Rome: Italy has enacted strict new rules limiting eligibility for citizenship through ancestry, significantly reducing the number of people who can claim an Italian passport.
The decree, announced Friday and effective immediately, restricts applications to those with Italian parents or grandparents, eliminating a long-standing provision that allowed individuals to seek citizenship if they could prove descent from an Italian ancestor alive after 1861.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani justified the decision, citing “years of abuses” by applicants with tenuous ties to Italy. Many of these applicants, he suggested, sought an Italian passport solely for its visa-free travel benefits rather than genuine cultural or familial connections.
“Being an Italian citizen is a serious thing. It’s not a game to get a passport in your pocket to go shopping in Miami, Tajani stated.”
Italy’s consulates, courts, and municipal offices have struggled to keep up with the flood of citizenship applications, leading to delays and service bottlenecks.
The number of Italian citizens abroad has surged by 40 percent over the past decade, with over 6.4 million registered in 2024, compared to 4.6 million in 2014.
The crackdown had already begun before the decree. In October 2023, Italy’s Interior Ministry issued new guidelines following Supreme Court rulings, stipulating that if an Italian ancestor had voluntarily acquired a new nationality while their children were minors, the children automatically lost their Italian citizenship. This decision left many applicants- some of whom had spent years pursuing citizenship-suddenly ineligible, sparking widespread frustration in online forums.
The move comes amid broader global debates over who qualifies for citizenship. Italy, like many European nations, traditionally bases citizenship laws on bloodline (jus sanguinis), maintaining ties with millions of descendants of Italian emigrants.
Under current laws, children of legal immigrants in Italy can only apply for citizenship at age 18, provided they have lived in the country since birth.
To address concerns, Tajani announced plans for legislation allowing the children or grandchildren of Italian citizens to apply for citizenship after residing in Italy for two to three years, lowering the current five-to-ten-year residency requirement for most foreigners.
