Italian Citizenship by Descent 2026: What the Courts Decided, and What Remains Open
Last updated: October 2, 2026. This article covers Constitutional Court Order No. 147/2026, Court of Cassation Judgment No. 24045/2026, and the current status of Case C-816/26 (Picuso) at the EU Court of Justice. All information is current as of the date above.
Italian citizenship by descent is personal for thousands of American families, and in 2026 it sits in legal limbo. Many of them keep a folder somewhere, and it is usually a thick one. It likely holds a great-grandfather’s birth certificate, pulled from a town hall in Italy, along with sworn translations, apostilles, and Italian revenue stamps called marche da bollo. It may also hold a consulate date, booked years ago, still waiting to arrive. For thousands of people, one date now decides if that folder still matters: March 27, 2025. That is the line Italy’s 2025 citizenship reform drew. Everything before that date follows the old rules. Everything after it follows a new, narrower set. If your papers or your appointment predate that line, the reform likely does not touch you. If they do not, the picture in 2026 gets more complex, and, as of this fall, one key part of it stays unresolved.
Can you still get Italian citizenship through a great-grandparent in 2026? In most cases, no. Since Law 74/2025 took effect, only a parent or grandparent who held only Italian citizenship passes it down with no extra step. One main exception exists: applications or court cases already filed before March 27, 2025. The question is not fully closed, though. Italy’s top court has sent the core issue to the European Union’s highest court. That case is still open, as of October 2026.
A note on what this article is, and is not. An Italian engineer wrote this piece. He is not an immigration lawyer. This article sums up public court rulings and laws, as of the date above. It is not legal advice, and it cannot replace one. Italy’s citizenship rules keep changing. For your own case, talk to an Italian lawyer who works in citizenship law. You can also contact the Italian consulate for your area.
What Changed: Article 3-bis in Plain English
For over a hundred years, Italian law passed down citizenship by blood, with no limit on generations. As long as no ancestor gave it up on purpose, the line went on. That changed with Decree-Law No. 36, signed March 28, 2025. Parliament turned it into Law No. 74 on May 23, 2025. People often call it the Tajani Decree, after Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who proposed it.
Lawmakers framed the change around the idea of an actual, present-day tie to Italy, not simply a name on an old birth certificate. The new law added Article 3-bis to Italy’s 1992 citizenship statute. In plain terms: if you were born abroad, and you already hold another citizenship, the law now treats you as if you never held Italian citizenship at birth. This applies even if you were born long before the law existed. Three exceptions apply, though, and they matter more than anything else in this article.
First: if you already had citizenship recognized, or had a confirmed consulate date, by 11:59 p.m. Rome time on March 27, 2025, you keep the old rules. Second: if a parent or grandparent held only Italian citizenship, with no other passport ever, you still qualify. Third: if your Italian parent lived in Italy for two full years in a row before your birth or adoption, you also qualify.
Outside those three doors, the great-grandparent route that many family trees relied on is closed to new claims, at least for now. Courts call this a block on gaining citizenship, not a loss of something you already had. That split matters for the legal argument. For most families reading this, though, it changes nothing about the outcome.
Each exception above still runs on paperwork, not promises. A birth certificate must show every annotation on it, including any note about losing or regaining Italian citizenship along the way. For the grandparent exception, consulates often also ask for proof that the ancestor never naturalized abroad while still a minor, the same question the Court of Cassation settled this year. None of this is new. It is the same documentation chain families have always needed. Article 3-bis simply narrows who, at the end of that chain, still qualifies.
Who Is Still In, and Who Is Out
Two separate questions shape where your family stands. First: was your line to Italy ever broken? Second, if it was not: does Article 3-bis still let you claim citizenship today? The table below answers the second question, since that is the one most readers want first.
| Family link | Still automatic? | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Parent born in Italy, holds only Italian citizenship | Yes | No further condition |
| Grandparent held only Italian citizenship, no other passport, ever | Yes | Must be documented at every step |
| Parent became Italian, lived in Italy two-plus years before your birth | Yes | Residency confirmed by town records |
| Great-grandparent only, no closer qualifying relative | No, for now | A new claim may fail under Article 3-bis |
| Already recognized as an Italian citizen | Unaffected | Article 3-bis does not undo this |
| Case or application filed before March 27, 2025 | Unaffected | Confirmed again by the top court in July 2026 |
On that first question, line integrity, there is good news worth checking against your own family tree. Did an ancestor become a U.S. citizen while a child in the family was still young? That event may once have been read as breaking the Italian line. It no longer is. The next section explains why.
