Italian Citizenship Lawyer
We are an Italian law firm in Verona, and Italian citizenship — jure sanguinis, through a female ancestor before 1948, before the Italian courts, and by marriage — is the largest part of what we do. Most of the people who write to us want to obtain Italian citizenship for themselves and their children, and they know they want dual citizenship without knowing which route Italian citizenship law gives them — jure sanguinis, a 1948 case, or marriage. This page explains what you are hiring, how a file works from the first message to the passport, what it costs, and the things we will not promise because no honest lawyer can.
Page verified on 17 September 2026 · Law 91/1992 as amended by Law 74/2025 · Legislative Decree 150/2011, art. 19-bis · Decree-Law 13/2017, art. 4(5) · Law 11/2026
A case filed after the 2025 law and won in court, explained by the lawyer who argued it.
Why an Italian citizenship lawyer, and not an agency
This is the question worth settling before the fees, because it decides what happens when the file stops being simple.
You are hiring a law firm, not a service
Bersani Law Firm & Partners is a law firm. Marco Bersani is an Avvocato on the roll of the Ordine degli Avvocati di Verona and an Abogado ejerciente at the Bar of Madrid. That is not a marketing line: only a lawyer admitted in Italy can file a citizenship case before the Italian courts, sign the pleadings and appear at the hearing. It is worth checking, before you engage anyone, whether the organisation you are talking to can do that itself or would have to instruct someone else.
An attorney reads your line before anyone quotes you
The free eligibility check is answered by an Italian attorney, in writing. We read the line from the Italian ancestor down to you, tell you which condition of article 3-bis applies, whether the route is the Italian consulate, the municipality or the Italian courts, and what the legal process will require. There is no charge for that assessment and no obligation after it.
We represent clients, we do not just prepare paperwork
Where an application is refused, ignored, or impossible because no appointment exists, the file becomes litigation: a judicial appeal, an answer to the Ministry, an appeal against a first-instance refusal. We draft and sign the legal filings, attend the hearing and follow the decision to its registration. You give a power of attorney and stay where you are.
The same firm handles descent, 1948 lines and marriage
Italian dual citizenship reaches people by several routes, and people with Italian heritage rarely know which one is theirs. Jure sanguinis through a father or a mother; a female ancestor before 1 January 1948, which only a court can recognise; marriage to an Italian citizen. Each route answers to the same Italian citizenship law and is filed differently: at the Italian consulate of your residence, at the municipality, or before a court. One firm covers all of them, so the advice does not change when the way to obtain Italian citizenship turns out to be the route you were not expecting.
What our Italian citizenship assistance covers
Four kinds of file, each with its own page where the law is set out article by article. Everything below applies to all four: the same legal assistance, the same flat fees, the same lawyer reading your line.
Citizenship by descent
Eligibility under article 3-bis, the document chain from the Italian birth record to yours, the choice of route, and the file itself. Where the consulate cannot give a date, or the law leaves a question open, the case goes to the tribunal.
Read the page →1948 cases
Lines that pass through a woman before 1 January 1948: the route to Italian dual citizenship for families whose Italian ancestor was a grandmother or a great-grandmother. Only a tribunal can recognise them. Thirty decisions on these lines are in our public register, with what each court required.
Read the page →Court cases and appeals
Consular-delay cases, post-reform cases under article 3-bis, minor-issue re-examinations after Cassation 24045/2026, and appeals. Filed by power of attorney: you do not travel.
Read the page →Citizenship by marriage
Article 5 applications for the spouse of an Italian citizen: marriage transcription, B1 certificate, document review, the file, and the challenge of an unfounded refusal.
Read the page →Not citizenship but residence? We also handle the Investor Visa, the Elective Residence Visa, the flat tax regime and property purchases for clients moving to Italy.
How a file works, in five steps
The order matters. Most of the time lost on citizenship files is lost between step 2 and step 4 — documents requested in the wrong form, checked too late, or filed with a gap a judge will notice. We front-load the checking.
