Italy's Constitutional Court rejected constitutional challenges to the country's tightened citizenship-by-descent framework on March 12, leaving in place a 2025 decree that limits eligibility to foreign nationals with an Italian parent or grandparent who held solely Italian citizenship at the relevant moment.

The court issued its ruling after four hearings this month and after four judges questioned the law's compatibility with Italy's 1865 civil code. The decision preserves an emergency decree signed on March 28, 2025, which took effect the following May.

Who qualifies under the current rules?

• Ancestor alive after March 17, 1861 remains the baseline starting point of the Italian lineage.
• Parent or grandparent only: great-grandparents and earlier generations no longer qualify, unless an application was already filed under the old framework.
• Sole Italian citizenship requirement: the qualifying parent or grandparent must have held solely Italian citizenship at the time of their descendant's birth, or at their own death if that came first. Dual-citizenship ancestors disqualify the line.

Until the 2025 changes, any foreign national with an Italian ancestor alive after Italian unification could apply. Italian authorities moved to narrow the rule after years of surging applications, particularly from Brazil and Argentina, countries that received mass Italian emigration in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani defended the restriction at a Rome news conference the day the decree was signed. "Being an Italian citizen is a serious thing," Tajani said. "It's not a game to get a passport that allows you to go shopping in Miami."

How many potential applicants did the change cut off?

Italy's foreign ministry estimated that 60 million to 80 million people worldwide held eligibility for citizenship under the previous jure sanguinis framework but fall outside the new limits. Applicants from the United States form a significant share of that pool.

What did the court actually decide?

The Constitutional Court declared the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Turin court "partially unfounded and partially inadmissible," according to its March 12 release. The court did not erase the new framework.

The ruling does not foreclose further challenges. Citizenship lawyer Marco Mellone told CNN this month that the decision "doesn't mean the new law is 100 percent valid and forever," pointing to a July 2025 Constitutional Court judgment that had recognized descendants' right to citizenship at birth. Italy's Court of Cassation is scheduled to hear separate challenges on April 14.

What happens to Americans with Italian roots?

Applicants who filed before the May 2025 effective date may still obtain recognition under the old rules. Anyone who did not file in time must fit the narrower criteria: an Italian parent or grandparent, with no intervening or concurrent non-Italian citizenship on that ancestor's record.

Joseph Spinelle, who moved from Chicago to southern Italy, told Newsweek last year that families were "getting ripped apart" by the new limits. Marco Permunian, founder of Italian Citizenship Assistance, said the change was carried out "in an unjust and unfair manner, affecting countless individuals who have been eligible to apply and had shown interest by taking significant actions to submit their citizenship application."

Next steps for would-be applicants

• Confirm the generational limit: trace lineage no further back than grandparents.
• Verify the sole-citizenship condition for each qualifying ancestor.
• Check filing dates: applications submitted before May 2025 may proceed under the prior framework, depending on their stage of processing.
• Watch the April 14 Court of Cassation hearing, whose ruling could alter the Constitutional Court's outcome.

Applicants should consult Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Constitutional Court's official release for the binding text of the decision before taking action.