Belfast was granted borough status by James I in 1613 and official city status by Queen Victoria in 1888. Since 1973 it has been a local government district under local administration by Belfast City Council. Belfast is represented in both the British House of Commons and in the Northern Ireland Assembly. For elections to the European Parliament, Belfast is within the Northern Ireland constituency.

The city of Belfast has a mayoral form of municipal government. The City's officials are the Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and High Sheriff who are elected from among fifty-one councillors. The first Lord Mayor of Belfast was Daniel Dixon, who was elected in 1892. As of June 2008, the Lord Mayor of Belfast is Sinn Féin politician, Tom Hartley, who is only the second Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of the city. His duties include presiding over meetings of the council, receiving distinguished visitors to the city, and representing and promoting the city on the national and international stage. Hartley replaces the Ulster Unionist Party Lord Mayor, Jim Rodgers OBE.

In 1997, Unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining the balance of power between Nationalists and Unionists. This position was confirmed in the council elections of 2001 and 2005. Since then it has had three Nationalist mayors, two from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and one from Sinn Féin. The first nationalist Lord Mayor of Belfast was Alban Maginness of the SDLP, in 1996.

In the 2005 local government elections, the voters of Belfast elected fifty-one councillors to Belfast City Council from the following political parties: 15 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14 Sinn Féin, 8 SDLP, 7 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party, 2 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and 1 Independent (a former deputy mayor who takes the UUP whip was a member of the defunct Loyalist paramilitary linked, Ulster Democratic Party).