Italy has changed its law on citizenship by descent, closing a route that allowed applicants to claim nationality through a great-grandparent. The change, announced on March 20, 2025, narrows one of Europe's most generous citizenship-by-descent systems and affects descendants of Italian emigrants worldwide.

The decree, issued by the Italian government and published in the Official Gazette, sets a new limit on how far back applicants can trace their lineage. Claims through the great-grandparental line no longer qualify under the standard route. Applicants must now show a closer connection to an Italian-born ancestor — specifically a parent or grandparent born in Italy.

Who is affected?

The rule reaches a large population. Italy estimates that tens of millions of people abroad hold Italian ancestry, with major descendant communities in Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Canada. Many of those descendants trace their last Italian-born ancestor to the wave of emigration between 1880 and 1920 — a timeframe that frequently places the qualifying ancestor at the great-grandparent level or earlier.

Under the previous framework, applicants could establish an unbroken chain of citizenship across any number of generations, provided no ancestor in the line had formally renounced Italian citizenship. Consulates and courts in Italy processed thousands of such cases each year, and demand had grown sharply as applicants sought European Union passports.

The new provision cuts that chain shorter.

What steps change for applicants?

• Applicants who planned to file through a great-grandparent no longer qualify under the ordinary descent route.
• Cases already pending at the time of the decree face scrutiny under the new threshold.
• Applicants with a parent or grandparent born in Italy retain access to the descent route.
• Individuals whose parent held Italian citizenship at the time of their birth remain outside the scope of the restriction in most configurations of the rule.

Why did the government act?

Officials framed the measure as a correction to a system that had expanded beyond its original purpose. The government stated that citizenship should reflect a genuine, demonstrable link to Italy rather than a distant ancestral connection, and that consular backlogs had grown unsustainable. Court decisions in recent years had broadened access to the descent route, and the government moved to reset the boundary by law.

Descendant groups and immigration practitioners criticized the change, arguing that it retroactively devalues lineages that Italian law itself had recognized for decades. Legal challenges are expected.

What should readers do now?

The Italian government directs applicants to official channels for guidance: the Ministry of the Interior, the official portal of the Italian government, and Italian consulates abroad publish the current requirements and any transitional provisions. Applicants with pending cases or imminent filings should consult those official sources, as the decree text governs how existing applications are treated.

The practical consequence is simple: for descendants of Italians born more than two generations back, the door to an Italian passport through ancestry has largely closed.