Italian citizenship by descent: the fight moves to Luxembourg

If you're pursuing Italian citizenship by descent, the ground just shifted again. The Constitutional Court had already upheld the core of last year's reform, which cut off jus sanguinis for most people born abroad. Now it's asking the EU's top court whether that cutoff is legal under EU citizenship rules. That's a meaningful escalation, and this week's coverage in Italian on Il Dubbio, Italia Report USA, and Insieme gives us a clearer sense of what it means in practice.

What Order 147/2026 says

Here's the gist of Order 147/2026, issued July 23, as reported by Il Dubbio (“Cittadinanza italiana, la Consulta si rivolge alla Corte Ue”) and Italia Report USA (“Ius Sanguinis, la stretta italiana approda alla corte UE”):

• The Court's earlier judgment (Sentenza 63/2026) upheld the March 2025 "Tajani decree," now codified as Art. 3-bis of Law 91/1992.
• That law retroactively cuts off automatic recognition for people born abroad who don't meet specific conditions.
• Narrow carve-outs remain: a pending application filed by March 27, 2025; an ancestor who held only Italian citizenship (no dual nationality); or a parent who lived in Italy for at least two continuous years before the child's birth.

What's new is that the Constitutional Court has referred a preliminary question to the EU Court of Justice. The question, stripped of legal jargon, is whether Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU (which guarantee EU citizenship to anyone holding a member state's nationality) allow a national law that retroactively bars people from ever having acquired citizenship in the first place, rather than formally "revoking" a status someone already held.

That distinction is important: revoking a recognized status and denying that the status ever existed are two different legal moves, and EU law treats them differently.

Why this is now a European story, not just an Italian one

As a legal translator specialized in citizenship cases, I've been following this case for a while, and what struck me most in this week's reporting is how the framing has changed. Earlier coverage treated this as an Italian constitutional matter: would Rome's own top court strike down or preserve the 2025 reform. The articles on Il Dubbio and on Italia Report USA both treat it primarily as a European matter now. The question isn't "what did Rome decide," it's "what will Luxembourg decide."

That's not just a semantic shift. Once a national court refers a question to the CJEU, the answer applies EU-wide and binds every member state's courts on that point of EU law. Italy's Constitutional Court doesn't get the last word here, the CJEU does.

A more optimistic voice from Brazil

An article on Insieme (“La Corte Costituzionale porta la cittadinanza italiana in Europa e riaccende la speranza per i discendenti”) stood out to me for its tone. Insieme covers Italian citizenship extensively for the Italian-Brazilian community, and the piece quotes Brazilian-Italian citizenship lawyer Marco Mellone, who's been closely involved in the litigation challenging the reform.

Mellone describes the referral as something more than a procedural pause. He says it reopens real legal ground for descendants, arguing that sending this question to Luxembourg is a sign that the retroactive cutoff sits on shakier legal footing than the Constitutional Court's own reasoning suggests. That's a more hopeful read than what I've seen in most Italian domestic coverage.

Worth being precise about what that optimism is, and isn't, based on. It's optimism about the existence of a live legal question at the EU level, not a signal that Italy's Constitutional Court is backing away from its own position.

No sign of softening in Rome

None of the three articles suggest the Constitutional Court's lean toward upholding the reform has changed. If anything, the Court's own reasoning in the referral leans toward finding the reform consistent with the CJEU's 2025 "genuine link" doctrine from the Malta golden-passport case, the same doctrine used to justify stricter nationality requirements tied to real, demonstrable connection to a country.

The Constitutional Court is asking Luxembourg to confirm that Italy's approach is compatible with EU citizenship rules, without signaling any doubt about its own ruling. It still expects, based on its own reasoning, that the answer will be yes.

Why this matters if you work on Italian citizenship cases

A few practical consequences follow directly from the referral:

• All pending Italian proceedings tied to this specific EU legal question are now suspended until Luxembourg rules.
• The "safe harbor" categories in Art. 3-bis remain the operative rule for now. Nothing about current filing requirements or deadlines has changed.
• A CJEU ruling could still be a year or more away, so anyone hoping for a quick resolution should recalibrate expectations.
• For clients and colleagues navigating jus sanguinis claims right now, the case has moved into a venue where the outcome is less predictable than domestic litigation alone would have suggested, and where advocates who've been in this fight for years see that as meaningful.

