Recognition · Restricted
Italy citizenship by descent: who qualifies in 2026
Italy used to recognize descendants with no generation limit. Law 74/2025 now limits new claims to people whose parent or grandparent held only Italian citizenship. The Constitutional Court upheld the law in April 2026, but EU-law questions are now pending before the Court of Justice of the EU.
- Route
- Jure sanguinis recognition
- How far back
- Parent or grandparent (for applications filed after March 27, 2025)
- Language test
- No
- Dual citizenship
- Allowed. You keep your US citizenship.
- Government fee
- €600 per adult applicant (non-refundable)
- Typical timeline
- Varies widely by consulate; plan for well over a year
The rules that decide eligibility
- For applications filed after 11:59 pm Rome time on March 27, 2025, your parent or grandparent must hold (or have held at death) exclusively Italian citizenship.
- Alternatively, a parent who lived in Italy for two consecutive years after becoming Italian and before your birth can transmit citizenship.
- Complete applications filed before the March 27, 2025 cut-off, appointments the consulate or comune had already communicated by then, and court cases filed by then are still assessed under the old rules, with no generation limit.
- Each person in the chain must have been an Italian citizen when the next generation was born. An ancestor's naturalization before that birth breaks the chain.
- Lines that pass through a woman before January 1, 1948 have historically required a court case in Rome rather than a consulate.
What to watch
- The Constitutional Court upheld Law 74/2025 in Judgment No. 63/2026 (April 30, 2026).
- Order No. 147/2026 (July 23, 2026) referred EU-law questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (Case C-816/26). The outcome could change who qualifies.