An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it (for authorization or legitimacy) for the delegation of the legislative body's power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation. The effects of enabling acts from different times and places vary widely.

The German word for an enabling act is Ermächtigungsgesetz (lit. 'empowering law'). It usually refers to the enabling act of 23 March 1933 which became a cornerstone of Adolf Hitler's seizure of power.

The first enabling act is dated from 4 August 1914 just after the German entry into World War I. With the vote of the Social Democratic Party, the Reichstag (the German Empire's parliament) agreed to give the government certain powers to take the necessary economic measures during the war. Such enabling acts were also common in other countries. The Reichstag had to be informed, and had the right to abolish a decree based on the enabling act. This ensured that the government used its rights with care and only in rare cases was a decree abolished. The parliament retained its right to make law.

In the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), there were several enabling acts: three in 1919, one in 1920, one in 1921, three in 1923, one in 1926, and one in 1927. The enabling act on 24 February 1923, originally limited until 1 June but extended until 31 October, empowered the cabinet to resist the occupation of the Ruhr. There was an enabling act on 13 October 1923 and an enabling act on 8 December 1923 that would last until the dissolution of the Reichstag on 13 March 1924.

Most of them had a temporal limit but only vague thematic limits. On the basis of these acts, a vast number of decrees were signed with enormous importance for social and economic life, the judicial system, and taxes. For example, the reform of German currency in response to hyperinflation, the merger of the Länderbahnen into the Deutsche Reichsbahn national railway system, and unemployment pay were settled via such decrees (Vollmacht-Verordnungen). The Emminger Reform of 4 January 1924 abolished the jury as trier of fact and replaced it with a mixed system of judges and lay judges in Germany's judiciary which still exists today.

These enabling acts were unconstitutional, as the Weimar constitution did not provide the possibility that one organ (parliament) would transfer its rights to another one (executive government). But constitutional experts accepted them because they came into existence with a two-thirds majority, the same majority as for constitutional changes. The government had succeeded in gathering those majorities by threatening to call for presidential emergency dictatorial decrees (Notverordnungen), otherwise. In March 1924, the Reichstag wanted to discuss the abolition of decrees (which were granted by the enabling act of February that year). President Friedrich Ebert dismissed parliament to avoid discussion and abolishments.

In later years, governments failed to gather two-thirds of majorities since the radicalization of the revolutionary national-conservative German National People's Party in 1928 and the rise of the National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi Party) after 1930. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning (1930–1932) worked with presidential decrees which replaced most of the ordinary legislature, eventually.

The enabling acts had set a poor and dangerous example, but for the government, they had the advantage that they appeared less unconstitutional and dictatorial compared to presidential decrees. Parliament could prefer those acts because they were valid only for a limited time and included mostly a kind of cooperation (e.g. via a special house committee).