Where things stand

The practical rules haven't changed this week. If you're filing a claim, the same cutoffs, carve-outs, and documentation requirements from Art. 3-bis still apply. What has changed is the forum, and possibly the stakes. The case that started as a domestic constitutional question is now a live question of EU law, and that's a different kind of fight.

I'll keep tracking this as the CJEU timeline develops, and, as always, I'm available for any legal translation work related to Italian immigration.

Ius sanguinis at a crossroads: what Italy's citizenship reform really took away

Roberto Menia has a point worth taking seriously, even if you land on the other side of the debate. The Italian right-wing senator, one of the architects behind the country's 2025 citizenship reform, in an interview with Allora! Italian Australian News argues that ius sanguinis cannot stay unlimited forever. According to him you can't call yourself Italian just because a great-great-grandfather left in 1870, if you've never learned the language, never set foot in Italy, never engaged with Italian culture. It's an intuitive argument. But it's worth putting next to what the reform actually did, and what its critics say it took away.

What changed

For over a century, Italian citizenship by descent worked on a simple principle: if you could document an unbroken bloodline back to an Italian citizen, with no generational cutoff, you were entitled to recognition. That changed with Decree-Law 36/2025, converted into Law 74/2025. The new rules limit automatic transmission to a small number of generations born abroad after the last Italian‑resident ancestor, and require a demonstrable "effective connection" (such as a parent's prior residency in Italy) for claims beyond that limit. The law also reaches backward: people who, under the old rules, already qualified as citizens by descent, but hadn't yet gone through formal recognition, are now judged under the new framework.

The case for reform

Menia's numbers are part of the pro-reform argument, and worth stating. He says Italy's overseas citizen population has roughly doubled in twenty years, from about 3.5 million to 7.2 million, driven mostly by descent claims rather than new emigration. His figure runs a bit high (the 2025 Migrantes report puts the actual total closer to 6.5 million) but the underlying trend, a sharp rise, is well documented in ISTAT and Migrantes data.

Supporters of the reform point to administrative strain: consulates in Brazil and Argentina buried under backlogs, court dockets clogged with citizenship suits, and reported advertisements in Brazil offering discounted "Black Friday" packages to help people claim Italian citizenship. To many observers across the political spectrum, that image captured something troubling: a legal mechanism operating more like a commodity.

The case against: a right, revoked

This is where the reform draws its sharpest criticism. Whatever you think of unlimited descent-based citizenship as policy, it was, until March 2025, a settled legal entitlement. The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has long treated ius sanguinis citizenship as a status acquired at birth, not granted at the administration's discretion, and provable simply by establishing the bloodline. Several lower courts, including Turin and others, have since referred the new law to the Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates equal‑treatment principles by drawing arbitrary lines between people with identical ancestry, and that it undermines legitimate reliance on a rule that stood essentially unchanged since 1912.

Retroactivity makes this more than an abstract legal dispute. People who were already Italian citizens by birth under the old rules, but hadn't yet filed the paperwork, found that status revoked by decree. At a June 2025 conference opposing the law, one group of legal scholars and members of parliament used sharp language, describing the reform as a "frontal attack on rights, on the Constitution, and on the history of the diaspora," a law that treats overseas Italians as second-class citizens, passed by emergency decree without genuine parliamentary debate. Even the Constitutional Court's own July 2025 ruling, while not directly reviewing the new law, found that the pre-2025 rules allowing unlimited descent-based citizenship weren't themselves unconstitutional, meaning the reform can't be justified as fixing a constitutional flaw. It was a policy choice.

Caught in the middle

For translators and language professionals working with the Italian diaspora, this isn't an abstract legal debate. Citizenship applications, AIRE registrations, sworn translations of birth and marriage certificates going back generations: a lot of that work runs through us, and a lot of our clients are now navigating a much narrower, retroactively-applied set of rules than the ones they built their plans around.

Where it stands

The Constitutional Court has already ruled, and the reform survived. On April 30, 2026, the Court, in Sentenza 63/2026, rejected the constitutional challenges brought by the Turin tribunal, on equality, reasonableness, legitimate reliance, and EU law grounds, and confirmed that the new generational limit is compatible with the Constitution. The law remains fully in force.

