Ancestry vs residency: How are Italy's citizenship rules changing?
PM Giorgia Meloni's government took the unusual step of forcing the measure through by an urgent decree - usually reserved for dealing with natural disasters and public health emergencies - on March 28th.
The sudden law change made millions of people of Italian descent ineligible for citizenship overnight, leaving a large number of would-be applicants "angry" and "heartbroken".
The emergency decree was ratified by parliament on Tuesday, May 20th, but underwent some key last-minute amendments right before its final approval.
Meanwhile, a public referendum proposing to relax the requirements for citizenship by residency is due to take place on June 8th and 9th.
It might seem contradictory for Italy to be holding a vote on easing naturalisation rules just a few weeks after tightening restrictions on citizenship by ancestry – but the timing is coincidental.
The upcoming referendum wasn't proposed by Italy's hard-right coalition government - which is calling on voters to boycott the vote - but by left-wing opposition parties after they managed to secure over 600,000 signatures in favour the proposed reform.
The proposal is seen as unlikely to pass, mainly because it requires a voter turnout of over 50 percent to be valid – a threshold that's rarely reached in Italian referendums.
If the quorum is reached, however, the latest polls indicate that the coalition backing the reform may have the numbers to secure a win.
Here's a breakdown of the final and proposed reforms.
Citizenship by descent clampdown
Under the final version of the new law, children born outside of Italy must have a parent or grandparent who 'holds, or held at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship' to be eligible for citizenship.
This means that parents and grandparents with dual citizenship cannot pass Italian citizenship on to children or grandchildren born abroad, unless they renounce their other, non-Italian citizenship.
However, there are some exceptions to the "exclusive" requirement.
A parent or adoptive parent who 'has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of the child's birth or adoption" can pass citizenship to their foreign-born child, even when holding dual nationality.
A second exception is aimed at people who gained citizenship by descent under the old, more lenient rules (i.e., rules that merely required applicants to have an Italian ancestor who was alive on or after March 17th, 1861).
Those who acquired Italian citizenship by descent under the previous rules, including dual nationals, will be able to pass on citizenship to foreign-born children under the age of 18 by submitting a request by May 31st, 2026.
The decree didn't provide any further details as to how this request should be submitted, or to whom.
The new law does make things easier for one group of people: former Italians who had to give up their Italian citizenship after naturalising as a citizen of another country before Italy introduced dual citizenship in 1992.
Under the new rules, people in this position can reacquire their Italian citizenship "provided that they apply between July 1st, 2025, and December 31st, 2027, and pay a contribution to the Italian state of 250 euros, to be paid to the offices of the Italian consulates of the country where they are resident."
The decree did not provide any further details about how this request should be submitted.
Citizenship by residency referendum
On June 8th and 9th, Italians will be asked to vote in a referendum on whether to ease the rules on applying for residency-based Italian citizenship by halving the current wait time of 10 years of legal residency down to five.
The vote requires a turnout of over 50 percent to be valid; if this quorum, or threshold, isn't met, the referendum won't count, regardless of the result.
Deputy PM Matteo Salvini, leader of the hard-right anti-immigrant League party, has called the proposal "dangerous", saying it would "give citizenship away".
But opposition leaders have said that, since Italy's rules on naturalisation are among the toughest in Europe, the reform still wouldn't make the process particularly lax.
Applicants would still be required to demonstrate that they pay taxes, have no criminal record and speak Italian, argued Riccardo Magi, leader of the centre-left +Europa party.
As well as making life easier for many of The Local's readers who have moved to Italy as adults, easing residency requirements would also benefit people born in Italy to non-Italian parents, who can currently only apply for citizenship at the age of 18 on condition of having legally lived there "without interruption".
If they don't apply before turning 19, they must demonstrate three years of legal residency, meeting the same language test and income requirements as all other candidates for naturalisation, then wait up to three years for their application to be approved.
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