Gay parents in Italy live under a patchwork of rules that recognize some families fully, some partially, and some not at all. A civil union gives a couple most of the legal effects of marriage but no automatic parental link to each other’s children. A May 2025 Constitutional Court ruling opened the door for two mothers to appear together on a birth certificate when the child was conceived through assisted reproduction abroad. For everyone else, legal parentage still has to be built case by case through a special adoption procedure, and families formed through surrogacy face a criminal law that now reaches across borders. What follows is what those rules mean in practice.
Civil Unions and What They Don’t Cover
Law 76 of 2016, known as the Cirinnà Law, created civil unions with effects largely similar to marriage: inheritance between partners, residency permits, hospital visitation, mutual financial support.1Consiglio Nazionale Del Notariato. Civil Unions What it does not include is any parental relationship between one partner and the other partner’s child.
In day-to-day terms, the non-biological parent is a legal stranger to the child. That parent cannot authorize medical treatment on their own, sign school enrollment forms, or take the child across a border without a formal power of attorney from the biological parent. If the biological parent is incapacitated in an emergency, the non-biological parent has no standing to make decisions. The civil union fixes the relationship between the adults; it does nothing for the relationship between the second adult and the child.
Two Mothers on the Birth Certificate After the 2025 Ruling
On May 22, 2025, the Constitutional Court published Sentenza 68/2025, declaring Article 8 of Law 40/2004 unconstitutional to the extent that it prevented the intentional (non-biological) mother from being listed on the birth certificate of a child born through assisted reproduction carried out abroad.2Corte Costituzionale. Sentenza 68 del 2025 The court grounded the decision in Article 2 (personal identity), Article 3 (equality), and Article 30 (the right to receive care from both parents) of the Constitution, and it held that neither parent can walk away from parental responsibility once both have consented to the reproductive procedure.3Jurist. Italy’s Constitutional Court Affirms Parental Rights of Same-Sex Mothers
The ruling has clear limits. It applies to two women who used medically assisted reproduction in a country where it was legal and who both gave prior consent to the procedure and to assuming parental responsibility. It does not touch surrogacy. It does not automatically fix the paperwork for children already registered with only one parent on the certificate; those families still need the adoption route. And it does not open access to fertility treatment inside Italy, which remains restricted under Law 40 of 2004 to opposite-sex couples of potentially fertile age.
Stepchild Adoption for Everyone Else
For families outside the scope of the 2025 ruling, the main path to legal recognition of the second parent runs through Article 44 of Law 184 of 1983, called “adoption in special cases.” It is designed for situations where a child already has an established bond with an adult who is not the biological parent.4Ministero della Giustizia. Adozione: Casi Particolari
The applicant files with the juvenile court and must demonstrate a genuine, stable relationship with the child. The biological parent must consent. The court then runs a full review: social worker interviews, psychological evaluations, home assessments, financial and residential stability, criminal record checks. The governing standard is the best interest of the child.
The process commonly takes twelve to twenty-four months. Legal fees and court costs generally fall between €4,000 and €10,000. Once granted, the adoption gives the non-biological parent full parental authority, inheritance rights, and the ability to pass on a surname, and it does not sever the child’s ties to the biological family. Outcomes vary, though. Individual judges have wide discretion, and results differ between courts.
Who Can Apply
Article 44 is available to the spouse or civil union partner of the biological parent. Couples who simply live together without a civil union face a much harder path, because Italian law does not generally extend this adoption route to unmarried, non-registered partners. For most same-sex families pursuing this option, formalizing a civil union is a practical prerequisite.
The Risk If the Biological Parent Dies First
If the biological parent dies before the adoption is completed, the non-biological parent has no automatic custody. Under Article 343 of the Italian Civil Code, guardianship goes through the court. Article 348 lets the last parent holding parental responsibility designate a guardian by will, public deed, or authenticated private document, and judges generally follow that designation unless serious reasons prevent it. Without a written designation, the court selects a guardian from among the child’s relatives, and the non-biological parent may not be considered at all. Finishing the adoption quickly matters, and drafting a testamentary guardianship designation in the meantime is not optional.
