Vatican City's government: a state whose ruler is elected to another office

How a bishop becomes Vatican City's sovereign

The conclave is the one electoral procedure in Vatican public life, and the Church defines its electorate. Its members are the cardinals below the age of 80, bishops and archbishops appointed by earlier popes, and they meet after a pope dies or resigns. Wikipedia's account of the procedure has them locked into the Sistine Chapel, from the Latin cum clave, until one candidate reaches a two-thirds majority. Ballots are usually taken twice in the morning and twice in the evening. The voting papers are burnt in a stove attached to a chimney visible from St Peter's Square, with additives that turn the smoke black when nobody has been elected and white when somebody has.

Nothing in that procedure mentions the state. The cardinals are choosing the head of the Catholic Church, and the state receives its sovereign because the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929 vested sovereignty over the Vatican in the Holy See. The Governorate's own description of the state gives the form of government as absolute monarchy, with the Supreme Pontiff holding the fullness of legislative, executive and judicial power. Wikipedia calls the arrangement an absolute elective monarchy and a rare case of a monarchy that is not hereditary.

The treaty anticipated the conclave and wrote Italy into it. Article 21 obliges Italy, whenever the see falls vacant, to arrange free transit for cardinals across Italian territory to the Vatican, to leave their personal liberty unimpeded, and to take whatever measures are needed around the city to prevent any act that might disturb the conclave. The same article makes cardinals who live in Rome outside the walls citizens of Vatican City for all purposes. A cardinal elector who lives outside Rome holds no citizenship on that ground but still votes in the conclave.

Britannica's phrase is that popes are elected for life, and the record since 2013 shows both ways the office ends. Benedict XVI resigned in February 2013, citing old age and health. The conclave that met in early March elected Francis on 13 March 2013. Francis died in Vatican City on 21 April 2025, the day after Easter, and the cardinals chose his successor later that year, the second conclave in twelve years.

Why the Holy See and Vatican City differ

Two legal persons share the pope at the top. The Holy See, in the words of its mission to the United Nations, is the supreme authority of the pope as Bishop of Rome and head of the college of bishops: the central government of the Catholic Church. It has a legal personality that lets it make treaties as the juridical equal of a state and send and receive diplomats. Wikipedia's Holy See article treats it as a juridical entity continuous since Roman imperial times, one that kept exchanging envoys from 1870 to 1929 while it held no territory at all.

Vatican City State is younger and narrower. The mission calls it the physical or territorial base of the Holy See, "almost a pedestal" for a much larger sovereign authority. The state has a personality of its own in international law and enters agreements, but the Holy See represents it abroad, and when it signs for the state it uses the formula "acting on behalf and in the interest of the State of Vatican City". Wikipedia cites the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office describing the two as separate international identities and comparing the Holy See's legal personality to that of the Crown in Christian monarchies.

The division runs through the institutions down to the guards at the gates. The Pontifical Swiss Guard, founded by Julius II in January 1506 as the pope's bodyguard, is listed in the Annuario Pontificio under the Holy See. The Gendarmerie Corps polices the state, and the 2018 Law on the Government of the State places it in a Directorate of Security Services and Civil Protection alongside the fire brigade.

The Secretariat of State is the one body of the Roman Curia located inside Vatican City, according to Wikipedia. The Curia's other offices work from buildings around Rome that carry extraterritorial rights comparable to those of embassies.

What the newest Fundamental Law changed

The text that gives the state what its preamble calls its "constitutional identity" is the Fundamental Law. The pope signed the present one on Thursday 31 July 2026, the memorial of St Ignatius of Loyola, and it entered into force at once, replacing a Fundamental Law in effect since 13 May 2023. Vatican News reported the preamble's stated reason as the need "to take account of new requirements of governance and of several important legislative changes introduced in recent years".

The change with the widest consequence came eight months earlier. A motu proprio of 19 November 2025 repealed Article 8, paragraph 1, of the 2023 law, which had provided that only cardinals could serve as President of the Pontifical Commission. The 2026 text folds that repeal into a single law. Its Article 8 now reads that the Commission "is composed of Cardinals and other Members, including the President, appointed by the Supreme Pontiff for a five-year term". The President of the Commission is also President of the Governorate, so one amendment opened the chair of the legislature and the head of the administration to people who are not cardinals. When the law was signed, Vatican News reported, both posts were held by a religious sister.

