You may only apply to the Italian consulate covering your area of residence, meaning you can provide a photo ID and utility bill/bank statement in your name with an address in that jurisdiction. You can find a list of the counties, states, and territories covered by each consulate on the consulates’ websites.

You may only apply for citizenship in Italy if you are a resident there. Please review our webinar about that process for further details.

Italian citizenship is not a quick solution to not having a desired work or student visa. The waitlists at many consulates exceed 18 months, and many of the consulates take 6 months or longer to issue written confirmation of citizenship post-appointment. Your Italian Passport handles the applications of each of its clients in accordance with the date on which the client signs on and the calendars of the Italian consulates. We encourage all prospective clients to assume they are at least three years from citizenship at the time of scheduling their initial consult, though there are exceptions that may extend or reduce this timeline depending on the consulate to which the application will be submitted.

Applicants with minor children will submit records specific to those children during the citizenship appointment, thereby having the children recognized as citizens. Minor children do not need appointments in their names or to attend the parent’s appointment. Siblings and adult children who reside in the same consular jurisdiction as you do may rely on the same set of ancestral records that you submit to the consulate in support of your own application. All adult applicants must have appointments in their names, regardless of the right to share records. Siblings and adult children living in other consular jurisdictions will need their own set of all ancestral records, in certified format with apostille and translation, as well as appointments in their names at the consulate covering their area of residence. Non-linear familial relations (ex.: cousins), may not rely on the records submitted by the applicant, regardless of shared residency within a consular jurisdiction, without express written permission from the consulate.

Your spouse will be eligible to seek Italian citizenship if he/she is a proficient speaker and writer of Italian. Please review our webinar about that process for further details.

You are not required to speak Italian in order to have your citizenship recognized. That being said, Your Italian Passport strongly encourages everyone entering into this process to begin a course of study in Italian; not only will it allow you to be a responsible and active citizen, but will exponentially enrich your experience traveling, working, and residing in Italy.

Possibly. The Italian consular officers have the right to deny without prejudice an application if it contains name or date discrepancies that they deem must be addressed through record amendment. Nearly all applications contain one or more discrepancy and the vast majority of those discrepancies are accepted without need of amendment. Most record amendments can be achieved with minimal time or cost obligations, though the amendment process will be dictated by the type of record, the state from which it comes, and whether or not the person or persons to whom the record pertains are living or deceased. A small percentage of record amendments can only be achieved with intervention from a court, a process with significant time and cost considerations. It is the recommendation of Your Italian Passport that court-directed records amendments only be pursued if required by the consulate during the citizenship appointment. The applicant has the same two-year window afforded the consulate to process the application after the citizenship appointment to submit the modified records, which may be done by mail without need of booking another consular appointment.

If you elect to live in Italy for more than 183 days in a calendar year, you may be subject to Italian taxation. There is a tax agreement between the U.S. and Italy by which taxes paid to one offset what is owed to the other. We (Your Italian Passport) are neither tax attorneys nor accountants and strongly encourage you to consult a professional in these fields if you would like additional information.

Since 2005, the Italian military has been a strictly volunteer service. Should that change however, you will not be exempt from mandatory service if you otherwise meet the requirements.

Once you have established Italian citizenship, you can easily start the process of obtaining an Italian passport. Italy’s passport requirements are similar to those of other countries. If you are an Italian citizen who resides in Italy, you will apply for your passport at the questura, or state police provincial office. Italian citizens who reside abroad must register with the AIRE (Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all’Estero), or the Registry of Italian Citizens Residing Abroad, and will obtain an Italian passport from the consulate or embassy where they reside.

If you live in the United States, the process will follow the specific rules of the Italian consulate for your region regarding format of the application and whether it is submitted in paper form or electronically. The Italian passport requirements include:

• You will arrange an appointment with the consulate through an online reservation system in most cases. Link to the site for booking: https://prenotami.esteri.it/

• You will complete and bring with you, to the appointment, the passport application that can be found on the website for your consulate.

• The Italian government now requires fingerprinting in the passports of anyone 12 or over. Fingerprints will be collected at the questura or consulate during the passport appointment.

• Submit two passport photos with your application. Italian passport photo requirements include a white background and a size of 4.5cm x 2.5cm. Like visa photos, passport photographs should have a neutral expression and not extend past the shoulders.

• Provide photo identification cards, which might include your state driver’s license, US visa or green card, and/or current passport.

• You will also need two copies of a consent agreement and ID cards for each person if you have children also applying for passports. Therefore, if you have minor children, your spouse must consent to release of passports for the children and for YOU. This consent element remains in place until there all children in common have reached age 18.

• The timeline to receive your passport may be 1-6 weeks.

• If you are a woman who changed her name at marriage, your Italian passport will display your birth (or maiden) name, based on Italian law. But there will be an annotation in the booklet acknowledging the married name of the passport holder.

Both. When departing and entering the U.S., U.S. citizens should/must show their U.S. passports. At the time of entry into Italy or another EU country, you will most likely want to show your Italian passport as it affords you a longer stay and will most likely lead to faster processing at immigration checkpoints. When departing Italy or another EU country, you may show either passport, though your destination may dictate which is preferable for the aforementioned reasons.