That's not quite the end of it, though. The ruling addressed one specific referral; other courts, including Campobasso and Mantova, still have separate challenges pending, particularly over the law's retroactive effect on people considered citizens by birth under the old rules. Within weeks of the Constitutional Court's decision, the Court of Cassation issued its own ruling reaffirming that descent-based citizenship is a status acquired at birth and not subject to expiration, contradicting the Constitutional Court's own position, which treats citizenship as incomplete until formally recognized. Legal commentators are now watching for a formal clash between the two courts, expected to reach the Cassazione's full bench (Sezioni Unite) before the matter is settled.

The real question

Perhaps Menia is right that citizenship shouldn't be a formality detached from any lived connection to Italy. But there's a difference between designing a better system going forward and retroactively stripping status from people who, by the law's own prior terms, already held it. What does a state owe people who relied, in good faith, on a rule it kept in place for over a hundred years?

Ius soli: a quick tour of citizenship by birth in Europe and the Americas

Sometimes it’s useful to step back from national debates and look at the map. Ius soli (citizenship by place of birth) is often presented as either a “U.S. peculiarity” or a simple, automatic rule. In practice, it’s neither. The recent overview by Sky TG24 (“Ius soli, come funziona il diritto di cittadinanza nel mondo? Dagli Usa all'Europa”) on how citizenship by birth works in different countries offers a good starting point, and it’s worth expanding that picture a little for a European audience.

The core examples: US, Canada and the main EU countries

In the United States, birthright citizenship still follows the classic constitutional model: with limited exceptions (for example, children of foreign diplomats), anyone born on U.S. territory acquires citizenship at birth. Canada applies ius soli in a similarly broad way, with automatic citizenship for those born in the country and the usual diplomatic exceptions.

The situation changes once we cross the Atlantic.

• Italy relies primarily on ius sanguinis: being born in Italy to foreign parents does not make you Italian at birth. The standard route is an application at 18, subject to continuous, lawful residence since birth.
• The United Kingdom grants citizenship at birth to children born in the country only if at least one parent is a British citizen or holds permanent residence. Others may acquire citizenship later (for example, after 10 years’ continuous residence).
• Germany introduced a limited form of ius soli in 2000. A child born there to foreign parents can become German at birth if at least one parent has lived in Germany legally for a set number of years and holds a permanent residence permit.
• France applies a conditional ius soli system: in many cases, citizenship is acquired automatically at 18 for those who reside in France and have lived there for a minimum period, with earlier options at 13 or 16 under specific residence and schooling conditions.
• Spain remains largely anchored in ius sanguinis. Children of foreign parents born in Spain are not citizens automatically, although minors born in the country benefit from shorter residence requirements than adults when applying for citizenship.

Already at this stage the pattern is clear: automatic, unconditional ius soli survives primarily in North America, while the larger European systems have moved toward hybrid or “tempered” models that combine birthplace with conditions on parents and residence.

Other European countries: hybrid models, no “pure” ius soli

If we extend the lens to other EU and European states, the picture becomes even more consistent.

Ireland historically had broad ius soli, but reforms have restricted automatic citizenship: today, birth on Irish territory is no longer enough on its own, and the parents’ status and residence play a critical role. Many other EU countries (for example, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Nordic countries use variations on the same theme: ius sanguinis remains the backbone, while some form of ius soli appears only as an additional option, usually tied to residence duration or school attendance.

In practice, this means that:

• No EU member state applies “pure”, unconditional ius soli in the U.S./Canadian sense.
• Several countries allow children born on their territory to acquire citizenship more easily, but almost always subject to residence, integration, or parental‑status requirements.
• The legal vocabulary is similar – ius soli, ius sanguinis, ius culturae – but the underlying thresholds and time frames differ enough that they matter for both legal practice and translation.

From a comparative‑law perspective, ius soli in Europe is less a defining principle and more an adjustment mechanism: a way to soften a strictly descent‑based regime, without embracing automatic citizenship by birth.

The Americas: where unconditional ius soli survives

The Americas offer a very different landscape. Alongside the United States and Canada, most Latin American countries still recognize ius soli in its straightforward form: birth on national territory generally leads to citizenship, again with standard exceptions. For practical purposes, this means:

• In much of North, Central, and South America, children of foreign nationals become citizens of the country where they are born.
• Access to citizenship is therefore less tied to parents’ nationality and more to territorial connection, at least at the basic level.
• Later layers – residence, registration, documentation – can still be complex, but the starting point is different from the European approach.

