Italy Court Upholds Limits on Citizenship by Descent

Italy's Constitutional Court has upheld a controversial 2025 law that restricts citizenship by descent, limiting eligibility to those with a parent or grandparent born in Italy and effectively excluding millions of descendants with more distant ancestry. The decision, announced on March 13, 2026, following a series of hearings, marks a significant shift in the country's long-standing ius sanguinis principle and was detailed in a court statement that found the restrictions constitutional.

The law, enacted as an emergency decree in March 2025 and converted into Law 74/2025, applies retroactively from March 27, 2025. It requires that the qualifying parent or grandparent held only Italian citizenship at the time of the descendant's birth or their own death. Applications filed before the cutoff date—estimated at around 60,000 cases—will continue to be processed under the previous rules, which allowed citizenship transmission through unbroken lines back to 1861, when Italy unified. The change addresses overwhelming administrative burdens, including decade-long waits at consulates and clogged court systems, as well as concerns over potential abuse, such as the commercialization of...