Recent Case Law: Italian Citizenship Jure Sanguinis 2026

Italian jurisprudence on citizenship by descent gained decisive weight in 2026. With the administrative pathway restricted by the Decreto Tajani (DL 36/2025, converted into Lei 74/2025), the judicial process for Italian citizenship has become the primary route for great-grandchildren and more distant descendants of Italians, and court decisions have shaped, in practice, who can or cannot obtain recognition.

What is Citizenship Jure Sanguinis

The principle of jure sanguinis is the foundation of Italian nationality law: citizenship is transmitted through the bond of blood, from generation to generation, regardless of the country where a person was born. This principle is what allows Brazilians descended from Italians to petition for citizenship recognition, even if they were born and lived their entire lives in Brazil.

It contrasts with jure soli, the system adopted by Brazil, in which nationality is determined by birthplace. While Brazil recognizes as Brazilian anyone born on Brazilian soil, Italy has historically recognized as Italian anyone descended from an Italian citizen, even if the distance between the emigrant ancestor and the current applicant spans several generations.

For the community of descendants in Brazil — one of the largest in the world — this principle has always been the gateway to dual citizenship, a European passport, and all the rights of a European Union citizen. But the way to access this right has changed substantially in recent months.

Change in the Judicial Landscape in 2026

Since the conversion of the Decreto Tajani into Lei 74/2025, applications for recognition through the administrative pathway — whether at the consulate or at the Italian comune — have been restricted to children and grandchildren of Italians. Great-grandchildren and later generations can no longer file applications directly at the Brazilian consulate or at Italian municipal offices.

According to reports published by Italian newspapers, some comuni and consular districts have even suspended or delayed the processing of administrative applications while awaiting full regulatory implementation of the new law's effects. This has pushed most cases of more distant descendants into Italian civil courts.

The practical result is an increase in the volume of lawsuits filed in Italy by Brazilian descendants. The Italian judiciary has come to concentrate decisions that increasingly function as a reference for new proceedings. Following the latest citizenship decisions has become an essential part of the strategy for anyone intending to resort to the courts.

Requirements Consolidated by Case Law

Despite recent legislative changes, some requirements remain consolidated in the most recent Italian court decisions:

• Unbroken line of transmission: it is necessary to prove that no ancestor in the chain lost Italian citizenship before the birth of the next descendant — especially relevant in cases involving the so-called "minor issue," provided for in article 12, §2, of Lei 555/1912, regarding the automatic loss of citizenship of minor children when the father naturalized in another country.
• Complete genealogical documentation: birth, marriage, and death certificates of the entire line, with certified translations and apostille, continue to be required by courts as primary documentary evidence.
• Negative naturalization certificate: proof that the Italian ancestor never naturalized as Brazilian before a certain date, or that naturalization occurred after the birth of a child in the line of descent, continues to be a central element of analysis.

Italian jurisprudence has also addressed, in first-instance proceedings, controversies over the transmission of citizenship through the maternal line in the period before 1948 — a historically sensitive topic due to the unequal treatment of men and women in the nationality legislation in force until the republican Constitution. Since Italy does not adopt the system of binding precedent from common law, decisions by one court do not automatically bind others, but may influence the understanding of first-instance judges in cases with similar factual circumstances.

The Question of Retroactivity of the Decreto Tajani

One of the central points currently being discussed in Italian courts is the retroactivity of the Decreto Tajani. This is not about discussing the application of the new law to proceedings already filed before the decree — those are protected by the legal text itself. The controversy is more profound: the decree states that anyone born outside Italy and who is not a child or grandchild of an Italian was never, legally, an Italian citizen. In other words, the rule applies retroactively to the person's birth, retroactively extinguishing a right that, in theory, they carried from that point on by jure sanguinis.

This matter may eventually be submitted to the analysis of the Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione, whose decisions, when rendered, have binding force for all judges in the country. To date, however, there is no public confirmation of final judgment of the matter by this body.

How to Use Favorable Case Law in Your Process

For those considering filing a lawsuit in Italy, recent case law can be used strategically in the initial petition, through citation of similar sentences from other courts that recognized similar factual situations — same generation, same type of documentation, same controversy over naturalization or maternal transmission.

Some relevant procedural strategy points:

1. Choice of court: since there is no mandatory binding between Italian courts, the choice of competent district court can influence processing time and, to some extent, that court's familiarity with citizenship by descent cases.
2. Documentary robustness: courts have required documentary chains without gaps, and translation failures or inconsistencies between name spellings have been a recurring cause of denials or requests for supplementation.
3. Legal advice in Italy: since this is a proceeding brought in Italian territory under that country's civil procedural rules, the assistance of an attorney licensed to practice in Italy is essential — not only for the petition, but for attending hearings and any appeals.

Perspectives for 2026-2027

The expectation among observers of the Italian legal sector is that regional courts will continue to consolidate understanding about the limits of the retroactivity of the Decreto Tajani, a topic that may eventually be analyzed by the Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione. It is also possible that over time, there will be greater harmonization between courts of different regions, reducing any divergences of understanding that currently exist.

Processing timelines continue to be pointed out as one of the main challenges, with proceedings that can extend for considerable periods until first-instance judgment — with no guaranteed uniform timeline, and subject to the caseload of each court.

For those obtaining judicial recognition, the next step involves the issuance of Italian documents and, for many, the planning of life in Italy as a new citizen, with access to housing, work, and study in any European Union country.

The 2026 landscape confirms that the judicial route, once viewed as an alternative, has become the main pathway — and for many descendants, the only available one — for recognition of Italian citizenship by descent. Following Italian Citizenship and the News from Italy published by Raízes Italianas is essential for anyone wanting to understand how court decisions impact, in practice, their own process.

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