Free eligibility check
You send us your family line: who was born where and when, and whether anyone naturalised. A lawyer answers, in writing, with which condition of the law applies to you, which route is realistic, and what the file will need. If the answer is that you cannot claim Italian citizenship under the law as it stands, you get that answer too, in the first reply.
Engagement and document plan
If you go ahead, you choose a package, sign the engagement letter and receive a document plan: every record we need, from which authority, in what form, and who obtains it (you or us, depending on the package).
Records, apostilles, translations
Italian vital records are requested from the municipalities and parishes; foreign records are apostilled and translated. We check every date, name and spelling against the chain before anything is filed, because a mismatch found by a judge costs months.
Filing
Consulate or municipality where the law allows it and the office can act; otherwise the tribunal of the district where your ancestor was born, with the burden of proof that article 19-bis now puts on the applicant met on paper, in the first filing.
Decision, registration, passport
Once the decision is final we obtain its registration with the Italian municipality, which is what makes you a citizen in the records, and guide you through the consular registration and the passport.
Who does what
- Tell us the family line, as completely as you can, in the first message.
- Sign a power of attorney (notarised and apostilled in your country) if the case goes to court.
- Obtain the foreign records we list, or let us obtain them (Platinum and Enterprise).
- Answer our questions within a few days when we ask: a file waits for the slowest document.
- Nothing else. No travel, no hearing to attend, no Italian to speak.
- Verify eligibility against the law as it stands, not as it was.
- Design the document chain and check every record before filing.
- Choose the route and, for a court case, the competent tribunal.
- Draft and file; attend the hearing; answer the court and the Ministry.
- Obtain the registration of the decision and follow the passport.
- Tell you, at every step, what has happened and what happens next.
Outcomes. A citizenship file is decided by a consulate, a municipality or a judge, not by us. We tell you the probability as we see it, in writing, before you engage; we do not use the words “guaranteed” or “100% success”, and we would advise you to leave any site that does.
Times. No consulate publishes its waiting times and no tribunal commits to a calendar. We publish the terms the law sets and tell each client what we have seen in their office or court. A number on a website becomes a promise; we do not make it.
A file we think will fail. If your line does not qualify under the law as it stands and none of the questions still open before the courts helps you, we say so in the first reply, and we do not take the engagement.
What it costs
Flat professional fees for a family group obtaining Italian dual citizenship through the same ancestor, in four packages that differ in how much of the document work we take on. Every figure, every exclusion and every state fee is on the cost page; this is the summary.
You have gathered and checked every record; we verify the chain, prepare and file. Up to four applicants.
Everything in Silver, with the Italian records obtained by us. Translations arranged by you.
Everything in Gold, plus certified Italian translations of all your documents.
The entire process handed over — records, apostilles, translations, filing, hearings, passports — with one point of contact. Quoted per family.
One flat fee covers a family group of up to five applicants (four for Silver); each additional applicant is €1,000. Italian legal invoices carry a mandatory 4% pension-fund contribution and 15% general expenses on top of the fee; no VAT is charged to clients resident outside the EU. Court filing fees are paid to the court and listed separately. A High Priority option (€4,000) moves a file to the front of our queue. The first check is free and commits you to nothing.
Where we file, and what the register shows
For applicants living abroad, a citizenship case is filed in the tribunal with the specialised immigration section of the district where the Italian ancestor was born (Decree-Law 13/2017, article 4(5), for cases started from 22 June 2022). That rule sends our cases all over Italy. We keep a public register of the decisions we read, updated as they arrive, and it includes the ones that went against the applicant — a register that only showed victories would be advertising, not information.
Tribunals in the register, with the number of decisions from each: Naples (16), Palermo (10), L’Aquila (7), Catanzaro (7), Messina (4), Bologna (4), Turin (4), Florence (3), Catania (2), Bari (2), Potenza (2), Brescia (1), Rome (1), Campobasso (1), Genoa (1). Each entry gives the date, the line, what the court required as proof and how it dealt with costs, and the ruling it applied. The full register, filterable by court and outcome, is on the court rulings page; the thirty 1948 decisions and the thirty-five consular-delay decisions have their own pages.
