Italy's Top Court Upholds the 2025 Citizenship-by-Descent Reform

On March 12, 2026, Italy's Constitutional Court issued a short statement rejecting the first constitutional challenge to the country's 2025 citizenship-by-descent reform. The questions referred by the Court of Turin were found, in part, inadmissible and, in part, unfounded. In plain terms, the reform stands for now, and the eligibility rules in place since 2025 remain fully in effect.

The reform itself arrived through Decree-Law No. 36 of March 28, 2025, later converted into Law No. 74 of May 23, 2025. It ended more than a century of practice that let people born abroad claim Italian citizenship through an unbroken bloodline with no generational cap. The new rules hit hardest the descendants who already hold another nationality, and they drew a firm cutoff: applications filed before March 27, 2025 follow the old framework, while everything after falls under the tighter criteria.

What the Turin judges argued

Turin's referral attacked the cutoff date as arbitrary, claiming it split otherwise identical descendants based purely on timing. It also argued the reform effectively stripped a status people would have qualified for under prior law, and it raised EU law, reasoning that because EU citizenship flows from member-state nationality, Italy's restrictions might clash with the treaties. The Court was not convinced. It treated the changes as a reform of the recognition process rather than a removal of citizenship already held, and it noted that EU law leaves each country to decide who its nationals are.

The fight is not over

A separate referral from the Court of Mantua is still pending, and it reaches further. Mantua questions the protection of fundamental rights, the ban on arbitrary deprivation of citizenship, and whether an emergency decree-law was even a constitutional vehicle for such a sweeping change. A second hearing is scheduled for June 2026, and the full written opinion on the Turin case is expected months out.

Who still qualifies

• Those who opened a case before March 28, 2025 with a consular appointment number or an active Italian court filing.
• Those with a parent or grandparent who held only Italian citizenship.
• Those whose Italian-citizen parent lived in Italy for at least two years before the applicant's birth.

This is information, not legal advice, and the landscape is shifting. If you have records showing you tried to apply before the cutoff, your situation may still be worth exploring. Run the free eligibility check to see your path.