Italy changed the rules on citizenship by descent in March 2025. Four court decisions have followed. The Italian citizenship ruling people usually mean is Sentenza 63/2026, but it is one of several, and the question is now in front of the European Court of Justice.
We set out what each decision did, what it left open, and who is affected. It reports the legal position. It does not assess individual eligibility, which turns on facts no article can know.
Status at: September 2026. The EU referral is pending and the position will change again.
At a glance
- Law 74/2025 limits recognition of citizenship by descent to two generations, with effect from 27 March 2025.
- Constitutional Court, Sentenza 63/2026 upheld the new Article 3-bis against the challenges raised by the Court of Turin.
- The Court characterised the rule as an original bar to acquisition, not a revocation of citizenship already held. That framing is doing most of the legal work.
- Ordinanza 147/2026, deposited 23 July 2026, referred the EU-law question to the Court of Justice and suspended proceedings. Law 74/2025 stays in force meanwhile.
- Cassazione, Sezioni Unite 24045/2026 confirmed the law does not reach claims brought before 27 March 2025.
- Naturalisation through residence is a different mechanism entirely, and takes ten years.
What did Law 74/2025 change?
Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted into Law 74 of 23 May 2025, inserted Article 3-bis into Law 91 of 1992, the citizenship statute.
Before the reform, transmission by descent ran without a generational limit. A person could establish an unbroken line back through any number of generations and be recognised as Italian. Article 3-bis closes that for people born abroad who hold another citizenship, unless one of the statutory exceptions applies.
Two exceptions preserve a claim. One is where an ascendant of the first or second degree held Italian citizenship exclusively. The other is where a parent lived in Italy for at least two continuous years before the birth. Applications lodged before 11:59pm Rome time on 27 March 2025 remain under the previous rules.
The practical effect falls on great-grandparent claims, which made up a large share of applications from Argentina, Brazil and the United States. Estimates of the Italian diaspora vary with the definition, but around 80 million people worldwide claim Italian ancestry, against a resident population of 59 million. One article of a decree changed what that ancestry is worth to anyone whose Italian line runs back further than a grandparent.
What did the Italian citizenship ruling decide?
In Sentenza 63/2026 the Court rejected the constitutional challenges referred by the Court of Turin and held Article 3-bis compatible with the Constitution. The restrictions stand.
The Court treated Article 3-bis as an original bar to acquisition rather than the withdrawal of a status already held. On that reading nobody is stripped of anything. They are told the citizenship was never acquired, including people born decades before the rule existed.
That distinction carries the judgment. Much of the case against the reform rested on European authority protecting people deprived of a status they had. If there was never a status, that argument does not reach.
Why did the same Court then go to the EU?
Three months after holding that the EU argument did not reach, the Constitutional Court sent that same argument to Luxembourg.
Ordinanza 147/2026, deposited on 23 July 2026 on questions from the courts of Mantua and Campobasso, suspended proceedings and referred a preliminary question to the Court of Justice. The question is whether Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU allow a member state to treat national citizenship as never acquired, by people born abroad who hold another citizenship and fall outside the exceptions.
The Court restated its position from Sentenza 63/2026 while doing so, citing the duty of sincere cooperation and the Court of Justice’s exclusive competence over EU law. Italian commentators have pointed out that the bench, the President and the reporting judge were identical in both decisions. A court that had just found the question unfounded referred it anyway.
Nothing changes in the meantime. Law 74/2025 stays in force while Luxembourg considers it, and referrals of this kind have recently run to around sixteen to eighteen months.
What about claims already filed?
The Court of Cassation, sitting in Sezioni Unite, decided this in judgment 24045/2026 in late July 2026. Law 74/2025 does not apply to proceedings commenced before 27 March 2025, and those claims continue under the previous rules.
