The approval is issued by the Federal Office for Food Safety by notice. The approval is based on assessment reports and expert opinions by AGES experts in the fields of toxicology, residue behavior, environmental behavior and ecotoxicology, efficacy and phytotoxicity, and physicochemical properties.

Based on the results of the risk assessment, the Federal Office for Food Safety prescribes risk reduction measures in the approval notice and specifies the relevant product labeling of the plant protection products. The criteria for labeling are defined for all chemicals and thus also for plant protection products by EU directives, which are implemented in Austria by the Chemicals Act and the ordinances based on it (classification, risk phrases, safety instructions). Further risk reduction measures to be implemented by the user include, for example, distance requirements from surface waters to protect non-target aquatic organisms, restrictions on use on flowering crops to protect bees, or waiting periods to be observed between the last treatment and harvest. The authorization of a plant protection product is granted for a maximum period of 10 years. An extension of the approval is only possible after a new comprehensive evaluation according to the current state of scientific knowledge and technology.

The documents to be submitted by applicants are regulated uniformly throughout the EU in Regulation (EC) 1107/2009 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market.

For applications for authorization, the forms prepared by the Federal Office for Food Safety for the individual authorization procedures are to be used.

On June 14, 2011, EU Regulation 1107/2009 and the Plant Protection Products Act 2011 came into force. Thus, the Plant Protection Products Act 1997, the Equal Treatment Ordinance of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Equal Treatment Ordinance of the Kingdom of the Netherlands were repealed.

Furthermore, the Plant Protection Products Ordinance 2011 was published in Federal Law Gazette II No. 233/2011 as of July 25, 2011. The main parts of the Plant Protection Products Act 2011 entered into force on June 14, 2011, but also include important transitional provisions regarding the application procedure and approval of plant protection products.

Article 53 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 provides that, under certain circumstances, the placing on the market of a plant protection product may be authorized for a limited and controlled use for a period not exceeding 120 days, where such a measure proves necessary in view of a danger which cannot be contained in any other way.

Emergency authorization is an important instrument, especially in organic farming, to enable effective plant protection and to be able to deal with exceptional situations in a targeted manner. To facilitate the situation in this regard and to ensure a structured approach in connection with the application, guidelines for emergency situations in plant protection have now been developed. These guidelines provide for 6 different categories of plant protection products, for each of which different requirements apply to the application for authorization.

The guidelines below are binding for all applications under Article 53 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 submitted to the Federal Office for Food Safety as of 1.6.2016. Terminated and pending emergency authorizations can be retrieved in the Plant Protection Products Register under "Predefined searches".