Italy’s system of citizenship by descent — long known for allowing claims through multiple generations of ancestry — remains in place, but with significant new limits introduced by legislation in 2025 and now upheld by the country’s top court.
A ruling by the Constitutional Court of Italy this week rejected major constitutional challenges to the reform, confirming that the restrictions introduced last year remain valid.
Despite widespread headlines suggesting Italy has “abolished” citizenship by descent, the reality is more nuanced. The principle of jure sanguinis — citizenship passed through bloodline — still exists. What has changed is the scope of who can claim it.
The decision effectively confirms the legal framework introduced by the government in 2025, which tightened eligibility for descendants of Italian emigrants.
A system once based on unlimited descent
For more than a century, Italian nationality law operated on the principle of jure sanguinis, allowing citizenship to pass through an unbroken family line without a generational limit.
Under that system, millions of people worldwide — particularly in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Australia — were potentially eligible for Italian citizenship. All they had to do was prove descent from an Italian ancestor who was alive after the country’s unification in 1861 and had not naturalised elsewhere before the next generation was born.
The only practical restrictions related to technical issues such as naturalisation dates or the historical rule preventing women from transmitting citizenship before 1948.
However, the surge in applications in recent years, often from distant descendants with little direct connection to Italy, prompted growing debate within government and the judiciary about whether the system should be tightened.
The 2025 reform
The turning point came in March 2025, when the government introduced Decree‑Law No. 36/2025, later converted into Law No. 74/2025.
The reform significantly altered how citizenship by descent is recognised for people born outside Italy.
The key change introduced a generational limit on recognition.
Under the new framework, individuals born abroad can normally be recognised as Italian citizens only if they have an Italian-born parent or grandparent, effectively restricting eligibility to two generations of descent.
The law therefore ended the previously unlimited transmission of citizenship through distant ancestry.
It also introduced additional conditions in some cases aimed at ensuring a stronger connection between applicants and Italy, part of a broader attempt to reduce pressure on consulates and administrative courts dealing with large numbers of citizenship claims.
The reform took effect in May 2025 and generally applies to applications submitted after late March that year. Cases already filed or formally initiated before the change were largely protected from the new rules.
Constitutional challenge
The reform immediately triggered legal challenges from applicants and advocacy groups who argued that the restrictions violated constitutional principles. Critics claimed the law undermined a long-standing legal principle that citizenship acquired through descent exists from birth rather than from the moment it is formally recognised.
The Constitutional Court of Italy considered those arguments this month after several lower courts referred questions about the reform’s constitutionality.
In its initial announcement, the court said the objections were partly “inadmissible” and partly “unfounded,” effectively allowing the law to remain in force.
Headlines versus reality
The ruling has prompted a wave of dramatic media coverage suggesting that Italy has abolished citizenship by descent altogether. In reality, the system continues to exist, but in a more limited form.
The reform does not remove the right of people with Italian parents or grandparents to claim citizenship, nor does it affect those already recognised as Italian citizens. Instead, it primarily targets applications based on more distant ancestry, which had become increasingly common as descendants of Italian emigrants sought EU citizenship through genealogical claims.
A continuing debate
The issue remains politically and legally contentious.
Supporters of the reform argue that limiting citizenship claims helps preserve the integrity of the system and ensures that new citizens have a meaningful connection to Italy. Meanwhile, critics counter that the restrictions weaken the historic relationship between Italy and its global diaspora, which numbers tens of millions of people.
Legal experts also note that further litigation is likely, meaning the current framework may not be the final word on how citizenship by descent will be interpreted in the long term. For now, however, the Constitutional Court’s decision means the 2025 reform stands, and with it a significantly narrower pathway to Italian citizenship through ancestry.
