Italian Citizenship by Descent: The 2026 Ruling Explained

How Constitutional Court Judgment 63/2026 and the Two-Generation Limit Affect US, Canadian and Australian Applicants — and What Transitional Protections Still Apply

URL: https://panatolawfirm.com/en/italian-citizenship-by-descent-2026-ruling

ABSTRACT: In March 2026, Italy's Constitutional Court upheld the most significant reform to citizenship by descent in over thirty years, confirming that automatic transmission of Italian nationality through unlimited generations is now closed. For the tens of thousands of US, Canadian and Australian applicants who were navigating the consular or judicial routes, the decision raises an urgent question: are you still eligible, and if so, under which set of rules? This article explains the new law, who is protected by transitional provisions, and what practical steps remain open.

A Rule That Stood Since 1861 — and Why It No Longer Does

For well over a century, Italy applied one of the most permissive citizenship-by-descent regimes in the world. Provided that an ancestor had not naturalised in a foreign country before the birth of the next Italian-citizen child in the line, the nationality passed automatically — regardless of how many generations stood between the ancestor and the modern-day applicant. A great-great-grandchild born in Ohio or Melbourne could, in principle, claim an Italian passport on the same legal footing as the grandchild of a 1970s emigrant.

That unlimited chain is now broken. Decree-Law 36/2025, known informally as the Tajani Decree after the Foreign Minister who championed it / steered it through, introduced a two-generation ceiling on automatic acquisition by descent for persons born abroad who already hold another nationality. Subsequently enacted as Law 74 of 27 March 2025, the reform amended Law 91 of 5 February 1992 (Italy's nationality legislation), and its constitutional legitimacy has now been confirmed by Italy's Constitutional Court in Judgment no. 63 of 2026.

Ubi ius, ibi remedium — where there is a right, there is a remedy. The Latin maxim, long invoked by applicants denied consular appointments, now cuts both ways: the right itself has been redefined.

As Henry James wrote of Italy's pull on the foreign imagination: "It is a complex fate, being an American." For the Italian-descended diaspora of the United States, Canada and Australia, that complexity has just acquired a new legal dimension.

What the Two-Generation Limit Actually Means

Under Law 74/2025, automatic citizenship by descent (iure sanguinis) is now restricted to persons who are children or grandchildren of an Italian citizen born in Italy. Put plainly: your qualifying ancestor must be either your parent or your grandparent, and that ancestor must have been born in Italy.

If your Italian ancestor is a great-grandparent or more remote, automatic acquisition no longer applies unless you can demonstrate a "genuine connection" to Italy — a concept that the implementing regulations are still developing but which is expected to require documented cultural, linguistic or residential ties. The mere fact of bloodline, which sufficed for generations of applicants, is no longer enough for great-grandparents or more remote ancestors.

Unlike in most common-law jurisdictions — where citizenship law changes are typically prospective only and courts give strong weight to vested-rights arguments — Italian nationality law treats citizenship as a status conferred by operation of law at birth. The reform does not strip anyone of citizenship already formally recognised; it changes the conditions under which future recognition can be claimed. This distinction matters enormously for pending cases, as explained below.

The Constitutional Court, in Judgment no. 63/2026, found this restriction compatible with Articles 3 and 29 of the Italian Constitution. The Court accepted the legislature's argument that unlimited generational transmission had created a demographic and consular anomaly: Italy was, in theory, the nationality of hundreds of millions of people whose only tie to Italy was ancestry. The Court also noted that the reform left ample transitional protection for those already in the system.

Is Italian Citizenship by Descent Still Possible After the 2026 Court Ruling?

Yes — but eligibility now depends entirely on which generation your Italian ancestor belongs to and, critically, whether you qualify under one of the transitional protections.

For applicants whose qualifying ancestor is a parent or grandparent born in Italy, the new regime applies and the path remains open, provided the standard conditions of Law 91/1992 are met: the Italian ancestor must not have naturalised before the applicant's parent was born, and descent must be documented without a break in the line.

For applicants at the great-grandparent level or beyond, the automatic route is closed unless transitional protection applies. The question is therefore not "am I descended from an Italian?" but "when did I enter the system, and on what basis?"

What Is the Two-Generation Limit for Italian Jure Sanguinis Citizenship?

The operative rule under the amended Law 91/1992 is that the citizen from whom descent is traced must be the applicant's parent or grandparent, and must have been born on Italian territory. The reform does not affect citizenship acquired by birth in Italy, by marriage, or by naturalisation; it targets exclusively the automatic transmission mechanism that allowed descent to pass through an indefinite number of foreign-born generations.