This concentration of unconditional ius soli in the Western Hemisphere is one of the more striking features of the global map. It also explains why debates around birthright citizenship often look very different in a European parliament than in a Latin American one.

Why this matters (especially for law and translation)

For lawyers and legal translators, these distinctions are not just academic. They affect how we read and render texts on nationality, migration, minors’ rights, and even criminal or family law.

A few practical consequences:

• The same Latin labels (ius soli, ius sanguinis) cover quite different regimes depending on the country, so they can’t be treated as interchangeable “keywords” when translating or comparing statutes.
• Terms like “birth in the territory”, “permanent residence”, “continuous lawful residence”, or “minor” sit at the center of many of these rules and need to be handled with care across languages.
• Changes in one jurisdiction (for example, a tightening of residence requirements, or a shift from automatic to conditional ius soli) immediately ripple into casework, advice to clients, and cross‑border procedures.

If you work with citizenship law, immigration, or cross‑border family cases – or if you translate in these areas – it’s worth keeping this comparative picture in mind. Europe and the Americas are using the same conceptual toolkit, but the way those tools are assembled into actual rules of citizenship by birth is markedly different.

Frozen mandates, real consequences: the effects of the Italian Corte di Cassazione silence on citizenship applications

In his article “As the Court of Cassation has yet to rule on Venice ordinanze, crisis grows between Italian citizenship firms and clients” (Insieme, 27 May 2026), Desiderio Peron describes a problem that is technical on paper but very concrete for applicants worldwide. The Court of Venice has sent two cases (RG 5343/2025 and RG 5358/2025) to the Corte di Cassazione, asking it to clarify when a lawyer’s power of attorney in citizenship cases should be considered non‑existent from the outset, not just flawed or incomplete.

The issue revolves around article 182 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, which allows certain representation defects to be corrected later. Here, however, the Venetian judge draws a distinction: one thing is a mandate that exists but is filed incorrectly; quite another is a situation where, at the time the action is brought, the lawyer simply has no valid authority to act. In the orders, this is described as “ab origine” lack of the ius postulandi – and that’s a more serious issue than a missing document.

While the Corte di Cassazione thinks it over, proceedings are suspended and uncertainty permeates the entire citizenship industry. Clients worry about cases filed in recent years; companies and intermediaries face frozen pipelines, financial pressure, and, in some regions, drastic downsizing or outright closure. And this is not just about structures in Brazil: anyone who has relied on standardized, outsourced court filings, whether from Lisbon, Toronto, or Melbourne, should at least be asking who actually held the pen in their name.

Everything takes place in a climate already made more difficult by Law 74/2025 (the so‑called “Decreto Tajani”), where formal and procedural objections carry increasing weight. The right to Italian citizenship iure sanguinis may remain in principle, but the real battleground is shifting to how that right is brought before a judge – and whether the person who brought your case to court was ever truly entitled to speak for you.

Italian jus sanguinis after the crackdown: why the courts still matter

Italian citizenship by descent has taken a serious hit over the past year, as I mentioned in several recent blog posts, but a new ruling from Italy’s Supreme Court suggests it may be too early to write off jus sanguinis entirely.

In 2025, the so-called Tajani Decree, later converted into Law 74/2025, tightened the rules on citizenship by descent, and the Constitutional Court later confirmed that more restrictive approach. For many observers, that looked like the end of the old understanding of jus sanguinis as an open-ended right passed down indefinitely through Italian ancestry.

A new decision from the Corte di Cassazione, however, points in a different direction. In judgment no. 13818/2026, the Court reaffirmed that citizenship by descent exists from birth and is “permanent and imprescriptible.” Just as important, it held that when consulates make it effectively impossible to file an application — through endless queues, blocked booking systems, or suspended appointments — that obstacle can justify going directly to court.

In practical terms, this does not undo the recent legal restrictions. It does, however, strengthen the judicial route for people who were shut out by administrative dysfunction rather than by any lack of entitlement. In other words, the door may have narrowed, but the window is still open.

