Jure sanguinis (“right of blood”) refers to the ability of obtaining recognition of citizenship of a country through ascendants who were born in that country and emigrated elsewhere. Certain European countries (including Italy and Ireland) have particularly permissive rules that make the application process fairly easy as long as the line of descent can be well documented.
The General Rule
In order to demonstrate that you have inherited a right to Italian citizenship by descent, you must demonstrate that citizenship was transmitted from your Italian-born ascendant to you.
Italian citizenship was exclusive until 15 August 1992; therefore, the voluntary acquisition of any non-Italian citizenship meant the automatic renunciation of one’s Italian citizenship for people who were born with Italian citizenship. Children born to Italian citizens in the United States or other countries with jure soli, however, acquired their foreign citizenships involuntarily because of their birthplaces. Ergo, these children can claim Italian citizenship by descent if and only if they can prove that their Italian-born ascendant was an Italian citizen at the moment of their birth. Subsequently, they can pass citizenship onto their children, grandchildren, etc., barring a loss of citizenship somewhere along the line.
Italy has been a participant in the Strasbourg convention on the reduction of cases of multiple citizenships. Children born outside of Italy with the citizenship of a member country may not have been able to hold Italian citizenship by birth because of this convention. The convention has also extended the era when Italians could lose citizenship by naturalization in a foreign country to dates later than 14 August 1992, if the naturalization were in a participant country.
Note:
There were no Italian citizens prior to 17 March 1861, because Italy did not exist as a nation. Thus the oldest Italian ancestor in any jus sanguinis citizenship application must have been still alive on or after that date.
Any child born to an Italian citizen parent (or parent also with the right to Italian citizenship jus sanguinis) is ordinarily born an Italian citizen, with the following caveats: If the child was born before 15 August 1992, the Italian parent ordinarily must not have naturalized as a citizen of another country before the child’s birth.
Preliminary Research
Before you can find out if you qualify for Italian citizenship jure sanguinis, you should know:
- The birth dates of every relative in a direct line between you and your ancestor from Italy. It’s OK if you don’t have exact dates right now, but you should at least know the year.
- The date your ancestor from Italy became a naturalized citizen of your country.
Before you start the process of obtaining dual citizenship, you should also find out whether acquiring Italian citizenship will affect your current citizenship. This can be accomplished by checking with the nearest Italian authority and/or consulting the nationality laws of the country(ies) where you hold citizenship.