Italian citizenship by descent is now generally limited to those with an Italian parent or grandparent (a 2025 law ended eligibility through great-grandparents or more distant ancestors).
Applicants must provide documents proving their direct lineage to an Italian ancestor (for example, the ancestor’s Italian birth certificate, along with marriage and naturalization records tracing the family line).
Once granted, Italian citizenship offers full EU rights, visa free travel, and the ability to pass citizenship to children born abroad. There is no limit to how many citizenships you can hold, and no language exam is needed for descent-based applications.
We created this article in conjunction with AI technology, then made sure it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.