For background, see Rui Badaró’s comments in Italianismo, and also Desiderio Peron’s reporting in Insieme.

Study or work first, citizenship later: Italia Viva Sudamerica’s plan for Italian descendants

In her article “Italia Viva Sudamerica: studio o lavoro in Italia prima della cittadinanza” for Il Globo, journalist Francesca Capelli reports on a proposal from Italia Viva Sudamerica that aims to keep citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis) without generational limits, but introduce a mandatory one‑year stay in Italy before citizenship is granted. The idea is to reduce the workload of Italian consulates in South America while encouraging young people of Italian origin to move to a country facing a serious demographic crisis.

Nicolás Fuster, the party’s South America coordinator, argues that the old system was unsustainable: many people with almost no remaining connection to Italy were obtaining citizenship, at a cost to Italian taxpayers. At the same time, Italy is aging rapidly and needs new, working‑age residents. His proposal would allow anyone of Italian descent to apply, but with a clear condition: after preparing their file (for example in Argentina, Uruguay, or Brazil) and receiving a preliminary green light from the consulate, applicants would spend one year in Italy for study or work, complete the process there, and pass a final interview in Italian.

According to Fuster, this would be a “win‑win”: consulates would be less overloaded, Italy would receive younger taxpayers from countries with a similar culture, and many of these new citizens would likely choose to stay after integrating socially and learning the language. He also stresses that supporting ius sanguinis does not exclude supporting ius soli for people born in Italy to foreign parents. However, Capelli notes that the proposal has a built‑in class filter: only those who can afford a plane ticket and a year in Italy could realistically benefit, which excludes many families in today’s Argentina.

When rules change mid‑process: Italy’s High Court and citizenship by descent ("ius sanguinis")

Italy’s Supreme Court is about to decide whether the recent, stricter citizenship‑by‑descent law (“ius sanguinis”) can be applied retroactively to people who were already in the process of applying when the rules changed. The outcome will be crucial for thousands of descendants of Italian emigrants in the US, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere, whose paths to Italian citizenship have been suddenly blocked or thrown into uncertainty by the so‑called “Meloni law.”

In its article “Cittadinanza ius sanguinis: la Corte Suprema può ribaltare la legge”, AmeVe illustrates this through the case of Sabrina Crawford, from the San Francisco Bay Area, who spent years reconstructing her family history in Calabria to prove that her great‑grandfather never gave up Italian citizenship. Her plans, like those of many others, have been disrupted by new limits that restrict recognition to people whose parents or grandparents never renounced Italian citizenship, raising the question whether long‑standing expectations and rights can simply be switched off by decree.

The AmeVe article also points to a paradox: while Italy braces for a severe demographic decline, it is tightening access both for children of immigrants born in the country and for descendants of Italians abroad who want to reconnect with it. In other words, at the very moment when Italy needs people, it is making it harder for those already tied to the country—by birth, by blood, or by history—to be formally recognized as Italian. The Court’s ruling will say a lot about how Italy chooses to balance legal certainty, administrative control, and its relationship with the diaspora.

Italian citizenship by descent: key questions before the Italian Supreme Court

A recent article on Studio Cataldi’s site explains that on 14 April 2026 the Supreme Court debated two central issues on Italian citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis). First, it must resolve a long‑running conflict on whether a child who is already a dual citizen from birth loses Italian citizenship automatically when an Italian parent later naturalises in another country while the child is still a minor. Some court decisions say yes, others say that citizenship acquired from birth should not be lost in this way, and the Court is now expected to give a single, authoritative answer.

The Court will also address how the 2025 reform applies over time. The new rules restrict recognition of ius sanguinis for people born abroad who already hold another citizenship, unless specific conditions are met. It remains unclear whether these provisions can affect situations that arose before the reform, potentially impacting rights considered “acquired” under the previous framework.

According to the article, the Supreme Court’s ruling will be a crucial step in clarifying both the historical rules on loss and transmission of citizenship and the temporal reach of the 2025 reform, providing much‑needed guidance to courts and public administrations.

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If you’re affected by these changes and are gathering documents for an Italian citizenship case, feel free to get in touch about translation support. I specialize in the translation from English into Italian of official and administrative documents and can help ensure your paperwork is translated correctly and on time.

