Italian Citizenship Lawsuit Takes 28 Months with 93% Success Rate
Analysis of 180 court decisions shows average timeline, success rates by tribunal, and reasons Italian citizenship claims are rejected.
The judicial action for recognition of Italian citizenship takes, on average, 28 months between filing and sentencing — and results in recognition in 93% of the cases judged. These numbers come from a Raízes Italianas survey of 180 citizenship by descent sentences published in Italian jurisprudence repositories.
The data is compiled in the Court Observatory, a page our team now updates daily as new decisions are published.
Almost Everyone Wins — But Not Everywhere
Among the 109 decisions in our sample where the case was judged on its merits, 101 recognized citizenship. The 93% success rate helps explain why the judicial route has become the standard path for those unable to secure a consulate appointment.
The detail lies in distribution. In Brescia and Roma, all actions judged in our sample were successful. In Venezia, the tribunal with the highest number of cases analyzed (66 timed proceedings), the success rate is 96%.
Genova is the exception: only 56% of actions judged there were accepted — nearly half the decisions were unfavorable, behavior that stands out from all other tribunals in our sample.
What Causes a Claim to Be Rejected
We analyzed unfavorable decisions to identify the grounds for each refusal. Three reasons account for the majority:
- Transmission through maternal line before 1948 — the most frequent case. The Italian Constitution only allowed transmission through the mother starting January 1, 1948, and descendants of Italian women who had children before that date still face rejections at first instance.
- Decreto Tajani — Decree-Law 36/2025, converted into Law 74/2025, appears as grounds in several recent rejections, especially when the case was filed after the change.
- Insufficient proof of genealogical line — incomplete documentation or discrepancies between certificates. This is precisely the grounds for rejections recorded in Genova, suggesting a tribunal more stringent in document review.
There are also, in smaller numbers, naturalization of the ancestor before the descendant's birth and case dismissal due to abandonment — when a party stops pursuing the case.
How Long to Wait
The median time of 28 months varies little among analyzed tribunals: Genova and Catanzaro at 26 months, Brescia at 27.5, Venezia at 28, and Roma at 29. The difference between the fastest and slowest in our sample is about three months — smaller than commonly imagined.
The timelines consider the difference between the year the case was filed and the date of the first-instance sentence. Appeals can significantly extend this period.
How the Survey Was Conducted
We began with citizenship by descent sentences published in public Italian jurisprudence repositories, collected daily. Duplicates and decisions on other matters were removed, leaving 180 unique sentences. Tribunals enter the ranking only if they have at least eight cases with verified timelines — below that, the median is not statistically useful.
Our sample reflects decisions actually published, which do not correspond to the total universe of actions pending in Italy. These numbers serve as a market reference, not as a prediction for an individual case.
