RIS (Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes) is the Austrian government's official legal database: consolidated federal, state, and municipal law, case law from every Austrian court and tribunal, the authentic gazettes whose promulgated text is binding under Austrian law, the pre-parliamentary lawmaking pipeline, and ministerial decrees.

This server wraps the keyless RIS OGD REST API (v2.6, CC BY 4.0) for MCP agents, covering all 39 OGD applications and reaching back to the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1848. Every response labels the document's binding status, since only the amtssignierte gazette wording is legally binding.

Tools

Five search tools split by document class, plus a citation resolver, document retrieval, a change feed, and an offline vocabulary reference:

ris_search_legislation

Search consolidated law: BrKons (federal), LrKons (state), Gr (municipal).

• Full-text query using RIS boolean grammar: UND/ODER/NICHT or AND/OR/NOT, parentheses, quoted phrases
• title matches the title, short title, or abbreviation ("DSG", "ABGB")
• scope routes to federal law or one of the nine Bundesländer; municipality narrows a state scope to municipal law (selected norms, six Bundesländer)
• language: english serves the Erv collection of selected English translations
• in_force_as_of defaults to today. Omitting the date upstream silently searches all historical versions, so include_all_versions is the explicit opt-in and the applied date is echoed in every response
• Force-window filters (entered_force_from/to, left_force_from/to) track provisions entering or leaving force in a date range
• Section-range filtering via section_from/section_to/section_type (§, Artikel, Anlage)
• Law-level grouping via law_id (Gesetzesnummer), plus Systematik index and changed_since windows
• Output per document: section label, in-force date, ELI, parsed CELEX references, and export URLs (XML/HTML/PDF/RTF)

ris_search_case_law

Search decisions and headnotes across 17 court and tribunal applications.

• court is required and takes one application per call: vfgh, vwgh, justiz, bvwg, lvwg, dsk, upts (party-transparency senate), plus ten historical and specialized tribunals. Cross-court research fans out one call per court
• Filter by cited provision (norm, e.g. "DSG §1", "DSGVO Art32"), exact case number (case_number, Geschäftszahl), decision date range, decision kind (Erkenntnis/Beschluss/…), and full-text query
• decision_type targets headnotes (Rechtssätze), full decision texts, or both
• Court-conditional filters: issuing_body (dsk/dok/pvak/verg), court_name, legal_area, subject_area (justiz, e.g. "Datenschutzrecht"), state (lvwg/uvs), collection_number (VfSlg/VwSlg cites), party (upts), commission/senate/discrimination ground (gbk), media statute (bks)
• Output per decision: case numbers, decision date, ECLI, cited norms, keywords, the guiding principle (Leitsatz) on headnote documents, and headnote/decision URLs

ris_search_gazette

Browse the promulgation record at every level of government. For a single known gazette number, ris_lookup_citation is the direct route.

• scope: federal, one of the nine Bundesländer, district (Bezirksverwaltungsbehörden), or municipal (authentic municipal promulgations)
• Federal history is one logical series auto-routed across three era tiers: BgblAuth (2004+, authentic), BgblPdf (Staats- und Bundesgesetzblatt 1945–2003), and BgblAlt (Reichs-, Staats- und Bundesgesetzblatt 1848–1940, metadata plus ÖNB-hosted scans). Each response names the tier that served it
• One call serves one tier, so a date range crossing 2004-01-01 or 1945-01-01 is rejected with the boundary to split at rather than answered from one side of it. RIS carries no federal gazette for 1941–1944
• Filter by publication date range, gazette part (BGBl. I/II/III, or pre_1997 for the partless era), document type, issuing ministry, district authority, or municipality
• State scopes serve the authentic Landesgesetzblätter by default. series: ordinance_gazette switches to the Verordnungsblätter; state_era: legacy selects the state's earlier non-authentic series (Niederösterreich's systematic LgblNO, or the historical Lgbl elsewhere)
• Point lookup by gazette number ("BGBl. II Nr. 171/2026" or "171/2026")
• Every record carries a binding label (authentic, historical_record, or consolidated_informational) and the amtssigniert PDF URL when present. The metadata-only 1848–1940 gazettes link to their ÖNB ALEX scan

ris_search_drafts

Search federal law before it is enacted.

• stage: review_drafts covers ministerial drafts in public review (Begutachtungsentwürfe). in_review_on answers what is in review on a given date
• stage: government_bills covers bills adopted by the council of ministers (Regierungsvorlagen, 2004+), filtered by adoption date
• ministry accepts the abbreviation ("BMF") and the server expands it to RIS's exact designation
• Output includes review deadlines, council adoption dates, and the RIS web view
• materials lists the companion documents filed with the draft — Erläuterungen (the drafting reasoning the bill text omits), Textgegenüberstellung, Vorblatt/WFA, covering letter, annexes. Their filenames are opaque and per-record, so passing a materials[].url to ris_get_document is the only way to read one; format there picks the rendition, so the one URL reaches every text rendition the companion has. Where RIS files no HTML rendition — about one companion in eight, nearly all covering letters — the URL is the PDF, which is a download rather than a text rendition

ris_search_announcements