Since March 2025 a citizenship case is decided on documents: article 19-bis of Legislative Decree 150/2011 puts on the applicant the burden of proving that no cause of loss applies, and excludes witnesses and oaths. That is why the checking happens before filing, not at the hearing, and why we do not file a case we have not first tried to break ourselves.
Your consulate: which office covers where you live
A citizenship application from abroad goes to the consulate competent for your place of residence — not the nearest one, and not the one with the shortest queue. These are the Italian consular districts in the four countries where most of our clients live, as published by the Italian embassies on 14 September 2026. Where we have a page on a consulate, the link is in the last column; the others are being added.
United States
| Office | Type | Jurisdiction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Consulate General | New York, Connecticut, New Jersey (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union, Warren counties) and Bermuda | Our page → |
| Boston | Consulate General | Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont | Our page → |
| Philadelphia | Consulate General | Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, West Virginia, New Jersey (Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean, Salem counties), Maryland and Virginia except the counties under the Embassy | Our page → |
| Washington, DC | Embassy, consular section | District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George’s counties (Maryland); Arlington and Fairfax counties and the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax (Virginia) | |
| Miami | Consulate General | Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, Saba | Our page → |
| Detroit | Consulate General | Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee | Our page → |
| Chicago | Consulate General | Illinois, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming | Our page → |
| Houston | Consulate General | Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma | Our page → |
| Los Angeles | Consulate General | Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and the California counties of Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Ventura | Our page → |
| San Francisco | Consulate General | The rest of California, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington State, and Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Wake, Midway and Johnston | Our page → |
Canada
| Office | Type | Jurisdiction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto | Consulate General | Ontario (except the part under the Embassy in Ottawa), Manitoba, Northwest Territories | Our page → |
| Montréal | Consulate General | Québec (except the part under the Embassy in Ottawa), Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut | Our page → |
| Vancouver | Consulate General | British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon | Our page → |
| Ottawa | Embassy, consular section | The part of Ontario and Québec excluded from the Toronto and Montréal districts (the Embassy publishes the exact boundary) |
United Kingdom
| Office | Type | Jurisdiction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | Consulate General | Southern England, Wales, Isle of Wight, Channel Islands, Gibraltar | Our page → |
| Manchester | Consulate | Northern and central England, from the West Midlands and Leicestershire to Northumberland, and the Isle of Man | Our page → |
| Edinburgh | Consulate General | Scotland and Northern Ireland | Our page → |
Australia
| Office | Type | Jurisdiction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | Consulate General | New South Wales, excluding the cities of Queanbeyan and Cooma, including Norfolk Island | Our page → |
| Melbourne | Consulate General | Victoria and Tasmania | Our page → |
| Brisbane | Consulate | Queensland and Northern Territory | Our page → |
| Adelaide | Consulate | South Australia | Our page → |
| Perth | Consulate | Western Australia, Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Our page → |
| Canberra | Embassy, consular section | The Australian Capital Territory and the cities of Queanbeyan and Cooma in New South Wales |
Two rules that decide more files than people expect. First, the consulate of your residence is the only one that can accept your application: a file sent to the wrong district is returned. Second, when the competent consulate cannot give a date, the alternative is not another consulate but the tribunal — and the tribunal is chosen by your ancestor’s birthplace, not by where you live.
How we work, on video
A case won in court under the new law, what actually decides how long a file takes, and how the documents are gathered. Two of the three were recorded before the 2025 reform: where a video and this page differ, the page is current.
Italian Citizenship by Descent: How We Won in Court Under the New Law (2026)
A real case filed after Law 74/2025 and won in court: how the file was built and what the judge decided.
Waiting Time For Italian Citizenship: How Long Does It Really Take to get the Italian Passport?
Realistic timelines for citizenship by descent and by marriage, route by route.
How To Easily Secure All Documents For Your Italian Citizenship Application!
Which documents an Italian citizenship by descent file needs and how to obtain them.
More than a hundred videos on Italian citizenship, visas and living in Italy on our YouTube channel.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a lawyer, or can I apply for Italian citizenship by descent myself?