Two further changes concern the executive. The law sets out the separate responsibilities of the President and the Secretary General and how the two are to work together, and it describes the office of Secretary General as institutional, which Vatican News reads as allowing the role to be entrusted to more than one person. On the courts, Article 22, paragraph 1, refers their organisation to the separate Law on the Judicial System.

The chain of authority stays where it was. The preamble restates that the Governorate serves the Successor of Peter, "to whom it is directly accountable", and it entrusts the governing bodies with every power pertaining to the territory defined by the Lateran Treaty and to the buildings where institutions of the state or the Holy See operate under guarantees of international law. The 2026 text changes who may be appointed and how appointees divide their work, and every one of those appointments is still the pope's.

How the Pontifical Commission makes the state's laws

Legislation belongs to the pope, who delegates it. Pius XII established the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State in 1939 to legislate in his name. Wikipedia's politics entry, in its revision of July 2026, still describes it as seven cardinals appointed for five-year terms, a description the rule change of November 2025 has overtaken.

A law passed by the Commission takes effect once the pope approves it through the Secretariat of State and it is published in the Italian-language supplement of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis that deals with the state. Most of that supplement, Wikipedia observes, is routine executive decrees such as the approval of a new set of postage stamps. Councillors of State, consulted singly or as a body, advise on drafting.

The statute book marks the line between the two sovereigns again. The Holy See most often issues the authoritative versions of its documents in Latin. Vatican City has no formally enacted official language and uses only Italian in its legislation and official communications. Its laws carry Roman numerals: the Law on the Government of the State is number CCLXXIV, and it cites Law LXXI on the Sources of Law wherever it touches the state's international obligations.

Members hold their seats by appointment, and so does the President, whom Wikipedia describes as removable by the pope at any time within the five-year term.

Who runs the Governorate from day to day

Executive power sits with the President of the Governorate. Since 1952 the President of the Pontifical Commission has exercised the functions that once belonged to a Governor of Vatican City, and since 2001 the same person has also carried the title of President of the Governorate. The chair of the legislature and the head of the administration are one office. A Secretary General and a Deputy Secretary General assist, each appointed by the pope for five years.

What the law on government set up

The present structure comes from the Law on the Government of Vatican City State, which Francis signed as a motu proprio on 25 November 2018. It was promulgated in L'Osservatore Romano on 7 December 2018 and took effect on 7 June 2019. Its preamble records how it was made: an act of 18 August 2014 empowered the cardinal then presiding over the Commission to reorganise the Governorate, and an act of 22 February 2017 delegated to him the drafting of a new law, with a working commission to assist. The law gives the Secretary General custody of the state's official seal and, while the see is vacant, charges him with the ordinary running of the office and its current business.

Seven directorates carry out the work. They cover infrastructure and services; telecommunications and information systems; the economy; security and civil protection; health and hygiene; museums and cultural heritage; and the Pontifical Villas. Two central offices, one legal and one for personnel, sit beside them. The Legal Office acts as the state's attorney, keeps the civil registry and the register of residents, and holds registers of civil and canonical legal persons, vehicles and ships. The economy directorate contains the state accounting office and the mint, and the health directorate runs the Vatican Pharmacy, which makes and sells its own medicines. A Control and Inspection Unit inside the General Secretariat checks that the directorates follow the rules and reports to the governing organs. The Vatican Observatory is attached as a scientific body with its own regulations.

Where the money answers

The list maps what a government of 44 hectares does: its gardens, fountains and roads, its post and stamps, its police and firefighters, its museums, and the papal palace at Castel Gandolfo, which lies outside the state's own territory. Money in the Vatican's financial institutions follows the same upward line. The Institute for the Works of Religion had its 2025 accounts approved by its supervisory board on 28 April 2026 and passed to a commission of cardinals, which decided to distribute a dividend of €24.3 million to the pope, 76.1% more than for 2024, according to Vatican News.

What happens when the papal see falls vacant

A vacancy is the one period when the state's powers leave a single person. The Governorate's description of the state says that during the sede vacante its legislative, executive and judicial powers pass to the College of Cardinals. Wikipedia supplies the working detail. The Cardinal Camerlengo, who presides over the Apostolic Camera, acts with three other cardinals chosen by lot every three days, one from each order of cardinals, and in a sense performs the functions of head of state; every decision the four take needs the approval of the full College. The state's own affairs stay with the Pontifical Commission, and the 2018 law hands the Governorate's ordinary business to the Secretary General.

