The House of Lords (German: Herrenhaus; Czech: Panská sněmovna; Italian: Camera dei signori; Slovene: Gosposka zbornica; Polish: Izba Panów; Romanian: Camera Domnilor; Ukrainian: Палата панів, Palata paniv) was the upper house of the Imperial Council, the bicameral legislature of the Austrian Empire from 1861 and of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) half of Austria-Hungary upon the Compromise of 1867.

As Emperor Franz Joseph's position was weakened by the Second Italian War of Independence and the loss of Lombardy, the Austrian minister-president Count Johann Bernhard von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen sought for a close alliance with the haute bourgeoisie.

Elaborated under Count Rechberg's successor Archduke Rainer and State Minister Anton von Schmerling, it gave way for the transition of Austria to a constitutional monarchy.

The House of Lords met for the first time on 29 April 1861 at the Palais Niederösterreich in Vienna's Herrengasse, its venue until the Austrian Parliament Building on the Ringstrasse boulevard was completed.

Restored in a modern style, it is today the meeting place of the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian Parliament.

Their requests were initially denied by Minister Schmerling ("Austria can wait"), nevertheless, on the eve of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the inaugural session of the second legislature took place on 20 May 1867 without Hungarian representatives even being called.

In December 1906, the members of the House of Lords led by Archduke Franz Ferdinand bitterly opposed the implementation of universal male suffrage, initiated by the Austrian government of Minister-president Baron Max Wladimir von Beck to meet the demands of the Social Democrats under Victor Adler.

The last Austrian Minister-president Heinrich Lammasch announced that his cabinet, appointed by Emperor Charles I on 27 October, would make no policy statement, whereupon the meeting was adjourned by Speaker Prince Alfred III of Windisch-Grätz after only five minutes.

At the same time, the Provisional National Assembly of German-Austria met at the Palais Niederösterreich and implemented the government of State Chancellor Karl Renner.

Sixty-four other countships: Schlick, Lodron, Hardegg, Montecuccoli, Thurn und Valsassina, Buquoy, Tarnowski, Althann, Czernin von und zu Chudenitz, Waldstein-Wartenberg, Thun und Hohenstein, Attems, Des Fours-Walderode, Herberstein, Nostitz, Ungnad von Weißenwolff, Vetter, Abensberg-Traun, Brandis, Trapp, Serényi, Sternberg, Kaunitz, Lamberg, Kolowrat, Hoyos-Stichsenstein, Kinský, Falkenhayn, Goëss, Kálnoky, Wratislaw-Mittrowitz, Zierotin, Podstatzky, Haugwitz, Potocki, Gołuchowski, Lanckoroński, Lewicki, Westphalen, Mensdorff-Pouilly, Miniscalchi, Papafava, Meran, Badeni, Colleoni, Venier, Vrints, Fünfkirchen, Widmann-Sedlnitzky, Dobrženský von Dobrženitz, Walterskirchen, Gudenus, Sedlnitzky, Ludwigstorff, and Wassilko von Serecki Nine baronial families: Three margravial families: