Italy's New Citizenship Law, Explained

Law 74/2025 capped Italian citizenship by descent at two generations. In March 2026, the Constitutional Court upheld it. Here is what changed, what the ruling means, and what options remain.

In March 2026, Italy's Constitutional Court upheld a law that ended unlimited ancestral citizenship claims. If your Italian-born ancestor is a great-grandparent or further back, and you did not file an application before March 27, 2025, the path to recognition through jure sanguinis is, for now, closed.

This guide explains what changed, what the Constitutional Court decided, what legal challenges remain, and what your options are depending on where your case stands.

This guide reflects developments through March 15, 2026. The Constitutional Court has issued a preliminary decision but not its full written reasoning, which is expected in April 2026. A separate constitutional challenge is scheduled for June 9, 2026. This page will be updated as the situation develops.

What Law 74/2025 changed

On March 28, 2025, the Italian government enacted Decree-Law 36/2025. Parliament converted it into Law 74/2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on May 23, 2025.1b The law inserted a new Article 3-bis into the existing citizenship statute (Legge 91/1992).4

Before this law, Italian citizenship passed from parent to child with no generational limit. If your ancestor was an Italian citizen when their child was born, that child was born Italian, and could pass citizenship to the next generation, and the next, back to Italian unification in 1861. An American whose great-great-grandfather left Campania in 1895 could, with the right paperwork, be recognized as an Italian citizen.

Law 74/2025 ended this. Under the new Article 3-bis, a person born abroad who holds another citizenship is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship unless at least one of three conditions is met:1

  1. You applied before the deadline. You submitted an application, or received an appointment notification from a comune or consulate, by 23:59 Rome time on March 27, 2025.
  2. A parent or grandparent held exclusively Italian citizenship. A first-degree (parent) or second-degree (grandparent) ancestor in your line held only Italian citizenship at some point, with no other nationality.
  3. A parent resided in Italy after becoming Italian. A parent or adoptive parent lived in Italy continuously for at least two years after acquiring Italian citizenship, before your birth or adoption.

The practical effect: for most Americans, Brazilians, and Argentines whose closest Italian ancestor is a great-grandparent or further back, the administrative path to recognition is closed unless they filed before the deadline.

For a detailed explanation of how jure sanguinis works under both the old and new rules, including the chain-break analysis, the 1948 maternal-line case, and document requirements, see Do I Qualify for Italian Citizenship?

The constitutional challenge

Within months of the law taking effect, Italian courts began questioning whether it was constitutional. The Tribunal of Turin (Tribunale di Torino) was the first to formally refer the question to the Constitutional Court, in an ordinance dated June 25, 2025 (published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on September 17, 2025). The Turin court argued that Article 3-bis might violate the Italian Constitution's guarantee of equality (Article 3), as well as EU law and international human rights protections.2

The referral asked the Court to consider whether the law unconstitutionally distinguished between people who filed before the arbitrary cutoff date and those who filed after, when both groups had the same underlying legal status. It also raised questions about whether the retroactive denial of a latent citizenship right violated fundamental principles.

The March 2026 ruling

On March 11, 2026, the Constitutional Court held a public hearing lasting roughly two and a half hours. Twenty-six lawyers participated. The following day, the Court issued a press release announcing its preliminary decision.2

The Court found the challenges partly unfounded and partly inadmissible, leaving Law 74/2025 largely intact.

Specifically, the Court ruled:

  • The equality challenge (Article 3 of the Italian Constitution) was unfounded. The Court did not find a constitutional problem with distinguishing between people who applied before March 27, 2025 and those who applied after.
  • The claim that the law implicitly revokes acquired citizenship rights retroactively was unfounded.
  • The EU law challenges (Article 9 TEU, Article 20 TFEU, regarding EU citizenship) were unfounded.
  • The international human rights challenges (Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on arbitrary deprivation of nationality, and Article 3 of Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights on the right to enter one's own state) were inadmissible, meaning the Court rejected them on procedural grounds without ruling on the substance.

The Court has not yet published its full written reasoning. The press release is a summary of the conclusions, not the detailed legal analysis. The full decision is expected in April 2026.2

What the ruling means

The Constitutional Court's decision validates the core of Law 74/2025. The two-generation cap stands. The March 27, 2025 cutoff date stands. The requirement for a parent or grandparent with exclusively Italian citizenship stands.

For anyone who did not file before the deadline and whose closest Italian ancestor is a great-grandparent or further back, the Turin challenge was the primary hope for reversing the law. That challenge has failed.

The ruling does not affect people who filed before March 27, 2025. Those applications are evaluated under the prior rules, regardless of how long they take to process.

The ruling also does not affect people who qualify under the new rules: those with a parent or grandparent who was an Italian citizen. If your parent or grandparent was born in Italy and never naturalized elsewhere, or was recognized as Italian through jure sanguinis before the deadline, you can still apply.

Remaining legal challenges

The Turin referral was not the only constitutional challenge. Two others are still pending, each raising different arguments that the Court has not yet addressed.

