2026-10-09Finding
Italy did not tighten descent. It decided you had never been a citizen.
Article 3-bis of the citizenship Act does not raise a bar for the future. It says a person born abroad who holds another passport is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship at all - and it says that of people born long before the article existed. Four conditions save a claim, and one of them closed at 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025.
For a century Italian citizenship descended without a generational limit. A great-grandparent who left Genoa in 1890 and never naturalised anywhere else could make his great-granddaughter in Rosario Italian by birth, and the paperwork - not the law - was what made it hard. That is over, and the way it is over matters more than the fact of it.
The new article is not written as a restriction on acquiring citizenship. It is written as a statement about what never happened. In derogation from the articles that made descent work, and from the laws of 1912 and 1865 that made it work before them, a person born abroad who holds another citizenship "is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship" - including, the article says in its own words, a person born before it came into force.
That phrasing is the whole story. A rule that stopped descent going forward would leave everyone already descended where they were. This one reaches backwards and removes a status its holders believed they had been born with, which is why it had to carry saving conditions rather than a transition period.
What survives
Four things. A recognition already granted on an application lodged with a consulate or a mayor, with the documents, no later than 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025 - or on an appointment the office had communicated by that same moment. A claim already established in court on an action filed by the same deadline. An ascendant of the first or second degree - a parent or a grandparent - who holds, or held at death, Italian citizenship and no other. Or a parent who was resident in Italy for two continuous years after acquiring citizenship and before the child was born.
The exclusivity condition is narrower than it reads
The third saving condition is the one that will disappoint most people, because it does not ask whether the ancestor was Italian. It asks whether the ancestor was only Italian. An Argentine grandmother who took Argentine citizenship in 1960 and kept her Italian one satisfies the words of nothing: she is not an ascendant who possesses exclusively Italian citizenship, and her grandchild falls back on the residence route.
The residence route is still two years
Article 9 of the same Act was not touched in this respect. A foreigner whose parent or grandparent was Italian by birth may be granted citizenship after two years of legal residence in Italy, where a foreigner with no Italian ancestry waits ten. The descent is still worth something; it is now worth a shorter wait rather than a passport by right.
Who this reaches
Four of the thirty-six countries covered here hold the largest Italian-descended populations outside Italy: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela. For readers there this was not one route among several - it was the route, and the question most of them now have is not whether they qualify but whether what they filed in March 2025 was filed in time.
What this rests on
This piece states what the article says. Whether a particular application lodged before the deadline survives is a question about that application and its documents, and nothing here can answer it.
The text quoted is the consolidated Act as the Italian state's own statute book exports it, current to the date it was read. The authentic text of each amendment remains the Gazzetta Ufficiale.
What the instruments say
«In deroga agli articoli 1, 2, 3, 14 e 20 della presente legge, all' articolo 5 della legge 21 aprile 1983, n. 123 , agli articoli 1 , 2 , 7 , 10 , 12 e 19 della legge 13 giugno 1912, n. 555 , nonche' agli articoli 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 e 9 del codice civile approvato con regio decreto 25 giugno 1865, n. 2358 , e' considerato non avere mai acquistato la cittadinanza italiana chi e' nato all'estero anche prima della data di entrata in vigore del presente articolo ed e' in possesso di altra cittadinanza, salvo che ricorra una delle seguenti condizioni: a) lo stato di cittadino dell'interessato e' riconosciuto, nel rispetto della normativa applicabile al 27 marzo 2025, a seguito di domanda, corredata della necessaria documentazione, presentata all'ufficio consolare o al sindaco competenti non oltre le 23:59, ora di Roma, della medesima data; a-bis) ((lo stato di cittadino dell'interessato e' riconosciuto, nel rispetto della normativa applicabile al 27 marzo 2025, a seguito di domanda, corredata della necessaria documentazione, presentata all'ufficio consolare o al sindaco competenti nel giorno indicato da appuntamento comunicato all'interessato dall'ufficio competente entro le 23:59, ora di Roma, della medesima data del 27 marzo 2025)) ; b) lo stato di cittadino dell'interessato e' accertato giudizialmente, nel rispetto della normativa applicabile al 27 marzo 2025, a seguito di domanda giudiziale presentata non oltre le 23:59, ora di Roma, della medesima data; c) ((un ascendente di primo o di secondo grado possiede, o possedeva al momento della morte, esclusivamente la cittadinanza italiana)) ; d) ((un genitore o adottante e' stato residente in Italia per almeno due anni continuativi successivamente all'acquisto della cittadinanza italiana e prima della data di nascita o di adozione del figlio»The derogation, the retroactive phrase and all four saving conditions in one paragraph.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Italian state's portal for legislation in force. It shows each article as currently amended, with an explicit testo in vigore dal date, and links the amending instruments.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It gives the text and not its interpretation. Article 3-bis reads clearly and has still generated years of litigation over what it means, which is why the Constitutional Court is watched alongside it. A consolidated text can also lag a very recent amendment.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«allo straniero del quale il padre o la madre o uno degli ascendenti in linea retta di secondo grado ((sono o)) sono stati cittadini per nascita ((e che risiede legalmente nel territorio della Repubblica da almeno due anni)) , comunque fatto salvo quanto previsto dall'articolo 4, comma 1, lettera c);»The two-year residence route for a descendant, unchanged.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Italian state's portal for legislation in force. It shows each article as currently amended, with an explicit testo in vigore dal date, and links the amending instruments.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It gives the text and not its interpretation. Article 3-bis reads clearly and has still generated years of litigation over what it means, which is why the Constitutional Court is watched alongside it. A consolidated text can also lag a very recent amendment.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesLegge 5 febbraio 1992, n. 91, testo vigente
Normattiva, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri
About this source
The Italian state's portal for legislation in force. It shows each article as currently amended, with an explicit testo in vigore dal date, and links the amending instruments.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It gives the text and not its interpretation. Article 3-bis reads clearly and has still generated years of litigation over what it means, which is why the Constitutional Court is watched alongside it. A consolidated text can also lag a very recent amendment.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source