provisions that enter into force only later, the text of those provisions is likewise only adjusted at the moment of entry into force. For extensive amendments, consolidation may also take some time. A second indication can confuse: the note that a text is 'textlich nachgewiesen, dokumentarisch noch nicht abschließend bearbeitet' concerns only supplementary documentary information, not the text of the norm itself.
- How do I keep track of new German legislation?
- With the site's currency service. It keeps links to all rules newly promulgated in Part I of the Federal Law Gazette for up to six months after their entry into force, and also gives access to the texts of the amending provisions underlying the consolidated statutes and ordinances. That last item is exactly what the ordinary text view does not show. The service can be subscribed to as an RSS feed. Mind the six-month window: anyone looking later has to go back to the Federal Law Gazette itself.