You can apply at an Italian consulate or municipality yourself, and many people do. Legal assistance is needed when the route is the court (1948 lines, consular delay, questions left open by the 2025 reform), and useful when the document chain has a break, a name discrepancy or a naturalisation date to prove. The free check tells you which of the two you are.
What does an Italian citizenship lawyer cost?
Our professional fees are flat: four packages from €12,900 for a family group, differing in how much of the document work we take on. Court fees, the statutory 4% and 15% additions on Italian legal invoices, and services listed as excluded are set out on the cost page before you sign. There is no percentage fee and no fee for the first check.
Do I have to travel to Italy?
No. A court case is filed by power of attorney and the hearing is attended by us. Consular applications are filed at your consulate. The only reason to come to Italy is if you want to.
How long does it take?
The law gives terms: thirty-six months for a consular application for citizenship by descent (Law 11/2026), and twenty-four months extendable to thirty-six for citizenship by marriage (article 9-ter). Court timing varies by tribunal and is not fixed by statute. We do not publish estimates, because none is reliable and a figure on a website becomes a promise. We tell each client what we have seen in their tribunal, in writing, before they engage.
My consulate has no appointments. What can you do?
Document what you have attempted, and file in the tribunal competent for your ancestor’s birthplace. The courts have accepted for years that a citizen who cannot obtain a reasonable appointment may ask the judge directly; thirty-five of those decisions, and what each court required as proof, are on our consular-delay page.
Do you take 1948 cases?
Yes; they are a large part of our court work. A 1948 case is a lawsuit, not an application, and the 2025 reform applies to it like any other line. The page on 1948 cases explains the scenarios and the thirty decisions we have collected.
Do you work with clients in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia?
Yes. The law is the same wherever you live; what changes is the Italian consulate, the apostille authority and the format of your vital records. We have clients in all three, and dedicated pages for the consulates we deal with most.
What do I need to send for the free check?
Names, dates and places of birth down the line from the Italian ancestor to you, and, if you know them, the dates of any naturalisation. No documents yet: if the line works, we will tell you exactly which records to gather. It is answered by a lawyer, not by a form.
What does an Italian citizenship lawyer do that a service company cannot?
Sign and file a case in an Italian court. Recognition of Italian citizenship is administrative until it stops being administrative — a refusal, a silence, a consulate with no appointment, a line through a female ancestor — and from that point on the file is a lawsuit that only a lawyer admitted in Italy can bring. A service company can gather your vital records; it cannot represent you before a judge.
Can you help me claim Italian citizenship if I only have American records?
Yes, and that is the usual starting point. We identify which Italian vital records exist and where, request them from the municipalities and parishes, and have your own American records apostilled and translated. The Italian side of the chain is the part clients cannot do from abroad, and it is the part where files usually break.
What this page is based on
- Law no. 91 of 5 February 1992, as amended by Decree-Law 36/2025, converted by Law 74/2025 (article 3-bis), and Law 199/2025 (article 4(1-bis)).
- Legislative Decree no. 150 of 1 September 2011, article 19-bis, paragraphs 2-bis and 2-ter (burden of proof; no witnesses).
- Decree-Law no. 13 of 17 February 2017, article 4(5), as amended by Law 206/2021 (competent tribunal for applicants abroad).
- Law no. 11 of 19 January 2026 (consular applications: annual caps, thirty-six-month term, centralisation from 1 January 2029).
- Court of Cassation, Sezioni Unite, judgment no. 24045/2026; Constitutional Court, judgment no. 63/2026 and order no. 147/2026.
- Our register of tribunal decisions, 65 entries as of 17 September 2026, read in full from the original texts.
- Our published fee schedule, in force on 17 September 2026.
Send us your line. A lawyer will tell you where you stand.
Names, dates and places from your Italian ancestor down to you, and any naturalisation you know of. No documents yet. You will get a written answer: which condition of the law applies, which route is realistic, what the file needs and which package fits — or, if that is the honest answer, that it will not work.
- No cost, no obligation
- Read by an Italian lawyer
- Every message is answered
Married to an Italian citizen? See citizenship by marriage. Want the figures first? The cost page has all of them.
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