How to Get Dual Citizenship for Italy: Paths, Costs, and the 2025 Reform

To get dual citizenship for Italy, you need to qualify under one of three routes — descent from an Italian ancestor (jure sanguinis), marriage or civil union with an Italian citizen, or legal residency in Italy for a set number of years — then assemble certified records for everyone in your chain of proof, legalize them with an Apostille, and file with the Italian consulate covering your area or, if you live in Italy, with your local Comune. Italy permits dual nationality and the United States does not require you to renounce, so you can hold both. One caveat sits above everything else: a May 2025 reform (Law 74/2025) sharply restricted the ancestry route, and many claims that would have worked a year ago no longer will.

The Three Paths and Which One Fits You

Descent is the historic path for Americans and still the most common when it applies. You inherit citizenship from an Italian ancestor if the chain of Italian nationality was never broken — meaning the Italian-born ancestor did not voluntarily naturalize elsewhere before the next person in the line was born.¹ If the ancestor did naturalize, it must have happened after August 15, 1992, for the line to survive; earlier naturalizations also stripped citizenship from any minor children in the chain under the old 1912 law.²

Marriage or civil union with an Italian citizen opens a separate route with a waiting period and a language test. Residency-based naturalization is the fallback for people with no Italian family tie: live legally in Italy long enough, meet the income and language requirements, and apply.

Citizenship by Descent After the 2025 Reform

Before May 24, 2025, there was no generational ceiling on jure sanguinis. Great-great-grandparents counted if the paperwork lined up. Law 74/2025 changed that. If you were born abroad and hold another citizenship, you can now only be recognized as Italian by descent if you fall into one of three categories:³

A parent or grandparent held only Italian citizenship, either currently or at the time of death, with no other nationality.
An Italian-citizen parent (or adoptive parent) lived in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring citizenship and before your birth or adoption.
You already submitted your citizenship application, or received an appointment notification from a consulate, before 11:59 PM Rome time on March 27, 2025.

For most Americans whose Italian tie runs back to a great-grandparent or earlier, the administrative path through a consulate is now closed. A court proceeding in Italy may still be possible, but Italian courts are still working through how the new law interacts with existing case law, so outcomes are uncertain.

Two groups still fall under the old, unlimited-generation rules: people born abroad who hold no other citizenship at all, and people born on Italian territory.⁴

The 1948 Rule

If your line of descent passes through an Italian woman who gave birth before January 1, 1948, consulates still will not process the claim administratively. Under the old law, women could not transmit citizenship to children born before that date. Italy’s Supreme Court held the restriction unconstitutional in judgment no. 4466/2009, but the fix is judicial: you file a lawsuit in the Civil Court of Rome through an Italian attorney. Judges rule for applicants in the great majority of these cases. Legal fees typically start around €7,900, with court filing costs of roughly €286 on top.

Citizenship Through Marriage or Civil Union

The waiting period depends on where you live as a couple. Three years from the date of marriage or civil union if you reside outside Italy, two years if you reside in Italy. Both timelines are cut in half when the couple has minor children by birth or adoption.⁵

You will need a B1 Italian language certificate from a recognized testing institution — intermediate proficiency on the Common European Framework.⁶ Criminal convictions can block the application. Under Article 6 of Law 91/1992, citizenship is denied if the applicant has been convicted of a crime carrying a maximum statutory sentence of three years or more, convicted abroad for a non-political offense with a sentence exceeding one year, or is deemed a security risk to the Republic. A formal rehabilitation can clear the preclusive effect of a past conviction.

Citizenship Through Residency

If you have no Italian family tie, you can naturalize after legally residing in Italy for a set period that depends on your nationality:⁷

Non-EU citizens: 10 years
EU citizens: 4 years
Stateless persons or refugees: 5 years
Foreign-born descendants of Italian citizens up to the second degree, or people born on Italian soil: 3 years

Naturalization is discretionary. Meeting the residency threshold does not guarantee approval. You must show sufficient income for the three years before applying, a clean criminal record, and a B1 language certificate. Even minor convictions are weighed against the rest of the file.

The Documents You Need to Assemble

Italian citizenship files are document-heavy, and this is where most of the real work sits.

For Jure Sanguinis

You need certified birth, marriage, and death certificates for every person in the direct line from your Italian-born ancestor down to you.⁸ Photocopies and informational printouts will not do. Italian records issued by a Comune generally must be recent, often within the last 24 months.

You also need proof of whether your Italian ancestor naturalized as a citizen of another country, and if so, when. If the ancestor never naturalized in the United States, request a Certificate of Non-Existence (CONE) from USCIS using Form G-1566. Naturalizations before September 27, 1906 may have been transferred to the National Archives, so a search there may also be needed.