The Surrogacy Ban and the Universal Crime Law
Italy bans all forms of surrogacy inside the country under Law 40 of 2004.5Consolato Generale d’Italia Houston. Birth Derived from Surrogate Motherhood Under Article 12, paragraph 6, anyone who carries out, organizes, or advertises surrogacy faces three months to two years in prison or a fine from €600,000 to €1,000,000.
In October 2024, Parliament passed Law 169/2024, classifying surrogacy as a “universal crime,” a designation typically used for offenses such as genocide and torture. It allows Italy to prosecute its citizens for using surrogacy services anywhere in the world, regardless of whether the practice is legal in the country where it took place. The law entered into force on December 3, 2024, and Italian consulates are now required to flag any birth certificate that appears to involve surrogacy and report the case to Italian judicial authorities.6Consolato Generale d’Italia Houston. Surrogacy – Law 169 of 4 November 2024
Whether prosecutions will actually follow is a separate question. Foreign medical records are typically shielded by local privacy laws, which makes proving a surrogacy arrangement difficult. Legal scholars have noted that similar extraterritorial bans elsewhere have produced no successful prosecutions. There is also an enforcement asymmetry: a male same-sex couple returning with a newborn draws far more scrutiny than a heterosexual couple in the same situation, so the law falls disproportionately on gay men in practice even though it applies to everyone on paper.
Registering a Foreign Birth Certificate
Families who have a child abroad often run into trouble at the Italian civil registry. In January 2023, the Ministry of Interior issued a directive telling mayors to stop automatically registering foreign birth certificates that named two same-sex parents for children conceived through assisted reproduction. Before that directive, some municipalities had been transcribing these certificates without objection.
The Court of Cassation reinforced the restriction in multiple 2022 decisions, holding that automatic transcription of a foreign birth certificate listing the non-biological parent is not permitted and that recognition must go through the adoption in special cases procedure. In practice, the local office will typically register only the biological parent from the foreign certificate. Families who want both parents listed either pursue the stepchild adoption or challenge the registry’s refusal in court, and litigating a transcription denial adds years of uncertainty and legal costs of €5,000 or more on top of the adoption process. The 2025 Constitutional Court ruling should ease this for female couples who used assisted reproduction abroad with documented mutual consent; other families still face the split reality of a child recognized as having two parents in one country and one in Italy.
Inheritance and Financial Exposure
Missing legal parentage carries financial consequences that families sometimes discover only in a crisis. Italian inheritance tax applies rates based on the relationship between the deceased and the beneficiary. Legally recognized children get a €1,000,000 tax-free allowance and pay 4% above that threshold. Beneficiaries who are not legally recognized as relatives get no allowance and pay 8% on the whole inheritance.
If the non-biological parent has not completed a stepchild adoption, the child has no legal inheritance rights from that parent at all. Intestate succession does not reach them, and even a bequest in a will is taxed at the higher rate for unrelated beneficiaries. The same problem runs the other way: if something happens to the child, the non-biological parent without legal status is not recognized as a surviving parent for any legal or financial purpose. Beyond inheritance, missing parentage can affect health insurance coverage, pension survivor benefits, and tax deductions that depend on a recognized dependent child.
Protections to Put in Place Now
Because the adoption process takes one to two years and the wider legal picture is still shifting, families need interim measures. None of these replaces full legal parentage, but each one closes a specific vulnerability.
- Testamentary guardianship. The biological parent names the non-biological parent as the preferred guardian in a will or authenticated private document under Article 348 of the Civil Code. Judges generally follow the designation unless serious reasons prevent it.
- Power of attorney. A notarized power of attorney from the biological parent lets the non-biological parent make medical decisions, authorize school activities, and handle daily administrative matters. Keep it current and accessible.
- Wills and life insurance. Both parents should have wills that name the child and each other. Life insurance with the partner or child as beneficiary bypasses some inheritance complications because payouts go directly to the named beneficiary.
- Travel documents. When crossing borders, carry the child’s birth certificate, notarized consent from the biological parent, and any court documents showing an adoption in progress.
The 2025 ruling improved the picture for female couples who used assisted reproduction abroad with documented mutual consent, and their route to both mothers on the birth certificate should now be more direct. Families formed through surrogacy, families whose children were born before the ruling, and couples who have not yet formalized a civil union still need to build their legal protections piece by piece. Working early with a family law attorney experienced in same-sex parenting cases is the surest way to avoid gaps that only surface in a crisis.