The Three Decisions: From Confusion to Luxembourg
Three rulings from the Constitutional Court matter here, and mixing them up is easy to do. All three deal with the same law. Each one, though, answers a different question.
The Court filed Decision No. 142 on July 31, 2025. This ruling looked at the old rules, the ones in force before the March 2025 reform. Courts in Bologna, Rome, Milan, and Florence had sent the question up. The Court said that, under the old system, citizenship could pass down with no limit on generations. In plain terms: the old law was fine as written. This ruling came first, and its tone sounded hopeful. Because of that, many online groups took it as proof the new reform would fall too.
Eight months later, on April 30, 2026, the Court filed Decision No. 63. This time, a Turin court had asked about the new rule itself, Article 3-bis. The Court turned down the challenge. Part of it failed on the merits; part of it did not meet the bar for review. In plain terms: the cutoff stands. The Court’s reasoning ran like this: Article 3-bis blocks a new claim, rather than taking away something someone already held. The Court also pointed to trade-offs built into the reform, like easier work entry and a faster path to citizenship for people of Italian descent. Both points resurface in the next section.
Then, on July 23, 2026, the Court filed Order No. 147. This order did not rule on Article 3-bis at all. Instead, it joined cases from courts in Mantua and Campobasso, then paused its own review. It sent one clear question to Luxembourg: does EU law let a national rule close the door this way? That question is still open today.
Why Luxembourg Changes the Picture
Every Italian citizen is also an EU citizen, and that happens with no extra step. Article 20 of an EU treaty, the TFEU, ties real rights to that status. These include the right to live, work, and vote for European Parliament seats, across all twenty-seven EU countries. Order 147/2026 asks one sharp question: can a national rule block that status the way Article 3-bis does?
To find out, the Court used a tool called a preliminary ruling. Courts across the EU use this tool often. When a case turns on EU law, a national court can pause its own case. It then sends one clear question to the Court of Justice of the European Union, in Luxembourg. Only that court can give a final answer. No Italian court, not even the Constitutional Court, can settle an EU-law question alone.
The case now has a file number: C-816/26. Luxembourg logged it on July 23, 2026, the same day Rome sent its order. The case carries a made-up name, “Picuso.” The Court picks names like this on purpose, to shield the privacy of the real people behind it. The written phase opened on August 26, 2026, and gave both sides, plus the European Commission, seventy days to file their views. One office worth explaining to American readers: an Advocate General. In most Luxembourg cases, this legal officer studies the file first and writes an opinion, often months ahead of the judges’ own ruling. That opinion does not bind the Court, but it tends to signal which way a case will go. As of this writing, no Advocate General has taken on this file, and no hearing date is set.
There is no official timeline yet, but context still helps. The EU court’s own 2025 report puts the average length of this kind of case at 16.7 months. Based on that figure alone, a ruling before late 2027 looks unlikely. Lower Italian courts already treat the referral as a big deal. In September 2026, for one, a court in Catanzaro paused its own case, just to wait on Luxembourg. Until Luxembourg answers, Article 3-bis stays in force exactly as written.
The Paths That Remain
Article 3-bis shuts one door, but Italian law still has others open. Law 74/2025 itself widened two of them, just for people of Italian descent.
The reform built a new entry path. It serves foreign nationals, descended from Italian citizens, who come from countries with a long history of Italian emigration. These applicants can enter Italy for paid work, outside the usual visa caps. A joint government decree sets which countries count. Proof of Italian descent still matters here too; applicants need the same kind of civil-registry documents that any citizenship claim requires. After two years of steady, legal residence, the same applicants can seek citizenship through residency, a path that moves faster than Italy’s standard ten-year track for most non-EU residents.
There is a second point worth checking, tied to the “who’s in” question above. Did an ancestor become a citizen of another country while a child in the family was still a minor? The Court of Cassation’s top panel, in Judgment 24045/2026, ruled that such a child does not lose the Italian side of the family line. That held true even when the child already carried dual citizenship from birth. Italy’s Interior Ministry backed this reading in a circular to consulates and town offices, dated August 10, 2026. This ruling leaves the great-grandparent cutoff alone. It only settles whether your line was ever broken at all, a separate question, and for many families, a better answer.
None of this counts as legal advice for your own case. Each path comes with its own paperwork, timeline, and fine print. A qualified professional should check it against your family’s actual history.