If your claim rests on the “exclusive Italian citizenship” exception under the 2025 reform, you must also document that the qualifying parent or grandparent held no other nationality.¹

For Marriage and Naturalization

Marriage applicants need the marriage certificate from the Italian Comune where it is registered, the applicant’s birth certificate, criminal background checks from every country where the applicant has lived since age 14, and a B1 language certificate.⁹

Naturalization applicants need proof of continuous legal residency, income tax returns for the past three years (including those of cohabiting family members contributing to household income), criminal background checks, and a B1 language certificate.⁷

Apostilles, Translations, and Name Mismatches

Every non-Italian document needs an Apostille under the Hague Convention. In the United States that is issued by the Secretary of State of the state where the document originated.¹⁰ Each apostilled document then needs a translation into Italian. Whether the consulate handles the translation or you must supply a certified translator varies by consulate.

Immigrant ancestors often Americanized their names, so a birth certificate reading “Giuseppe” may appear as “Joseph” on a later marriage record. When the mismatch cannot be corrected administratively, you may need a “One and the Same Person” order from a U.S. court confirming the different names refer to the same individual. Baptismal records, census entries, and immigration documents help support these petitions.

Where to File and What It Costs

Your residence determines the filing venue. If you live outside Italy, you apply at the Italian Consulate with jurisdiction over your area.¹¹ If you have established legal residency in Italy, you apply at your local Comune. Applying from within Italy often moves faster, but you first need a permesso di soggiorno and registration with the local anagrafe.

Consular appointments are the biggest bottleneck. Initial appointments at U.S. consulates commonly run 12 to 18 months out, sometimes longer.

Government fees:

Jure sanguinis at a consulate: €600 per adult applicant, up from €300 under the 2025 law.³
Jure sanguinis filed at a Comune in Italy: substantially lower.
Marriage-based application: €250 to the Ministry of the Interior.¹²

All fees are non-refundable. A realistic all-in cost for a straightforward consular jure sanguinis case with three or four generations of records commonly runs $1,500 to $4,000, covering the €600 fee, certified U.S. vital records ($10 to $35 each), state Apostille fees ($2 to $25 per document), USCIS genealogy searches ($65), and translations. A 1948 Rule court case pushes the total well above $10,000. Applying from inside Italy trades the fee down but adds living costs, a permesso di soggiorno (roughly €100 to €200), and an identity card (around €22 for the electronic version).

Processing Times and What Happens After Approval

For jure sanguinis at a consulate, processing depends on the consulate’s backlog and on how quickly the Italian municipality that will register you responds to verification requests. Some Comuni handle their part in weeks; Rome is notoriously slow. Marriage-based applications have a statutory maximum of 24 months from submission, extendable to 36 months in complex cases.⁹ Keep certified copies of everything you submit; originals occasionally go missing.

Once recognized, if you live outside Italy you must register with AIRE (Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all’Estero) within 90 days of the change in status.¹³ Failure to register can bring administrative fines. AIRE registration is a prerequisite for an Italian passport, for voting in Italian elections, and for consular services as an Italian citizen.

Taxes If You Keep Living in the U.S.

Italian citizenship alone does not put you on the Italian tax rolls. Italy taxes based on residency, not citizenship. You become an Italian tax resident only if you spend 183 days or more in Italy in a tax year, are registered in Italy’s civil population registry, or have your primary center of economic interests there. The United States, by contrast, taxes its citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live, so a dual citizen who actually moves to Italy would owe both — with foreign tax credits and exclusions available to reduce double taxation. Talk to a tax professional before relocating.

What the 2025 Reform Means for Your Children

If a parent holds exclusively Italian citizenship at the time of the child’s birth, the child is Italian from birth. If the parent is a dual citizen, the child may still acquire citizenship, but the conditions are tighter. One route requires the citizen parent to have lived in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring citizenship and before the child’s birth.⁴

If those conditions are not met, minor children of a citizen by birth can still acquire citizenship when both parents file a formal declaration of intent within three years of the child’s birth. A transitional rule applies to children who were minors on May 24, 2025 and whose parents had applications pending before the reform: for those families, the declaration deadline is May 31, 2026, with a €250 fee.⁴ Citizenship acquired by declaration takes effect the day after the declaration rather than retroactively from birth, which matters for the child’s own ability to transmit citizenship later.

1
Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. How to Apply for Citizenship by Descent (Iure Sanguinis)
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a Los Angeles. Citizenship by Descent
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Consolato Generale d’Italia Adelaide. Reform of Citizenship Iure Sanguinis
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Consolato Generale d’Italia Brisbane. Citizenship by Descent (New Rules)
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Consolato Generale d’Italia Boston. Jure Matrimonii (Citizenship by Marriage)
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Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale. Citizenship
7
Italian Ministry of the Interior. Italian Citizenship
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a Los Angeles. Check List – Citizenship by Descent
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. Italian Citizenship by Marriage or Civil Union
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Ambasciata d’Italia a Washington. Legalization of Documents Between Italy and the USA: the Apostille
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a Los Angeles. Citizenship
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a Los Angeles. Citizenship by Marriage
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Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. AIRE – Register of Italians Resident Abroad