Italian citizenship reform: clearing up some legal misunderstandings

A recent online article on lentepubblica.it by Italian attorney Flavia Di Pilla (Natitaliani) responds sharply to Andrea Molle’s 8 April piece in Italia Oggi (“Chi è italiano? Il legame reale pesa più della discendenza”, by Andrea Molle, Italia Oggi, April 8, 2026, see a summary in this post) about the reform of Italian citizenship. Di Pilla argues that Molle’s apparently “balanced” reading contains serious legal inaccuracies and turns a blind eye to the political interests behind the reform.

First, she notes that the Constitutional Court has not “sanctioned” a change of course on citizenship: so far there is only a press release about the 11 March hearing, not a published and reasoned judgment, so it is wrong to present the Court as having already endorsed the reform. She stresses that important constitutional challenges to article 3‑bis of Law 91/1992 (introduced by Decree‑Law 36/2025) are still pending, and that only the final written decision will clarify the Court’s position.

Second, Di Pilla reminds readers that ius sanguinis was not a casual “automatic” habit but a long‑standing, codified rule, rooted in the Civil Code of 1865 and laws from 1912 and 1992, on which institutions and individuals have relied for decades. In her view, changing such a framework through an emergency decree is constitutionally and politically problematic: the Italian Constitution allows decree‑laws only in cases of real necessity and urgency, and no convincing urgency has been shown to justify limiting rights that have existed for more than a century.

Di Pilla also highlights a geopolitical dimension Molle does not mention, alleging that pressure from the United States — concerned about South American citizens using Italian ius sanguinis to obtain an EU passport and then enter the US legally — played a role in pushing Italy towards a restrictive reform. Calling this a “correction of course in Italy’s interest”, she suggests, ignores whose interests were really being served.

Finally, Di Pilla objects to the language of “presumed descendants”: many people affected by the new rules are descendants whose link to an Italian ancestor has already been formally recognised through judgments, administrative decrees, and AIRE registrations. The real question “what does it mean to be Italian today?” is legitimate, she concludes, but it should be answered through open, democratic parliamentary debate, not via urgent decrees and press releases.

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I don’t offer legal advice or citizenship consultancy, but I do work regularly on English–Italian translations for ius sanguinis citizenship applications. If you need certified translations of official papers, court decisions or other documents for an Italian citizenship application, I will be happy to help.

Italy’s citizenship debate and the risk of losing the bigger picture

A recent online article by Gianni Pezzano on Daily Cases Magazine argues that the current debate on Italy’s citizenship law has become an unwelcome distraction from the real goal: strengthening the relationship between Italy and its diaspora. He recalls past scandals with fake Italian passports and notes that some agencies and applicants still treat the passport mainly as a tool for mobility or healthcare, rather than as proof of a genuine civic link.

Pezzano stresses that many descendants abroad feel rejected by the recent legal changes, often fuelled by misleading posts and commercial interests, while in Italy the same debate is tied to difficult questions about ius sanguinis, ius soli and how to integrate immigrant children born in the country. According to the article, there is no easy answer, but the author calls for more honest information, clearer communication from Italian institutions, and more responsible moderation on social media pages so that citizenship law stops being a source of anger and misunderstanding and becomes part of a broader effort to keep Italians around the world connected to Italy.

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These developments also underline how important precise wording has become in citizenship matters. If you need reliable English–Italian translations for vital records, legal documents, or judgments related to ius sanguinis or other citizenship cases, I’d be happy to assist.

Italian citizenship by descent: blood, ties, and a change of course

A recent commentary by Andrea Molle in Italia Oggi asks a simple but uncomfortable question: who is really Italian today? For more than a century, Italy had one of the most “generous” citizenship regimes in the world, based on ius sanguinis. In practice, this meant that millions of people, sometimes many generations and continents away, could claim Italian citizenship mainly through ancestry, with little or no real connection to Italy.

Molle argues that the latest reforms do not amount to a revolution, but to a clear change of course. Citizenship is no longer treated as an automatic inheritance; it is increasingly framed as a relationship that requires continuity, presence, and at least some degree of participation in the life of the country. The aim is to move away from producing “on paper” citizens who lack any concrete link with Italy, a system that had historical reasons but has become difficult to justify administratively and symbolically.

