We answer your most frequently asked questions about becoming an Italian citizen

If your Italian ancestor (or anyone else in the line of descent up to you) did not renounce his or her Italian citizenship, you have the right to carry out the citizenship recognition procedure.

Not necessarily. You will need to know the date on which the application was made. Every child of a naturalized Italian who was born before the date of naturalization, along with his or her offspring, is entitled to the procedure.

Yes, but it should be noted that Italian women acquire citizenship from 1 January 1948, so it is necessary to take into account the date of birth of the children of the first Italian woman in the line of descent. In the event that the date of birth was prior to 1948, recognition can only be requested through judicial means.

If you do not have the birth certificate of your Italian ancestor, you just need to send an email to the Comune in which his birth was transcribed, requesting a multilingual copy (which you can use to request the Certificate from the National Electoral Chamber). To request it, you will have to send an email to the Comune stating the full name and date of birth of your ancestor, stating that you are a descendant of him or her, and attaching your ID (front and back). The certificate can be sent digitally or physically, so you will have to declare a postal address.

There are two types of procedures to obtain citizenship administratively. One is Reconstruction, which is for those who are not direct children of an Italian, and Direct Children of Legal Age, for those who are children of an Italian citizen. If this is your case, you will need to know if your father or mother is registered in the AIRE (Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all'Estero – Register of Italians Residing Abroad) at the Italian Consulate that corresponds to your address of residence. If this is not the case, you will have to do the Reconstruction procedure.

Minors cannot complete the procedure themselves and must be represented by their parents. If you are a minor child of an Italian registered with AIRE, the latter must be the one to present your Birth Certificate to the Italian Consulate so that you can be recognized as an Italian citizen.

AIRE is the Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all'Estero (Registry of Italians Living Abroad). Every Italian citizen living outside of Italy must register with AIRE in order to process their passport or report changes in their marital status. Those who obtain their citizenship at an Italian Consulate are registered with AIRE at the time of being recognized as citizens.

The citizenship process can be carried out at the Italian Consulate that corresponds to your address of residence. For example, if your address of residence (the one that appears on your ID) is in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, the Consulate General of Italy in Buenos Aires, located at Reconquista 572 in that city, corresponds to you. You can also carry out the process in Italy at the Comune where you establish residence.

Although the processing times vary depending on the Municipality (for example, whether or not appointments are required for the different procedures to be carried out), it generally takes less time than the Reconstruction procedure at the Italian Consulate. In any case, the procedure for Direct Children of Legal Age at the Consulate can be completed almost as quickly as the procedure in Italy.

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If you live in Argentina, more precisely in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (or AMBA), you are probably having a hard time getting an appointment at the Italian Consulate General to start your citizenship process. There are various reasons that justify this. On the one hand, Argentina is the country with the most Italians outside of Italy, and it is estimated that around two thirds of the population has at least one Italian ancestor. The number of appointments that the system admits is very few for the high demand that exists. On the other hand, it should be noted that in many cases our ancestors did not go to the Italian Consulate upon arrival to register with the AIRE, thus fulfilling their civic duty towards Italy. To be clearer, if your paternal grandfather arrived from Italy and did not register with the AIRE, then he did not register your father's birth either, so that later your father would register your birth and today you would not be in the situation of getting an appointment.

If you are already an Italian citizen, you are registered with AIRE and you have minor children, you only need to present your marriage certificate (if any) and the birth certificates of your children translated into Italian to the Consulate so that they are recognized as Italian. If one of your children is over 18 years old, they must apply for citizenship as a Direct Child of Legal Age by taking the corresponding appointment.

You can apply for a passport online through the website of the Italian Consulate where you are registered with AIRE. If you have just received an email from the Consulate saying that your certificates were sent to the Comune, then you will have to wait about 60 days, which is the estimated time for the Comune to transcribe your birth certificate and report the registration data to the Consulate. If you completed your citizenship application in Italy but left without applying for a passport, you will have to register with AIRE in order to process your passport at the Consulate. The costs of this can be found on the Consulate's website.