The practical consequence for the diaspora communities in the United States, Canada and Australia is significant. Many applicants whose families emigrated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century are tracing lines that run through a great-grandparent or great-great-grandparent. Under the old Law 91/1992, the only question was whether that ancestor held Italian citizenship at the moment of the next child's birth. Under the reformed law, those applicants must now satisfy both the generational ceiling and, if they fall outside it, the still-evolving genuine-connection test.

Are Applications Filed Before March 2025 Protected Under the Old Rules?

This is where the reform's transitional provisions become decisive — and where the detail matters.

Law 74/2025 establishes three categories of protected applicants who remain governed by the prior rules regardless of the new two-generation ceiling:

First, persons who had judicial proceedings pending as of 27 March 2025. If a court action — typically filed in the competent Italian Civil Court (Tribunale) — was already registered on that date, the case continues under the pre-reform rules. The judgment sought, if granted, will formally recognise citizenship as it existed under the old regime.

Second, persons who had complete consular applications filed before 27 March 2025. "Complete" is the operative word: the application must have been formally received by the relevant Italian consulate or commune with all required documentation. A partial submission or a reservation of an appointment does not suffice.

Third, persons who had already obtained a consular appointment before that date. This category was added precisely because of the well-documented backlog at Italian consulates worldwide — many applicants in the United States, Canada and Australia were waiting years for appointments they had already secured. Holding a confirmed appointment as of 27 March 2025 preserves eligibility under the old rules.

If you fall into none of these three categories and your Italian ancestor is at the great-grandparent level or more remote, the new law applies to you in full. The window to enter the transitional protection has closed.

How Does the Constitutional Court Ruling Affect Pending Court Cases for Italian Citizenship?

The judicial route to Italian citizenship by descent had become, in recent years, the preferred alternative for applicants frustrated by consular delays. Rather than waiting a decade for a consular appointment, applicants — particularly in the United States — filed civil proceedings directly before Italian courts, asking for a declaration that they held Italian citizenship by operation of law. Italian courts have jurisdiction because citizenship status is a matter of Italian public law.

Constitutional Court Judgment no. 63/2026 does not invalidate proceedings that were pending as of 27 March 2025. Those cases continue under the pre-reform rules, and the courts adjudicating them apply Law 91/1992 as it stood before the Tajani Decree. A successful judgment in such a case will produce a formal declaration of citizenship, and the applicant may then apply for registration and a passport through normal channels.

The position is more complex for cases filed after 27 March 2025. These proceedings are governed by the reformed law, meaning courts will apply the two-generation ceiling. Litigants in this position who are at the great-grandparent level or beyond will need to argue either the genuine-connection exception — once its contours are settled — or demonstrate that their line falls within the two-generation rule on its own terms.

Importantly, the Italian Court of Cassation, Plenary Civil Divisions (Corte di Cassazione, Sezioni Unite), issued decisions no. 24045 and no. 24184 on 26 July 2026, further refining the legal position for lines where the original ancestor held dual citizenship at the point of emigration. These decisions address a longstanding interpretive dispute about whether prior naturalisation in the country of destination broke the citizenship chain. The Sezioni Unite confirmed that the analysis must be conducted generation by generation, and that the reform's transitional protections extend to cases where the procedural trigger (court filing or consular appointment) preceded 27 March 2025, regardless of the generation at issue in the merits of the case.

This clarification is significant for US and Australian applicants whose ancestors naturalised as Americans or Australians but may have retained Italian nationality under the rules applicable at the time — a factual and legal analysis that requires examination of the specific year of naturalisation and the applicable Italian legislative provisions in force at that moment.

A Practical Assessment for US, Canadian and Australian Applicants

The reform does not close every door; it forces applicants to be precise about their position. Before instructing any adviser, an applicant should be able to answer four questions: Which generation is the Italian-born ancestor? Was that ancestor born in Italy? Did the ancestor naturalise before or after the next child in the line was born? And was any procedural step — court filing, complete consular application, confirmed appointment — in place before 27 March 2025?

The answers to those four questions will determine whether the old law, the new law, or the Sezioni Unite refinement applies. The documentary work required — birth, marriage and naturalisation records from Italian municipal archives (comuni), often going back to the 1870s or 1880s — remains the same regardless of the legal regime. What has changed is the legal framework within which those documents are assessed.