This shift, recently endorsed by the Constitutional Court, brings new tensions. On one side, there is the risk of weakening the historical bond with Italian communities abroad, which have long played an important cultural and economic role and have reacted harshly to these changes. On the other, Italy is trying to be coherent with what it asks of immigrants within its borders: citizenship as a real, not merely formal, belonging. In the background, Molle notes, lies the broader question that politics has largely avoided: is a genealogical link enough to be “Italian”, or do we now expect something more?

Italian citizenship by descent: the key questions before the Supreme Court

A recent article by Alberto Lama on NT+ Diritto – Il Sole 24 Ore highlights why the hearing before the Sezioni Unite of the Italian Supreme Court on 14 April 2026 will be crucial for Italian citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis). In short, the Court is being asked to clarify in which cases Italian citizenship was lost in the past, and how far the 2025 reform can reach back in time.

Lama notes that the first issue concerns children born abroad as dual citizens from birth (Italian by descent and citizens of their country of birth) whose Italian parent later became a foreign citizen while they were still minors. Some decisions say these children automatically lost Italian citizenship with the parent; others say that, as duals from birth, they should keep it unless they renounce it as adults.

The second issue is the 2025 reform, which sharply restricts ius sanguinis recognition for people born abroad who already hold another citizenship, unless specific conditions are met (often, having filed a request before 28 March 2025). The key question is whether these new rules can apply to people born long before 2025, treating them as if they had never acquired Italian citizenship.

The Constitutional Court has rejected some constitutional objections to the reform (including criticism of the cut‑off date), but has not resolved all interpretation issues. It is now up to the Sezioni Unite to determine how far the 2025 rules extend in time and how they fit with the older citizenship framework.

Italy’s Constitutional Court upholds limits on citizenship by descent

On 11 March 2026, Italy’s Constitutional Court confirmed the validity of the 2025 reform that narrowed citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis) to applicants with at least one Italian parent or grandparent, as reported by Claudio Del Frate in Corriere della Sera (article in Italian here: La corte costituzionale conferma la legge che limita lo ius sanguinis e le cittadinanze facili). The judges rejected the objections raised by the Turin court, which claimed that the new generational cap violated Article 3 of the Constitution and amounted to an implicit retroactive loss of citizenship, and they declared inadmissible the complaint based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The decision consolidates the shift introduced by Decree‑Law 36/2025 (converted into Law 74/2025), replacing the previous “infinite” bloodline approach with a two‑generation limit that focuses on closer family ties or, in some cases, a demonstrated territorial connection to Italy. This marks a clear departure from earlier practice, which had enabled many descendants of distant Italian emigrants, especially in Latin America and other large diaspora communities, to seek recognition and had generated very high volumes of applications before municipalities, consulates, and courts.

In practical terms, the pool of people who are now eligible – and therefore the number of individuals needing document translations and similar preparatory work for new applications – is likely to decrease, particularly for those relying on more remote ancestors. At the same time, people with more complex situations, or who have already started the citizenship process under the previous understanding of ius sanguinis, would be well advised to consult an Italian lawyer who specializes in this field in order to assess their position under the new framework and identify any remaining viable routes.

Italian Citizenship Law Update: Stricter Rules for Descendants Abroad

The new rules will impact individuals applying or planning to apply for Italian citizenship through their Italian ancestry (known as "ius sanguinis"), as well as professionals (like translators) who assist with these applications.

The decree-law approved today stipulates that Italian descendants born abroad will automatically be citizens for only two generations: those with at least one parent or grandparent born in Italy will be citizens from birth. In the second phase, a bill also approved today introduces further and more substantial changes to the citizenship law. Notably, citizens born and residing abroad must maintain real ties with our country over time, exercising their citizenship rights and duties at least once every twenty-five years.

The reform is completed by a second bill that revises the procedures for recognizing citizenship. Going forward, residents abroad will no longer apply through consulates but will instead use a special centralized office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A transition period of about one year is planned for organizing this office. The goal is to streamline procedures, achieving clear economies of scale. Consulates will focus on serving existing citizens rather than processing new citizenship applications. Additionally, the provision includes measures to enhance and modernize service delivery: legalizations, civil registry services, passports, and travel identity cards. Organizational measures are also planned to ensure the Ministry of Foreign Affairs increasingly serves citizens and businesses.

From a press release published on March 28, 2025 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.