Italian Constitutional Court’s Upholds the 2025 Citizenship Restrictions (March 2026 Decision on Decree-Law 36/2025 / Law 74/2025)

 Italy’s long-standing citizenship regime, governed primarily by Law No. 91 of 1992, has traditionally followed the principle of ius sanguinis (citizenship by descent) with no generational limit. As long as the chain of transmission was unbroken and citizenship was not renounced, descendants born abroad could claim Italian citizenship indefinitely. This system, rooted in the 1865 Civil Code and reinforced in 1912 and 1992, created one of the most expansive diaspora citizenship frameworks in Europe.

In response to a massive surge in applications—particularly from Latin America (e.g., Argentina and Brazil reported tens of thousands of new claims in 2024–2025), overwhelming consulates, municipal registries, and courts—the government issued Decree-Law No. 36 on 28 March 2025. This emergency measure was later converted, with modifications, into Law No. 74/2025. The core innovation is the insertion of Article 3-bis into Law 91/1992. It provides that a person born abroad who holds another citizenship is “considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship” unless one of three exceptions applies: (a) recognition (administrative or judicial) was requested by 23:59 on 27 March 2025; (b) a parent or grandparent possessed (or possessed at death) exclusively Italian citizenship; or (c) a parent resided continuously in Italy for at least two years after acquiring citizenship and before the child’s birth/adoption.

The effect is a generational cap (effectively limiting recognition to those with an Italian-born parent or grandparent in most cases) and a cut-off for unclaimed historical claims. The law was challenged in several lower courts. The Tribunal of Turin raised specific questions of constitutional legitimacy concerning Article 1 of the Decree-Law (now Article 3-bis). Hearings before the Constitutional Court occurred in March 2026, with the first public hearing on 11 March.

Issues

The Tribunal of Turin referred multiple questions, primarily invoking: • Article 3 of the Italian Constitution (principle of equality and reasonableness): the retroactive deeming of citizenship “never acquired” creates an arbitrary distinction between those who applied before the 28 March 2025 cut-off and those who applied later, and it allegedly revokes acquired rights without transitional safeguards. • EU law (Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU): interference with the status of EU citizenship derived from Italian nationality. • International human-rights norms: Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (arbitrary deprivation of nationality) and Article 3(2) of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights (right of entry to one’s country of citizenship).

The challengers argued that the law retroactively alters a status acquired at birth, violates legitimate expectations built over 160 years of uninterrupted ius sanguinis, and imposes disproportionate burdens on the diaspora without individualised assessment.

Decision

On 12 March 2026 the Constitutional Court issued a press release announcing its ruling on the questions referred by the Tribunal of Turin. The Court declared the constitutional legitimacy questions partly unfounded and partly inadmissible.

Specifically: 

• The objections based on Article 3 of the Constitution (arbitrariness of the cut-off date and retroactive effect on acquired rights) were rejected as unfounded. 

• The EU-law objections were also held unfounded. 

• The claims invoking the Universal Declaration and the ECHR Protocol were declared inadmissible.

The operative effect is that the restrictive provisions of Law 74/2025 stand and apply retroactively to pending and future claims that do not meet the grandfathering exceptions. The Court emphasised that the full reasoned sentenza would be deposited in the coming weeks. No further appeal lies against the Constitutional Court’s decision.

The ruling represents a significant policy victory for the Italian government and a contraction of one of Europe’s most permissive citizenship-by-descent regimes. By upholding the retroactive cut-off, the Court appears to have accepted the legislature’s justification: the administrative collapse of consulates and courts, the “fictitious” nature of citizenship claims lacking any real connection to Italy (no language, residence, taxes, or civic duties), and the need to preserve the integrity of the status civitatis. The distinction between pre- and post-28 March 2025 applicants was deemed reasonable rather than arbitrary, and the measure was not characterised as an impermissible “revocation” but as a clarification of when the right was never perfected.

From a constitutional perspective, the decision reinforces that citizenship legislation enjoys a wide margin of appreciation, especially when addressing emergencies (the Decree-Law was justified on grounds of “extraordinary necessity and urgency”). The rejection of EU-law and international-norm challenges signals that derivative EU citizenship does not freeze national rules on acquisition, and that Article 15 UDHR does not prevent states from redefining transmission criteria prospectively or with transitional rules.

Critics, including lawyers such as Prof. Corrado Caruso and Marco Mellone, have described the outcome as “harsh” and “politically huge,” arguing it severs ties for millions in the diaspora and creates intra-family disparities. Some have indicated they will pursue further avenues, including appeals to the Court of Cassation or, for pending cases, potential references to the Court of Justice of the EU. The ruling may also discourage future generational claims and push Italy toward more selective naturalisation or residence-based pathways to address demographic decline.

Practically, the decision ends the era of unlimited ius sanguinis for most descendants. Applicants whose claims fall outside the three exceptions will now be barred, even if their Italian ancestor emigrated in the 19th century. This will reduce the backlog dramatically but may strain bilateral relations with countries hosting large Italian-origin communities and complicate Italy’s soft-power strategy through its diaspora.

The full reasoned judgment, once deposited, will provide deeper insight into the Court’s balancing of equality, legitimate expectations, and legislative discretion. Until then, the 12 March 2026 press release constitutes the authoritative statement of the outcome.

Citation for the Decision Corte costituzionale, Comunicato del 12 marzo 2026 (questioni di legittimità costituzionale sollevate dal Tribunale di Torino su art. 1 d.l. n. 36/2025, conv. in l. n. 74/2025).

Link for Accessing the Decision from a Public Database: https://www.cortecostituzionale.it/uploads/release/69b2adc90cb9b.pdf