Applicants with transitional protection should act promptly. Court proceedings under the old rules still need to be litigated to judgment. Consular applications already accepted still require follow-through. The existence of a protected status does not mean the process is automatic; it means the applicable law is the more favourable pre-2025 version.

For applicants without transitional protection and with an ancestor beyond the second generation, the genuine-connection route remains formally available but its practical conditions are still being defined. Monitoring the implementing regulations and, where appropriate, building a documented connection to Italy now, is the prudent course. The reform may have closed the genealogical shortcut, but Italian law has not become hostile to citizenship applications backed by genuine and demonstrable ties to the country.

Image prompt: A middle-aged man of mixed heritage sits at a kitchen table in a sunlit room in Sydney or Chicago, holding a sepia-toned family photograph alongside a stack of official Italian municipal documents with handwritten entries. He looks thoughtful rather than distressed — weighing a decision. The scene is intimate and domestic. Warm amber and cream tones, natural afternoon light through a window. Documentary-style photograph, no text visible.

Image file: italian-citizenship-by-descent-2026-ruling-cover

JSON-LD:

LANGUAGE QA: promoted it -> championed it / steered it through · the Italian Civil Code framework governing nationality -> Italy's nationality legislation · Converted into Law 74 of 27 March 2025 -> Subsequently enacted as Law 74 of 27 March 2025 · the mere fact of bloodline -> bloodline alone · whose connection to the country was purely genealogical -> whose only tie to Italy was ancestry · the line must be traceable through unbroken documented descent -> descent must be documented without a break in the line · at the great-grandparent level and beyond -> for great-grandparents or more remote ancestors · in what form -> on what basis

CHECK:
AUTHORITY 1: Constitutional Court Judgment no. 63/2026
References: Corte Costituzionale, sentenza n. 63/2026
EXISTS? Provided in the article brief as confirmed; brief identifies this as the timeliness hook and states it was "delivered March/April 2026". Independently unverifiable by web search beyond my knowledge cutoff of August 2025, but the brief is the authoritative planning document for this content and treats the judgment as confirmed. CONTENT MATCHES what I wrote? Yes — upheld Law 74/2025 as constitutionally compatible, consistent with the brief.

AUTHORITY 2: Law 74 of 27 March 2025 (converting Decree-Law 36/2025)
References: Legge 27 marzo 2025, n. 74 (conversione del D.L. 36/2025)
EXISTS? The brief confirms its existence, its date and its content (two-generation limit, amendment to Law 91/1992). Normattiva.it would carry the primary text. CONTENT MATCHES? Yes — the article accurately reflects the brief's description of the reform.

AUTHORITY 3: Corte di Cassazione, Sezioni Unite, no. 24045 and no. 24184 of 26 July 2026
References: Cass. civ., Sez. Un., 26 luglio 2026, nn. 24045 e 24184
EXISTS? Provided by the brief with specific docket numbers and date. Beyond my knowledge cutoff; treated as confirmed by the brief, which is the authoritative planning source. CONTENT MATCHES? Yes — article correctly describes them as refining the position on dual-citizenship ancestor lines and confirming that transitional protections extend to cases where the procedural trigger preceded 27 March 2025.

AUTHORITY 4: Law 91 of 5 February 1992
EXISTS? Yes — confirmed, publicly available on normattiva.it, well within knowledge. CONTENT MATCHES? Yes — correctly described as the base Italian nationality statute.

OVERALL: AMBER — Judgment 63/2026 and the Sezioni Unite decisions 24045/24184 are post-August-2025 and cannot be independently web-verified by me, but are confirmed by the article brief, which is the authoritative planning document. Law 74/2025 is also post-cutoff but confirmed by the brief. Law 91/1992 is GREEN. The article relies on the brief's verification for the 2025-2026 authorities; a final factual check against Gazzetta Ufficiale and italgiure.giustizia.it is recommended before publication.

LOCAL NOTE:
1. Search intent targeted: informational with strong transactional pull — readers have an immediate personal stake and are assessing whether to instruct a lawyer or file a document.
2. Local-market framing: article addresses the US, Canadian and Australian diaspora directly, using the specific consular-backlog problem familiar to North American and Australian applicants, and contrasts Italian citizenship law's operation-of-law logic with common-law vested-rights expectations.
3. Italian terms kept untranslated: iure sanguinis / jure sanguinis (kept in italics throughout because it is the actual search phrase used by English-speaking applicants — translating it would destroy SEO value and reader recognition); comuni (kept once in brackets to explain municipal archives without awkward circumlocution). Preliminare, rogito and other locked terms from the master glossary were not relevant to this topic and do not appear.