Italian citizenship by descent after the 2025 reform

Until 2025 this was the one route in Italian nationality law with no generational ceiling: if the chain of transmission had never been broken, a great-great-grandparent born in Italy was enough. Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted into Law 74 of 23 May 2025, ended that.

For a person born abroad, recognition now requires an Italian parent or grandparent. There is a second condition that is easy to miss and decides a great many cases on its own: the parent must have been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring citizenship and before the applicant's birth.

We are stating this first, and plainly, because the internet has not caught up. Most of what is written about jure sanguinis — including pages carrying recent dates — describes a regime that no longer exists, and acting on it means paying for genealogical research, record retrieval, translations and apostilles on a claim that does not meet the current requirements. That is the expensive part of this route, and it is spent before anyone looks at the law.

Whether a pending position is governed by the old rules or the new ones depends on the transitional provisions and on when the application was actually filed — not on when the research began, nor on when the documents were ordered.

Several provisions of the reform have been challenged before the Italian Constitutional Court. Until it rules, the framework is genuinely unsettled, and anyone telling you with confidence how a pre-reform position will be treated is telling you more than is currently knowable.

What is worth doing now is establishing exactly where your case stands: the filing date, the degree of kinship, and whether the parental residence condition is met or could be. That is a short piece of work, and it determines whether anything else is worth spending money on.

For those who do fall within the current requirements, the underlying logic has not changed, and it remains favourable. Naturalisation is a concession: the state examines the case and decides. Recognition by descent is not. If the line was never broken, you have been an Italian citizen since the day you were born, and the procedure establishes that fact.

The practical consequence is that there is no income requirement, no language test, no residence requirement for you, and no discretionary assessment of your integration. There is one question: can the line be documented?

Almost every case that fails on the documentary side fails on documents, not on law. The cases that now fail on law fail on the 2025 requirements — which is why the order of checks matters.

Within the narrower window the reform leaves, transmission can still have been interrupted. These are the events that do it.

You will need the birth, marriage and death records of every person in the line, from the Italian-born ancestor down to you. Records issued outside Italy must be translated and either apostilled or legalised, depending on the country.

You will also need evidence of whether and when the ancestor naturalised: a certificate of naturalisation, or an official statement that no record of naturalisation exists. In several countries this is the slowest document to obtain and the one that decides the case.

Then there is the part nobody expects. Names and dates rarely match across generations and borders, and a surname spelled one way on an Italian birth record and another on a foreign marriage certificate has to be reconciled before anyone will accept the chain. Correcting those discrepancies is usually the longest phase of the project.

One genuine consolation in the reform: a chain that reaches a parent or grandparent is far shorter than one reaching a great-great-grandparent. For the cases that still qualify, the documentary work is materially lighter than it was.

If you live abroad, the application goes to the Italian consulate with jurisdiction over your place of residence. Waiting times vary enormously between posts, and in the countries with the largest populations of Italian descent they are counted in years rather than months.

If you establish legal residence in an Italian municipality, the application is made there instead, on different timescales. That route means an actual move, with everything it entails — registration, somewhere to live, the obligations that come with residence — and it is not a shortcut to be taken lightly.

Which route makes sense depends on where you are, how urgent it is and whether moving is realistic. We say so honestly, including when the answer is that waiting at your consulate is the sensible option.

Italian citizenship is European Union citizenship. It carries the right to live, work and study in any member state without a visa, access to public healthcare and education, and the ability to pass citizenship on to your own children — subject, now, to the same 2025 conditions.

It also carries obligations, including registration with the register of Italians residing abroad once you are recognised. It affects nothing about your existing nationality: Italy permits dual citizenship, though your own country may take a different view, which is worth checking before you file.

We start with the law as it stands, not with your family tree. Degree of kinship, the parental residence condition, the filing date if a case is already open: that assessment costs little and decides whether anything else is worth doing. A claim that does not meet the 2025 requirements is better known in week one than after a year of record retrieval.

If the position holds, we handle the Italian side: retrieving records from Italian municipalities, checking the form of foreign documents, and reconciling discrepancies in names and dates. Where a case needs the judicial route — the 1948 maternal line, or a challenge connected to the reform — we put you in touch with the lawyers we work with.