Mantova (June 9, 2026)

The Tribunal of Mantova filed an independent referral with constitutional arguments distinct from those raised by Turin. This case is scheduled for hearing on June 9, 2026. Because the arguments are different, the Court's rejection of the Turin challenges does not predetermine the outcome. The specific arguments have not been made public in the press release.2

Campobasso

The Ordinary Court of Campobasso filed a referral on February 9, 2026, raising arguments that go beyond what Turin presented. Among them: that the law arbitrarily deprives people of citizenship for political motives (demographic and identity policy choices rather than a legitimate legal basis), that citizenship is a constitutional status that cannot be altered by emergency decree, and that the government lacked the extraordinary necessity and urgency required by Article 77 of the Constitution to use decree-law powers for this purpose.3

No hearing date has been set for the Campobasso cases.

What could still change

A Constitutional Court ruling on one set of arguments does not foreclose challenges on different grounds. If the Mantova or Campobasso courts raised constitutional issues that Turin did not, those issues remain open. Italian law also allows individual courts to continue referring new questions to the Constitutional Court.

The full written reasoning of the March 2026 decision, expected in April, will clarify exactly how narrowly or broadly the Court ruled. A narrow ruling that rejects specific arguments leaves more room for future challenges. A broad ruling that endorses the legislature's power to set generational limits would make further challenges significantly harder.

Where this leaves you

Your situation depends on where your case stands and who your Italian ancestor is.

You filed before March 27, 2025

Your application is evaluated under the prior rules. The law change and the Constitutional Court ruling do not affect you. If your case was pending at a consulate, a comune, or an Italian court before the deadline, it continues under the old framework. Processing times vary: consulates in the United States currently have backlogs ranging from a few months to several years.

Your parent or grandparent is or was Italian

You likely qualify under the new Article 3-bis, even without having filed before the deadline. If your parent or grandparent held exclusively Italian citizenship at any point, and you can document the lineage and naturalization history, you can apply. The eligibility guide covers the chain-break analysis and document requirements. You will still need to prove that your qualifying ancestor (parent or grandparent) was an Italian citizen at the time of your birth, which means documenting that the chain was unbroken up to that point.

Your closest Italian ancestor is a great-grandparent or further back

If you did not file before the deadline, the administrative path is currently closed. The Constitutional Court's March 2026 ruling confirmed this. Your remaining options:

  • Wait for the Mantova hearing (June 9, 2026). If the Court finds different constitutional problems with the law, it could strike down or modify Article 3-bis. This is not guaranteed and the arguments have not been made public.
  • Watch the Campobasso referral. The “political motive” argument is novel and untested. No hearing date has been set.3
  • Wait for the full written decision (April 2026). The scope of the ruling may be narrower than the press release suggests, which could leave room for future challenges on different grounds.
  • Explore alternative paths. Citizenship by marriage (jure matrimonii) or naturalization by residency in Italy are not affected by Law 74/2025. These have their own requirements (B1 Italian language proficiency for marriage, 4-10 years of residency for naturalization) but remain available.

You are not sure where you stand

Start by identifying your closest Italian ancestor. If you know their name and the comune they came from, you can begin building a picture of your lineage. The eligibility guide walks through the chain-break analysis step by step. If your ancestor arrived in the United States between 1830 and 1912, searching their surname on Paese may help identify which comune they departed from, using NARA passenger records.

Timeline

  • March 28, 2025: Decree-Law 36/2025 enacted by the Italian government, introducing the two-generation cap.1
  • May 23, 2025: Parliament converts the decree into Law 74/2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale.1b
  • June 25, 2025: Tribunal of Turin issues an ordinance referring constitutional questions to the Constitutional Court (published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale September 17, 2025).2
  • Early February 2026: Ordinary Court of Campobasso files two referrals with the Constitutional Court.3
  • March 11, 2026: Constitutional Court holds a three-hour public hearing on the Turin referral.2
  • March 12, 2026: Court issues a press release finding the Turin challenges partly unfounded and partly inadmissible.2
  • April 2026 (expected): Full written decision with legal reasoning to be published.
  • June 9, 2026: Mantova referral hearing scheduled.

Sources

  1. Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, Serie Generale n. 73, 28 March 2025. Decreto-legge 28 marzo 2025, n. 36, “Disposizioni urgenti in materia di cittadinanza.” gazzettaufficiale.it
  2. Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, Serie Generale n. 118, 23 May 2025. Legge 23 maggio 2025, n. 74, “Conversione in legge, con modificazioni, del decreto-legge 28 marzo 2025, n. 36, recante disposizioni urgenti in materia di cittadinanza.” gazzettaufficiale.it
  3. Corte Costituzionale, Comunicato del 12 marzo 2026, “La Corte costituzionale respinge le questioni di legittimita costituzionale relative al decreto-legge 36/2025 in materia di cittadinanza.” cortecostituzionale.it (PDF)
  4. Corte Costituzionale, Reg. ord. n. 40 del 2026, Ordinanza del Tribunale di Campobasso del 09/02/2026 (Agustin Lopez Alt c/ Ministero dell'Interno), pending before the Court. cortecostituzionale.it
  5. Legge 5 febbraio 1992, n. 91, “Nuove norme sulla cittadinanza” (current Italian citizenship law, as amended by Law 74/2025). normattiva.it