Italy · Citizenship by descent
Citizenship by Descent (Jure Sanguinis)
TRANSFORMED. Decree-Law No. 36/2025 took effect overnight on 27–28 March 2025 with no notice, converted into Law No. 74/2025 (Chamber vote 20 May 2025, published in the Official Gazette 23 May, effective 24 May 2025). Italy went from having NO generational limit — the most open descent regime in the world — to a hard two-generation limit. The Constitutional Court dismissed challenges on 12 March 2026 as partly unfounded and partly inadmissible, so the reform stands and the main judicial route to attack it is closed.
This was the largest single contraction of citizenship eligibility in modern European history — an estimated 60–80 million people worldwide lost a claim overnight, without transition, by emergency decree. The Constitutional Court's 12 March 2026 dismissal confirmed Parliament's broad discretion and that there is no constitutional right to unlimited generational transmission. For clients who were told for years that their Italian great-grandfather was an EU passport in waiting: that door closed at 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025.
Qualifying routes
the new generational ceiling — great-grandparent lines no longer qualify
ancestor never naturalised elsewhere
residence must post-date the parent's acquisition of citizenship
no other nationality
applications submitted, or appointments confirmed, by 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025 are assessed under the OLD rules
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Consular fee of roughly EUR 600–700 per adult applicant, plus document sourcing, apostilles, translations and legal fees — typically EUR 5–20k for a family. Minor declarations filed from 1 January 2026 are free of charge; the transitional minor declaration carries a EUR 250 contribution.
- Timeline
- 12–36 months — consular processing of up to 730 days is cited officially; municipal and judicial routes vary widely
- Physical presence
- None for recognition — this is recognition of a citizenship you are deemed always to have held, not a grant
- Family
- minor children of a recognised citizen, by declarationeach adult descendant must qualify in their own right
- Permanent residency
- n/a
- Citizenship
- Recognition is immediate if the criteria are met
- Language test
- None for jure sanguinis recognition (unlike naturalisation by marriage or residence, which require B1)
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- descent from an Italian ancestor who held and did not lose citizenship before transmitting itAND, for those born abroad and applying after 27 March 2025, at least one of: a parent or grandparent born in Italy; a parent or grandparent who held exclusively Italian citizenship; a citizen parent resident in Italy for two consecutive years before the applicant's birth; or the applicant holding no other citizenshipunbroken documentary chain — birth, marriage, death and naturalisation records, apostilled and translatedno naturalisation of the ancestor before the next-in-line's birth or during their minority
- The two-generation limit is now judicially settled after the 12 March 2026 Constitutional Court decision. Litigation strategies premised on unconstitutionality should be regarded as dead.
- The 27 March 2025 cut-off is precise to 23:59 Rome time and turns on filing or a confirmed booking — not on when you started gathering documents.
- The line also breaks if the ancestor naturalised elsewhere before the descendant's birth or during their minority — a rule that predates 2025 and still defeats many otherwise-eligible lines.
- The transitional route for those who were minors on 24 May 2025 requires the parental declaration by 31 May 2026 — that deadline is weeks away as at July 2026 and is effectively unrecoverable once missed.
- Under the 2026 Budget Law parents have three years from a child's birth to register at the competent consulate; miss it and the child's position becomes materially harder.
- Consular capacity is the practical constraint even for qualifying applicants — official processing of up to 730 days is cited.
- The 1948 rule (maternal lines before 1 January 1948 requiring court action) still bites on top of the new limits.
- The exact interaction between the 'exclusively Italian citizenship' condition and the two-generation rule is drafted confusingly and is being applied inconsistently across consulates; take Italian counsel on a specific line rather than relying on any summary, including this one.