Question: I lost my Italian citizenship many years ago. I am a British citizen. Can I regain the Italian citizenship?
Answer: Since you lost your Italian citizenship, you are entitled to a quicker and easier process to gain it back.*
Below there are two options that might apply:
- Automatically (without a citizenship application) – main requirement: one-year of Italian residence registration.
You are not required to file an application form with any Italian authority. You regain Italian citizenship automatically if you live in Italy for a year as a legally registered resident. If you register as an Italian resident and keep the status for at least one year, at the end of this period, your Italian municipal record will be automatically updated to reflect that you are an Italian citizen. - By application – main requirement: application and Italian residence registration. a) You would file an application for Italian citizenship either (i) with the Italian Municipality in which you intend to become a registered resident; or (ii) with the Italian Consulate competent based on your current home address (outside of Italy); check here for the list of Italian Consulates and their territorial competence. b) The application must include the commitment to move to Italy and to become an Italian registered resident within one year.
With respect to the second option, as soon as you become a local registered resident, you acquire the Italian citizenship.
In other words, if you file your application with the competent Italian Consulate today and then move to Italy and register yourself as a resident within a year, you regain Italian citizenship automatically.
Italian Citizenship Regain Notice
This is what an Italian citizenship regain notice looks like – HERE.
Timing: Option 2 is considerably faster. In particular, you are not required to keep your status as an Italian resident for any minimum amount of time. You can apply at the Italian Consulate and go to Italy to register as a resident right after that. At that point, if all your documents are in order, you will be an Italian citizen within weeks or just a few months. Should your plans change and you move elsewhere after your Italian resident registration, you would still keep your Italian citizenship.
Municipal inspection: In both cases, after you register as an Italian resident, a Municipal inspector will go to your Italian home address to verify that you are actually living there. This in general happens once or twice within the 45 days following any new resident registration.
Past Italian citizenship evidence: In both cases you are required to prove that you were an Italian citizen at a certain point of your life. If you have a copy of an expired Italian passport, this would be sufficient.
*There are some circumstances that might prevent you in proceeding as above. For example, if you had received Italian citizenship by adoption and then lost it, or if you lost the Italian citizenship because you served for another country during a war.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: If you lost your Italian citizenship after 16 August 1992, you are no longer entitled to regain it. If you lost your Italian citizenship before 16 August 1992, you now have a limited window to do so. Recent amendments to the Italian Citizenship Law have introduced an important—and often overlooked—change that may affect many individuals with Italian heritage. The new law allows you to declare your intention to reacquire Italian citizenship up until 31 December 2027. After this deadline, the possibility to regain citizenship will no longer be available.
We have successfully worked on several Italian citizenship regain cases. Please feel free to book a consultation using the link below if you are interested in discussing your options to regain.
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