Albania

Albania has made notable progress in establishing legal protections for LGBTIQ people, even as societal acceptance remains uneven. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1995. Another major milestone came in 2010, when Parliament unanimously adopted the Law on Protection from Discrimination, explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity across areas such as employment, education, health care, housing, and access to goods and services. The law established a Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination to review complaints, complemented by the People’s Advocate or ombudsperson for human rights, whose mandate includes monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation of LGBTI people. Together, these institutions provide an important—if imperfect—framework for redress.

Further protections were introduced in 2013, when the criminal code was amended to recognize crimes motivated by sexual orientation and gender identity, and legislation was adopted criminalizing the dissemination of homophobic information. Additional policy commitments followed, including measures in the 2018 National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security to strengthen police capacity to investigate hate crimes. Despite these advances, evidence consistently shows that hate crimes against LGBTIQ people are underreported, inadequately investigated, and weakly prosecuted, limiting the practical impact of these legal safeguards.

Significant gaps remain in family recognition, gender recognition, and health care. Same-sex marriage and civil unions are not recognized, as the Family Code defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Joint adoption by same-sex couples is unavailable, although single individuals may adopt regardless of sexual orientation. Albania also lacks a legal procedure for changing gender markers, and transgender people must travel abroad to access gender-affirming health care. Since 2020, Albania has prohibited discrimination based on “sex characteristics.” However, the country lacks legislation banning nonconsensual, nontherapeutic surgeries on intersex infants, and a 2020 medical protocol permits such interventions.

In 2025, the Democratic Party proposed amendments to the Civil Registry to codify only two genders, a move widely criticized by human rights groups. This effort did not ultimately prevail. However, conservative forces were able to force the removal of language on “inclusive gender,” understood to refer to nonbinary gender identities, in a new Gender Equality Law adopted in November 2025. On balance, the law strengthened protections, prohibiting “any less favorable treatment of a person on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, expression of gender identity or sex characteristics,” as well as “intersectional discrimination.”