The same line of authority resolved a long-running dispute over Article 7 of Law 555 of 1912. The question was whether a child who was a dual citizen from birth lost Italian citizenship when a parent naturalised abroad during the child’s minority. The answer is that they did not, unless they renounced it as an adult.
| Decision | Date | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Decree-Law 36/2025 | 28 March 2025 | Introduces the two-generation limit |
| Law 74/2025 | 23 May 2025 | Converts the decree into law |
| Constitutional Court, sentenza 142/2025 | July 2025 | First of the series on descent |
| Constitutional Court, sentenza 63/2026 | Deposited 30 April 2026 | Upholds Article 3-bis |
| Cassazione, Sezioni Unite 24045/2026 | July 2026 | Protects pre-27 March 2025 claims |
| Constitutional Court, ordinanza 147/2026 | 23 July 2026 | Refers the EU question, suspends proceedings |
Who can still be recognised by descent?
Recognition remains available in three situations. Where the line runs through a parent or grandparent. Where an ascendant of the first or second degree held Italian citizenship exclusively. Or where a parent lived in Italy for two continuous years before the birth. Claims filed before the cutoff continue under the old rules.
Anyone whose line runs through a great-grandparent or further back, without one of those features, falls outside the framework as it currently stands. Whether that survives the Court of Justice is the open question.
Recognition and naturalisation are not the same thing
Recognition by descent is a declaration that a person is already an Italian citizen and has been since birth. It is retrospective. Nothing is granted.
Naturalisation is acquisition. A non-EU national who lives in Italy legally and continuously for ten years, registered with their comune, can apply. A B1 certificate in Italian, income conditions and the other statutory requirements apply. The clock runs from registration, not from the issue of a visa or permit.
Those are different mechanisms with different timescales. Ten years of residence is not a substitute for a descent claim, and anyone presenting it as one is selling something. For a person in their sixties with a Sicilian great-grandfather, the two are not interchangeable in any practical sense.
What remains for people outside the new limits
The judicial route is still open for some. Claims filed before 27 March 2025 continue under the old rules, and the EU referral gives grounds that ordinary courts are already being asked to consider. That is a matter for an Italian lawyer, not for a website.
Marriage to an Italian citizen carries its own path, with residency requirements adjusted by the same 2025 reform.
Residence is the long route. Italy offers several permits leading to legal residence, including work, study, family, elective residency and the Investor Visa. Any of them can start the ten-year clock, provided the holder actually registers and lives there. The naturalisation path sets out what that involves, and the benefits of Italian residence covers what the permit gives before citizenship is in reach.
For most people cut off by Article 3-bis, none of this replaces what they lost.
Frequently asked questions
Is Italian citizenship by descent still possible in 2026?
Yes, within limits. The line must run through a parent or grandparent, or a first or second degree ascendant must have held Italian citizenship exclusively, or a parent must have lived in Italy for two continuous years before the birth. Claims filed before 27 March 2025 continue under the previous rules.
Which Italian citizenship ruling matters most?
Sentenza 63/2026, which upheld Article 3-bis against the challenges raised by the Court of Turin. Ordinanza 147/2026 matters more for what happens next, because it sent the EU-law question to the Court of Justice. The law remains in force while that is considered.
What happens if the Court of Justice rules against Italy?
That is not knowable in advance. The referral asks whether EU law permits the Italian rule, and the answer will return to the Constitutional Court for application. Referrals of this kind have recently taken around sixteen to eighteen months.
Does my application filed in 2024 still count?
The Sezioni Unite held in 24045/2026 that Law 74/2025 does not reach proceedings commenced before 27 March 2025. How that applies to a specific file depends on what was filed, where and when, which is a question for a lawyer.
Can I get Italian citizenship through residence instead?
Through naturalisation, after ten years of legal residence registered with a comune, with a B1 level of Italian and the other statutory requirements. It is a different mechanism from descent and a much longer one.
Sources
- Law 91 of 5 February 1992, the Italian citizenship statute, as amended
- Law 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025
- Constitutional Court, sentenza 142/2025, sentenza 63/2026, ordinanza 147/2026
- Court of Cassation, Sezioni Unite, judgment 24045/2026
This page reports the legal position and is not legal advice. Anyone with a live claim should take advice from an Italian lawyer. For questions about Italian residence routes, get in touch.