Jure sanguinis, explained

The legal foundation

The civil code of 1865 already passed citizenship from father to child, and Law 555 of 13 June 1912 restated the rule (Art. 1). A mother passed it only in narrow cases: where the father was unknown or stateless, or where the child did not take the foreign father's citizenship.

Law 91/1992 replaced Law 555 and wrote transmission through “father or mother” into statute; the Constitutional Court had required it since 1983. It also ended the rule that cost Italian citizenship on a voluntary naturalisation (Art. 11). Before 16 August 1992, acquiring another citizenship by choice while living abroad meant losing Italian citizenship (Law 555, Art. 8).

Who qualifies

There are two tests now. The first is the old one: an unbroken chain of Italian citizenship from the ancestor down to you. The chain breaks if someone in the line lost Italian citizenship before the next person was born, most often by naturalising abroad by choice before 16 August 1992. The second, since March 2025, is art. 3-bis, set out below. Passing the first does not mean passing the second.

A naturalisation that happened after the next birth, while that child was still a minor living in the same household, was contested from 2023. The Sezioni Unite of the Court of Cassation decided it in sentenza 24045/2026, published on 26 July 2026. A child who was a citizen of the foreign country from birth kept Italian citizenship. A child who was Italian only, and became a foreign citizen through the parent, lost it.

Since 28 March 2025, art. 3-bis applies to anyone born abroad who holds another citizenship, unless one of the conditions below is met. Condition (c) looks to parents and grandparents; condition (d) to a parent's residence in Italy. An application lodged with its documents by 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025, or on an appointment given by then, stays under the earlier law.

The 1948 rule

The Italian Constitution entered force on 1 January 1948, establishing gender equality under Art. 3. The Constitutional Court struck down the father-only transmission rule in Sentenza 30/1983. The date limit comes from the Ministry of the Interior: its circular K.28.1 of 8 April 1991 treats descendants through the mother as Italian only if born after 1 January 1948, and consulates and comuni still follow it. So where citizenship passed through a woman to a child born before that date, the consular route is not available.

These cases go to the Italian courts. The Court of Cassation (Sezioni Unite, 4466/2009) held that the struck-down rules do not apply to facts before 1948 either. That consulates and comuni will not make the recognition is their practice under K.28.1, not a rule this page can cite from a judgment. An Italian lawyer registered with the bar (iscritto all'albo) files the petition. If you live abroad, Law 206/2021 sends the case to the tribunal for the comune where your Italian parent or ancestor was born.

The court fee (contributo unificato) is €600 for each petitioner, even when several file together. Lawyers' fees vary. A petition filed after 27 March 2025 also faces art. 3-bis; see the open question below.

Law 74/2025, the generation limit

Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted into Law 74/2025 on 23 May 2025 (the “Decreto Tajani”), introduced Art. 3-bis to Law 91/1992.

The “exclusively Italian” requirement in condition (c) is strict. A parent who also held British citizenship does not meet it. The Ministry of the Interior's Circolare 26185 says self-declarations are not enough to prove it; registrars may ask for negative citizenship certificates, attestations of non-renunciation and similar records.

The Constitutional Court has dealt with art. 3-bis twice, and neither decision reached condition (c). Sentenza 63/2026, decided on 11 March 2026 and deposited on 30 April 2026, answered a referral from the Tribunale di Torino limited to the words “anche prima della data di entrata in vigore del presente articolo” and to conditions (a), (a-bis) and (b). Two questions were held inadmissible and two unfounded.

Ordinanza 147/2026, decided on 9 June 2026 and deposited on 23 July 2026, joined referrals from Mantova and Campobasso with the same limits. It did not decide them. It asked the Court of Justice of the European Union whether Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU preclude art. 3-bis, and suspended its own proceedings until that is answered (Case C-816/26). In the same order it restated its view from 63/2026 that the EU-law complaint is unfounded, and it declined to refer a question on condition (c), because the referring court had not challenged it. Neither decision rules that the generational condition is constitutionally legitimate.

Three routes to recognition

The shape of the process

The recognition process moves through ancestor identification (with the relevant Italian comune holding the original civil records), collection of vital records across every life event in the chain, evidence of non-naturalisation for any UK-resident ancestor, an apostille on each UK certificate followed by an Italian translation, and submission to the consulate that holds jurisdiction. London does not ask for an apostille on the translation, and Edinburgh says the apostille itself is never translated. Each stage carries its own administrative weight; the work is sequential rather than parallel, and the consulate expects the full set of documents at the appointment.

Settled in 2026, and still open

The minor question is settled. The Sezioni Unite heard it on 14 April 2026 and published sentenza 24045 on 26 July. These are its two propositions on Law 555/1912.

That departs from Cassazione 17161/2023 and 454/2024, which had applied art. 12 to the child who was a dual national from birth. On 10 August 2026 the Ministry of the Interior told the prefetture to pass the new reading to mayors and civil registrars.

The circular covers parents who naturalised between 1 July 1912 and 15 August 1992. A naturalisation on or before 30 June 1912 falls under the 1865 civil code, and there it keeps the 454/2024 reading for now. Someone refused only on the 17161/2023 reading may ask for a re-examination of the original application rather than file a new one, and the circular says it is decided under the law in force when that application was made. An application made before 27 March 2025, or on an appointment the office had given by then, is therefore outside art. 3-bis.

The same judgment answers a related question. Its first proposition holds that art. 3-bis does not apply to a court application filed before 27 March 2025, which stays under the earlier law.

Please treat this page as a first step, and check with the consulate or a professional before you pay for a document or decide anything. It has changed over time, and if you read an earlier version, please see what changed.