GUIDE · PRATICA

Italian Citizenship Through Your Grandparent

The complete journey from 'my grandparent was Italian' to holding your passport. UK-specific. Post-Law 74/2025.

UPDATED

March 2026

READING TIME

12 min read

Overview

The route at a glance

After Law 74/2025, the grandparent route is the maximum reach for new jure sanguinis applications. Your Italian-born grandparent → your parent → you. Two generations. This is the most common path for UK applicants.

The process has five phases. Each depends on the previous one. Rushing ahead or doing steps out of order adds months. The realistic total timeline is 1–3 years from first document request to passport in hand.

Five phases, realistic timelines
Phase	Duration	What happens
1. Eligibility check	1–2 weeks	Confirm the chain is unbroken and within the generation limit
2. Document gathering	2–6 months	Obtain, apostille, translate every certificate in the chain
3. Consulate appointment	1–12 months	Secure a Prenotami slot and attend with full document set
4. Comune processing	6–24 months	Italian municipality verifies records and updates civil registry
5. Oath + passport	1–3 months	Attend oath ceremony, register AIRE, book passport appointment

Phase 1

Eligibility check

Before ordering a single certificate, confirm these three things. Getting any of them wrong means wasted time and money on documents you cannot use.

1. The chain is unbroken

Your grandparent must have been an Italian citizen at the time of your parent's birth. If they naturalised as British before your parent was born (and before 15 August 1992), the chain broke. See our Law 74/2025 guide for the full decision tree.

2. Within the generation limit

Grandparent → parent → you = two generations. This is within Law 74/2025's limit. If the Italian-born ancestor is a great-grandparent, the administrative route is blocked for applications filed after 27 March 2025.

3. No female ancestor born before 1948 in the chain

If the chain passes through a woman who had a child before 1 January 1948, the administrative route is blocked. A court case at the Tribunale di Roma is required instead.

Phase 2

Building the evidentiary file

Phase 2 is not collecting documents — it is constructing a legal argument. The right to citizenship by descent already exists under Law 91/1992; the file is the medium through which it is recognised. Each document either supports the chain's continuity or admits something that breaks it. Documents that simply “exist” without contributing to that argument do not strengthen the file.

A two-generation file passes through several issuing authorities across two jurisdictions, the Hague Convention 1961 apostille system, sworn translation, and notarial certification. Each layer authenticates a different actor — not the document's content. Misplacing a layer is the most common technical failure; misreading the chain's legal continuity is the most common substantive one. Both end the same way: the appointment is not productive.

The evidentiary file guide discusses how the layers fit together and where files most often fail.

Phase 3

Consulate appointment

Consular jurisdiction is determined by the applicant's registered UK residence under DPR 200/1967 — not by the ancestor's origin or the applicant's place of birth. London, Manchester and Edinburgh each handle their share, and each has its own reading of marginal cases. The consulates guide covers the differences.

For most UK applicants, securing the appointment is the longest-running stage of the entire route. This is where most people stall — not because the file is wrong, but because access to the consular calendar is the binding constraint.

At the appointment, a consular officer reviews the file as a whole. There is no partial submission: a single missing or incorrect element ends the day, and the next slot is months away. The cost of a failed appointment is the slot itself, not the documents.

Phase 4

Comune processing

After submission, the consulate forwards your file to the comune in Italy where your ancestor's birth was registered. The comune cross-references your documents against their civil registry.

This is entirely out of your control. Processing times range from 3 months (small comuni with few pending requests) to 24 months (large cities with backlogs). There is no way to expedite it. The consulate will contact you when the comune confirms.

Phase 5

Oath and passport

When the comune approves your claim, the consulate invites you for the oath of allegiance (giuramento). At the oath:

You read the oath in Italian (a few sentences — they give you the text)
You pay the €600 government fee
You are formally an Italian citizen from that moment

After the oath, registration on AIRE (the registry of Italians abroad) follows. Once the AIRE inscription is confirmed, the passport becomes available — a separate administrative act with its own evidentiary requirements.

What this route actually costs

Where the cost really sits

Aggregate fees for a standard two-generation file are modest by the standards of any comparable legal process. They are also public, set by the issuing authorities, and easy to total.

The real cost of this route is not measured in fees. It is measured in time-to-recognition: the months between the first document request and the comune's inscription. That figure is sensitive to a small number of binding constraints — the consular slot, the comune's queue, the legalisation cycle, and how many times any of the three has to be repeated. A file that lands clean the first time spends months in this route. A file that does not, spends years.

The economically important question is therefore not “what does this cost in fees?” but “what is the expected number of consular cycles this file will need?”

FAQ

How long does the entire process take?+

Realistically: 1–3 years. The fastest cases (parent born in Italy, all documents ready, short Prenotami wait) can complete in 8–12 months. The slowest (complex family history, large comune backlog, scarce appointment slots) take 3+ years.

Where does the legal complexity actually sit?+

For most UK chains, complexity concentrates at four points: the 1992 reform of citizenship loss (Law 91/1992 vs the older Law 555/1912 regime), the 1948 transmission rule for the maternal line, the question of minor naturalisation under Law 555/1912 Art. 7 vs Art. 12 (currently before the Corte di Cassazione, Sezioni Unite), and the reconciliation of names and dates across UK and Italian civil registries.

None of these are visible from the document itself. They are inferences drawn from the chain of records. A file that is documentarily complete can still fail on any of these points — and conversely, a file that looks thin can be argued through successfully when the legal reading is correct.

Does my grandparent need to be alive?+

No. The claim is based on the unbroken chain of citizenship, not on living relatives. You need your grandparent's birth certificate, marriage certificate, and death certificate (if deceased). The documents prove the chain; the individuals do not need to participate.

What if my grandparent was born in a town that no longer exists?+

Italian comuni have merged, split, and renamed over the past century. The ANPR portal maps old comuni to their current equivalents. If the original comune was absorbed into a larger one, the successor holds the records. Start with ANPR; if that fails, contact the Archivio di Stato for the relevant province.

My parent has never claimed Italian citizenship. Do they need to apply first?+

Not necessarily. In many cases, you can apply directly. Your application demonstrates that your parent inherited citizenship from your grandparent, and you inherited it from your parent. The consulate processes the entire chain at once. However, some consulates prefer the parent to apply first or concurrently. Check with your specific consulate.