An Italian Engineer’s View, Not a Lawyer’s
I am not a citizenship lawyer, and this article will not pretend otherwise. My work, most days, means reading the Gazzetta Ufficiale, Italy’s official law journal, the way an engineer reads a building code: looking for the exact words that change what you can and cannot do. Article 3-bis reads, to me, like most Italian rules do. It is precise, it is procedural, and it looks built to survive the kind of challenge it now faces in Luxembourg.
One thing worth speaking to directly: what it means to hold a real tie to one Italian town. Not an idea of Italy in general, but one town hall, one set of records, and people who still remember the families who left. Thirty years of work inside houses and records across Le Marche have shown that tie up close, including in homes that belonged to families who emigrated generations ago. That tie does not need a passport. It needs you to show up, ask questions, and take the place seriously.
If the Passport Is Closed, What Is Still Open
A passport is a legal status. It is not the same thing as a tie to a place, and it was never the only way to build one. Plenty of Italian-American families built that tie long before anyone filed a citizenship claim, and the tie will hold regardless of how Luxembourg eventually rules.
Say your family’s claim no longer works under Article 3-bis. The most useful next step still costs nothing. Italy’s own Portale Antenati, run by the Ministry of Culture’s state archives, puts millions of digitized civil-registry pages online for free, and it is often the fastest way to confirm which town your search should start in. From there, find the actual comune, your ancestor’s hometown, and go there. Contact the local anagrafe, the town’s civil registry office. Towns across Le Marche, Umbria, and Abruzzo, Italy’s old emigration belt, still hold the records, and they often still hold the memory, too, of families who left for America a century ago. A single hill town like Cingoli can hold more of that history than a full afternoon of searching online. That visit is worth making, no matter what Luxembourg decides.
For some readers, the search goes one step further, toward buying a home in the town the family left. If you reach that point, know this: Italy has no version of the American home inspection. An independent technical survey fills that gap, carried out by a licensed Italian engineer with no stake in the sale. That survey is a service I offer, apart from anything else in this article.
A note on what this article is, and is not. An Italian engineer wrote this piece. He is not an immigration lawyer. This article sums up public court rulings and laws, as of the date above. It is not legal advice, and it cannot replace one. Italy’s citizenship rules keep changing. For your own case, talk to an Italian lawyer who works in citizenship law. You can also contact the Italian consulate for your area.
FAQ: Italian Citizenship by Descent 2026
Can I still get Italian citizenship through a great-grandparent? In most cases, no. Since Law 74/2025 took effect, only a parent or grandparent who held only Italian citizenship passes citizenship down with no extra step. Some exceptions still apply, including applications or court cases filed before March 27, 2025. The matter is not fully closed: Italy’s Constitutional Court sent the core question to the EU’s top court, where it still sits pending.
What is Law 74/2025? Law 74/2025 took effect on May 23, 2025. It turned an earlier decree into permanent law. It added Article 3-bis to Italy’s 1992 citizenship statute. That article ended the old rule of passing citizenship down with no limit on generations, for people born abroad who already hold another citizenship. Three written exceptions still apply.
Did the Italian Constitutional Court end citizenship by descent? Not fully. The Court backed the new cutoff in Decision 63/2026, filed April 30, 2026. Then, in July 2026, the same Court paused a related case. It asked the EU’s top court whether the rule fits with EU citizenship rights. That question is still open today.
What happens to applications filed before March 27, 2025? These stay under the old rules. This covers applications, court cases, and confirmed consulate dates set before 11:59 p.m. Rome time that day. The Court of Cassation’s top panel backed this again in Judgment 24045/2026, filed July 26, 2026, for court cases filed before that date.
I was already recognized as an Italian citizen. Am I affected? No. Article 3-bis only touches new claims, not citizenship you already hold. It does not undo a status you already won, whether through a government office or a court. The Constitutional Court drew this line on purpose, calling the rule a block on new claims, not a loss of old ones.
What is the European Court of Justice case about? The case is C-816/26, nicknamed “Picuso.” It asks whether Article 3-bis’s cutoff fits with EU citizenship rights under Article 20 of the EU’s TFEU treaty. Its written phase opened in August 2026. No hearing date, and no decision date, have been set yet.
What are the alternatives if I no longer qualify? Law 74/2025 built two faster paths for people with Italian roots: work entry outside the usual visa caps, and citizenship through two years of steady residence in Italy. Standard Italian residency and citizenship paths also stay open, for anyone, with no tie to ancestry required.
Do I need a lawyer? For your own case, yes. This article sums up the legal landscape, but it does not judge your family’s specific history. An Italian lawyer who works in citizenship law can do that. So can the Italian consulate for your area.
