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 advance notice. It was then converted into Law No. 74/2025, following a Chamber vote on 20 May 2025, publication in the Official Gazette on 23 May, and entry into effect on 24 May 2025. Before this, Italy had no generational limit at all, making it the most open descent regime in the world. Now there is a hard two-generation limit. On 12 March 2026, the Constitutional Court dismissed the challenges against it, ruling them partly unfounded and partly inadmissible. The reform stands, and the main judicial route to challenge it is now 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, with no 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 means great-grandparent lines no longer qualify.
The ancestor must never have naturalised elsewhere.
Residence must come after the parent acquired citizenship, not before.
You must hold no other nationality.
If your application was submitted, or your appointment confirmed, by 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025, it is assessed under the OLD rules.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- The consular fee runs roughly EUR 600–700 per adult applicant. On top of that come document sourcing, apostilles, translations and legal fees, which typically bring the total to 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.
- Route type
- By ancestry
- Timeline
- 1–3 years (Consular processing of up to 730 days is cited officially. Municipal and judicial routes vary widely.)
- Physical presence
- None for recognition. This process recognizes a citizenship you are deemed always to have held. It is not a grant.
- Family
- Minor children of a recognised citizen, by declarationEach adult descendant must qualify in their own right
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable
- Citizenship
- Recognition is immediate if the criteria are met.
- Language test
- None for jure sanguinis recognition. Naturalisation by marriage or residence is different and requires B1.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- descent from an Italian ancestor who held citizenship and had not lost it before passing it onAND, for those born abroad and applying after 27 March 2025, at least one of the following: 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 citizenshipan unbroken documentary chain: birth, marriage, death and naturalisation records, apostilled and translatedThe ancestor must not have naturalised before the next person in line was born, or during that person's minority.
- The two-generation limit is now judicially settled, following the 12 March 2026 Constitutional Court decision. Litigation strategies based on a claim of unconstitutionality should be regarded as dead.
- The 27 March 2025 cut-off is precise to 23:59 Rome time. It 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. This rule 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 once missed, it is effectively unrecoverable.
- 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 times of up to 730 days are cited.
- The 1948 rule, covering maternal lines before 1 January 1948 that require 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 it is being applied inconsistently across consulates. Take Italian counsel on your specific line rather than relying on any summary, including this one.