As an EU citizen, you obtain the basic rights to live, work, and vote in the EU without the need for a residency permit. Furthermore, since 2008, most European countries are members of the Schengen agreement, which allows for free movement and travel within the member states. Dual citizens feel more secure when travelling abroad, are not subject to certain restrictions, and enjoy the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU state on the same conditions as the nationals of that state.

Most Western countries allow their citizens to acquire dual, or multiple, citizenship. In some cases, people employed in critical areas of the government, where a person may come across state secrets, are prevented from getting dual citizenship. If you are concerned that obtaining dual citizenship may affect your current citizenship, you should contact the local authorities for your country. In any case, according to the principle of jure sanguinis, you have actually been an Italian citizen since birth, if you qualify. Obtaining dual citizenship through ancestry is much different from obtaining it through naturalisation, which in many cases can result in the loss of your native citizenship.

The Italian citizenship law is based on the jure sanguinis principle, meaning citizenship by blood, which means that citizenship is transferred from parent to child at the time of the child’s birth. Individuals who qualify may start the process by providing proof of being the descendant of an Italian citizen, and proof of the absence of interruptions in the transmission of citizenship, which may have occurred when the ancestor naturalised as a citizen of another country before the birth of his or her child.

For applications submitted before 27 March 2025 or appointments booked before 27 March 2025, there is no generational restriction. However, your ascendant cannot have passed away or naturalised prior to the founding of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861. According to legislation approved on 24 May 2025, the recognition of Italian citizenship by descent is limited to two generations.

US vital records must be in original or “certified copy”, also known as “long form”, “full form”, or “book copy”. They need to be legalised by means of an Apostille and then translated into Italian. Documents from countries that signed the Hague Convention require an Apostille, whereas for countries that did not sign it, legalisation needs to be performed through the Ministry of External Affairs and then completed through the local Italian Consulate. There are notable exemptions for legalisation requirements. The 1987 Bruxelles Convention completely abolished the need for legalisation for documents exchanged among Belgium, Denmark (except Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, and Latvia. Pursuant to the 1977 Athens convention, birth and marriage records issued by Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, Greece, and Portugal also do not require legalisation when submitted in Italy. Italy also signed bilateral agreements abolishing the need for vital records legalisation with Austria (1990), Germany (1969), Spain (1983), Argentina (1987), Switzerland (1966), and Hungary (1977). All non-Italian vital record documents need to be translated into Italian unless they are issued in multilingual format pursuant to the 1976 Wien Convention.

Normally, documents on file at the consulate do not need to be duplicated when additional family members use the same consulate. However, starting from 2012, consulates no longer share documents with each other. Therefore, if your family member was granted citizenship by another consulate, you will need to provide new original vital record documents to the consulate you will be using.

Italian citizenship through marriage or civil union to an Italian citizen is regulated by Articles 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the law of Citizenship n. 91 of 1992. Residents of Italy who are married to an Italian citizen can apply after two years from the date of the marriage or civil union, while the waiting time for foreign nationals married to Italian citizens residing abroad is three years. The term is reduced by half in case there are minor children born or legally adopted by the couple.

No, as on 15 August 1992, Italy passed a law allowing dual citizenship. As a consequence, those who acquired a foreign nationality after the above-mentioned date have retained their Italian citizenship.

The Italian passport is currently one of the most powerful passports globally, giving you access to some 175 countries without the need for an entry visa. According to Henley and Partners, more powerful than the Italian passport are only the German one (177 countries) and the Singapore passport (176 countries).