Italian nationality law

Italian nationality law is the law of Italy governing the acquisition, transmission and loss of Italian citizenship. Like many continental European countries it is largely based on jus sanguinis. It also incorporates many elements that are seen as favourable to the Italian diaspora. The Italian Parliament's 1992 update of Italian nationality law is Law no. 91, and came into force on 15 August 1992. Presidential decrees and ministerial directives, including several issued by the Ministry of the Interior, instruct the civil service how to apply Italy's citizenship-related laws.

Italian citizenship can be automatically acquired:

Through special application:

Through marriage:

Through naturalisation:

Citizens of other countries descended from an ancestor (parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, etc.) born in Italy may have a claim to Italian citizenship by descent (or, in other words, by derivation according to jus sanguinis citizenship principles).

Italian citizenship is granted by birth through the paternal line, with no limit on the number of generations, or through the maternal line for individuals born after 1 January 1948. An Italian citizen may be born in a country whose citizenship is acquired at birth by all persons born there. That person would be born therefore with the citizenship of two (or possibly more) countries. Delays in reporting the birth of an Italian citizen abroad do not cause that person to lose Italian citizenship, and such a report might in some cases be filed by the person's descendants many years after he or she is deceased. A descendant of a deceased Italian citizen whose birth in another country was not reported to Italy may report that birth, along with his or her own birth (and possibly the births of descendants in intermediate generations), to be acknowledged as having Italian citizenship.

A person may only have acquired jus sanguinis Italian citizenship by birth if one or both of that person's parents was in possession of Italian citizenship on the birth date. There is a possibility in the law that the only parent who held Italian citizenship on the birth date of a child born with jus sanguinis Italian citizenship was the mother, who previously acquired the Italian citizenship by marriage to the father, who relinquished his own Italian citizenship before the child was born.

Under certain conditions, a child born with Italian citizenship might later have lost Italian citizenship during his or her infancy. The event could prevent a claim of Italian citizenship by his or her descendants. If the Italian parents of a minor child naturalised in another country, the child may have remained holding Italian citizenship, or else may have lost the Italian citizenship. The children who were exempt from losing their Italian citizenship upon the foreign naturalisation of their parents were in many cases (dual) citizens of other countries where they were born, by operation of the jus soli citizenship laws in those countries.

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Wikipedia