The Holy See loses more of its officials. The heads of the Curia's dicasteries cease to hold office immediately, with two exceptions: the Major Penitentiary, and the Camerlengo, who administers the properties and finances of the See. Canon law forbids the College and the Camerlengo to introduce any innovation in the government of the Church while the see is vacant.

The rules were last used in 2025. Francis died on 21 April, the cardinals elected his successor, and the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, reporting its 2025 accounts in July 2026, described the year as marked by the death of one pope and the election of the next and said it had kept its services to the Holy See running throughout.

Who counts as a citizen of Vatican City

Citizenship follows office. Vatican law grants it neither by descent nor by birth on the territory, Wikipedia records, but on the ground of appointment to serve the Holy See in certain capacities, a principle known as jus officii. Cardinals living in Vatican City or elsewhere in Rome qualify, as do the Holy See's diplomats and anyone resident in the state because of their work, and the status usually ends with the appointment. A spouse and children living with a citizen inside the city share it. The pope alone holds Vatican citizenship for life.

The treaty set a floor under anyone who loses it. Article 9 of the Lateran Treaty makes a person who ceases to be subject to the Holy See, and holds no other citizenship under Italian law, an Italian national.

Residence and citizenship part company in the figures. The record gives 882 residents, whatever their citizenship, on 31 December 2024. Wikipedia counts 372 Vatican citizens living elsewhere in 2024, most of them Holy See diplomats abroad and cardinals living in Rome. Because most of the roles that confer citizenship are reserved to men, Wikipedia notes, men outnumber women among citizens by several to one. Vatican City issues ordinary passports to its citizens, and the Holy See, which is not a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports.

How Vatican courts try and punish offences

Judicial power is exercised in the pope's name by four bodies: a Supreme Court, a Court of Appeal, a Tribunal and a Sole Judge. The Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, a court of the Church, serves by law as President of the Court of Cassation, the state's highest court of appeal. In March 2020 Francis signed Law CCCLI as a motu proprio, replacing the judicial system founded in 1987. Wikipedia summarises what it did: greater independence for judges and magistrates, requirements for appointing judges, more court staff, a head for the Office of the Promoter of Justice, which prosecutes, and a standard procedure for disciplining advocates.

The state has no prison system beyond a few cells for pre-trial detention. People convicted in the Vatican serve their terms in Italian prisons, with the Vatican paying the cost. The treaty planned for this. Article 22 obliges Italy, at the Holy See's request, to punish offences committed within the Vatican, and requires the Holy See to hand over anyone who takes refuge inside after an act in Italy that both states treat as a crime. Article 23 applies international law to the execution in Italy of sentences passed by Vatican courts.

How the Holy See conducts the state's foreign relations

Vatican City has no diplomatic service of its own. Article 12 of the Lateran Treaty recognised the Holy See's right to send and receive envoys under international law, and foreign governments accredit their ambassadors to the Holy See. The walls leave no room for embassies, so they sit in Rome. During the Second World War some embassies accredited to the Holy See were given what space could be found inside the city, Britain's while the Axis held Rome and Germany's once the Allies had taken it.

How large the diplomatic network is

The count depends on the source and its date. The Holy See's mission to the United Nations, writing in 2018 for its 54th year as an observer, gave diplomatic relations with 182 of 193 countries and 116 nunciatures and permanent missions. Wikipedia's Holy See article, in its revision of September 2026, gives 183 sovereign states plus the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and puts 69 of the missions accredited to the Holy See in Rome. The politics entry, revised in July 2026, gives 179. The Holy See's relations with China run through the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, according to the same Holy See article.

The United Nations date also varies. The mission gives 6 April 1964 as the day the Holy See became a permanent observer and opened its office in New York, and says the status is its own choice, kept to preserve neutrality on specific political questions. Wikipedia's Vatican City article dates observer status at the General Assembly to 1968.

Which bodies the state joins

Membership follows the same division. The state itself belongs to eight organisations whose work concerns it as a piece of territory: the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, Eutelsat, the International Grains Council, the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, Interpol and the Universal Postal Union. The Holy See is a full member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and an observer at the Council of Europe, the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Vatican City State belongs to neither the Council of Europe nor the European Convention on Human Rights and is not a party to the International Criminal Court.

Article 24 of the treaty declares Vatican City neutral and inviolable territory in every event, and records the Holy See's undertaking to stay out of temporal rivalries between other states unless the parties jointly appeal to it. The state keeps no armed forces. Italy's armed forces provide its military defence, and no formal defence treaty exists, because the state is neutral.