The Bundestag (German pronunciation: [ˈbʊndəstaːk] , 'Federal Diet') is the federal parliament of Germany. It is the only constitutional body in the country directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz) in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany, the other being the Bundesrat.
The members of the Bundestag are representatives of the German people as a whole, are not bound by any orders or instructions and are only accountable to their conscience. Since the current 21st legislative period, the Bundestag has a fixed number of 630 members. The Bundestag is elected every four years by German citizens aged 18 and older. Elections use a mixed-member proportional representation system which combines first-past-the-post voting for constituency-seats with proportional representation to ensure its composition mirrors the national popular vote. The German Bundestag cannot dissolve itself; only the president of Germany can do so under certain conditions.
Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag forms the legislative branch of government at the federal level. The Bundestag is considerably more powerful than the Bundesrat, which represents the state governments. All bills must first be passed in the Bundestag before they are discussed in the Bundesrat. The Bundesrat can only accept laws passed by the Bundestag without amendment. Only in some areas, where laws directly affect the states, can the Bundesrat reject laws; otherwise, it can only lodge an objection to them, which the Bundestag can overrule. Above all, however, the chancellor and the federal government are solely responsible to the Bundestag. The Bundestag also has sole budgetary authority.
Since 1999, the Bundestag has met in the Reichstag building in Berlin. The Bundestag also operates in multiple new government buildings in Berlin around the neo-renaissance house and has its own police force (the Bundestagspolizei), directly subordinated to the Bundestag Presidency. The Bundestag's presiding officer is the president of the Bundestag; they are deputized by the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag. Since 2025, Julia Klöckner of the CDU/CSU is the president of the Bundestag. In the protocol order of the federation, the President of the Bundestag ranks second after the President and before the Chancellor.
The first body to be called Bundestag was the legislative body of the German Confederation, which convened in Frankfurt am Main from 1816 to 1866. This Bundestag was a convention of state envoys. During the revolution of 1848/49, the National Assembly, which met in Frankfurt am Main, was the first elected German parliament and served as a constituent assembly for a German state, which ultimately did not come to pass.
The North German Confederation, founded in 1866/67, was the first German nation state with an established elected parliament, however this ended up being called the Reichstag. In 1870/71, the federation was expanded to include the southern German territories and was henceforth called the German Empire. The Reichstag building, where the current Bundestag meets since 1999 (see below), was built in 1888. The German Empire was not yet a parliamentary democracy in the modern sense, but a constitutional monarchy with democratic elements. The Reichstag had to approve all bills, had the right to initiate legislation and, in particular, had budgetary sovereignty. However, the Chancellor and the imperial government were not responsible to parliament, but to the emperor alone. It was not until 1918, a few weeks before the end of the First World War, that the Reichstag was given the right, as part of a constitutional reform, to withdraw its confidence in the Chancellor and thus force him to resign. There was also no universal suffrage for the Reichstag; only men over the age of 25 were entitled to vote in Reichstag elections.
After its defeat in the First World War, Germany became a republic and a parliamentary democracy with the Weimar Constitution of 1919. The voting age was lowered to 21 years and women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag. However, the first German democracy failed for various reasons, some of which were directly related to the Reichstag. The pure proportional representation system in elections did not produce clear majorities and the various parties were not sufficiently willing to compromise to form stable governments. This led to numerous changes of government and snap elections. In the last years of the Weimar Republic, opposition parties on the far-right and the far-left held the majority of seats in the Reichstag, which led the governments to rule largely by emergency decrees and bypass parliament. In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor and through the Reichstag Fire Decree, the Enabling Act of 1933 and the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, gained unlimited power. After this, the Reichstag, in which only the Nazi Party was represented from November 1933 on, met only rarely, above all to extend the emergency laws on which the Nazi dictatorship was formally based. It last convened on 26 April 1942.
With the Basic Law of 1949, Germany's second democratic constitution, the Bundestag was established as the new parliament. Due to the division of Germany, the Bundestag was de facto a West German parliament until 1990. The socialist GDR in East Germany had its own parliament, the Volkskammer, which, however, did not emerge from democratic elections except for its last electoral term in 1990. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Basic Law during the division, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former waterworks facility and finally in the Bundeshaus. In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 22 non-voting delegates chosen by the House of Representatives, the city's legislature.
Since German reunification in 1990, the Bundestag has once again been an all-German parliament. In 1999, the German parliament moved from Bonn to Berlin and sits once again in the Reichstag building.
Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag forms the legislative branch of the German political system.
The Bundestag is one of three constitutional bodies (along with the Bundesrat and the federal government) that have the right of initiative for the legislative process. In order to introduce a bill in the Bundestag, the support of a faction or of a number of MPs corresponding to at least 5% of all MPs is required. All bills (including those introduced by the Bundesrat and the government) are first voted on in the Bundestag (for bills from the Bundesrat and the government, however, an opinion must first be obtained from the other body). A bill is first discussed at first reading, then referred to one or more committees, where it can be amended; the resulting committee version then goes back to the plenary, where it is passed at second and third reading. Amendments can also be tabled at this stage. A simple majority (more yes votes than no votes with no regard to abstentions) is required for normal legislative proposals. In some very rare cases, the Basic Law requires the so-called chancellor majority (majority of all members of parliament) for simple laws, for example to establish new intermediate and subordinate federal authorities. Laws amending the Basic Law require a two-thirds majority of all members of the Bundestag.
A law passed by the Bundestag is passed on to the Bundesrat. Amendments to the Basic Law and laws that directly affect the states must be passed by the Bundesrat by majority vote (amendments to the Basic Law, again, by a two-thirds majority); all other laws are considered passed if the Bundesrat does not object to them within 14 days. An objection by the Bundesrat can be overruled by the Bundestag with a chancellor majority if the Bundesrat has not raised the objection with a two-thirds majority (in the latter case, in order to override an objection, a two-thirds majority of members present corresponding at least to the chancellor majority is necessary). In no case can the Bundesrat make amendments to a bill. If the Bundesrat rejects a bill, the matter is often referred to the so-called mediation committee, a body made up of an equal number of members of the Bundestag and Bundesrat, which attempts to negotiate whether the bill can find the approval of both chambers with certain amendments. A version amended in this way must then be passed again by a majority in both chambers in order to become law (in this case the rules of procedure of both chambers provide for an abbreviated legislative procedure).