New Italian Rules for Minor Children Born Abroad: The 2026 Deadline

If you are pursuing or already hold Italian citizenship by descent and you have minor children, a 2025 reform may force a decision before May 31, 2026. After that date, many children born abroad will have no remaining path to Italian citizenship through their parent's ancestry. For US families, this is one of the most time-sensitive changes Italy has made in years.

What changed

Decree-Law 36/2025, issued March 28, 2025, was converted into Law 74/2025 on May 23, 2025. Together they ended the near-automatic transmission of citizenship by bloodline to children born outside Italy. Previously, Italian nationality flowed from parent to child with few exceptions regardless of birthplace. That is no longer the default.

The narrow exceptions

Under the new rules, a minor child of an Italian citizen acquires citizenship automatically only in tightly defined cases, for example where the Italian parent lived in Italy for at least two consecutive years before the birth, where the parent holds only Italian citizenship, or where the child gains no other citizenship at birth. For a typical US-born child of a dual Italian-American parent, none of these usually apply, since the child is American at birth.

The declaration-of-intent lifeline

There is a transitional path. Children who were minors as of May 24, 2025, whose parent is or will become Italian by ancestry rather than by naturalization or marriage, can be registered through a declaration of intent. The catch is that both parents, including a non-Italian spouse, must appear together at an Italian consulate, sign the declaration, and pay a fee to the Ministry of the Interior. It cannot be done by one parent alone.

Why you cannot wait

The declaration window closes May 31, 2026, and it is a hard cutoff, not the usual elastic Italian timeline. Apostilles and certified translations alone can take two to three months, and consular review and appointments add more, so families realistically needed to begin well before 2026. Securing the parent's own citizenship comes first, because no declaration for a child is possible until at least one parent is officially Italian.

This is general information rather than legal advice, and consular requirements vary by district. Run the free eligibility check to see your path.