Can I still claim Italian citizenship through a great-grandparent?

For a new application, no. Article 3-bis limits the qualifying ancestor to a parent or a grandparent, meaning an ascendant of the first or second degree, and the Constitutional Court left that limit standing in judgment 63/2026, deposited on 30 April 2026.

Four narrow situations still move a great-grandparent line, and each one is a date on a piece of paper rather than an argument. They are below.

The four situations that still move such a line

1. Something was already filed before the cutoff

A complete application at a consulate or comune, a confirmed appointment, or a court case, all dated on or before 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025. Under conditions (a), (a-bis) and (b) of article 3-bis, those files stay under the old rules, where the generational limit did not exist.

Your question: does anyone in your family hold a receipt, a protocol number, a confirmation email or a case number from before that moment?

2. A closer ancestor also qualifies, and you were counting from the wrong person

People often describe their line by the emigrant who left Italy. The statute counts from you upward. If a grandparent held only Italian citizenship on the day you were born, condition (c) is about that grandparent, whatever the great-grandparent did.

Your question: on the day you were born, was any grandparent still holding Italian citizenship and nothing else?

3. A parent lived in Italy for two continuous years before you were born

Condition (d) is a separate gate and does not care how far back the Italian ancestor sits, only that a parent held Italian citizenship and then lived in Italy two continuous years before your birth or adoption.

Your question: is there a period of Italian residence in a parent's life that a comune could certify?

4. The claim is for a minor child, through a parent who is Italian by birth

The declaration route for minors runs on its own rules and its own deadline, not on article 3-bis. It is free.

See the page on minor children.

What does not work, however often you read otherwise

Filing anyway and hoping. The consular fee is €600 per adult and is charged for examining the file, not for succeeding. See the fee page.
A 1948 maternal-line case as a way round the generational limit. That argument repairs a break in the old chain. It does not answer article 3-bis. See the 1948 page.
The July 2026 minor-issue ruling. It reopened many old-law lines and is genuinely important, but it operates inside the pre-2025 rules. For a new post-cutoff application it does not lift the generational limit. See what that ruling decided.
Paying a firm to find a loophole. As of 7 September 2026 there is no published route that turns a third-degree ancestor into a qualifying one under article 3-bis.

The one thing that could change this, and when

Open, no answer expected before late 2027

On 23 July 2026 the Constitutional Court deposited order 147/2026, asking the EU Court of Justice whether articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU allow a national rule to declare, retroactively, that people born abroad never acquired a citizenship that is also EU citizenship. If Luxembourg says no, the retroactive reach of article 3-bis narrows or falls, and cut lines are the population that would be affected.

Two honest cautions. The referral does not suspend article 3-bis, which applies in full while the case is pending. And a preliminary reference of this kind normally takes somewhere between a year and two years from referral to judgment, which puts a realistic answer in late 2027 or 2028.

Sources, checked on 7 September 2026

Article 3-bis of Law 91/1992, inserted by Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted by Law 74 of 23 May 2025, in force 24 May 2025. Conditions (a), (a-bis), (b), (c) and (d).
Constitutional Court, judgment 63/2026, heard 11 March 2026, deposited 30 April 2026: challenges to article 3-bis partly unfounded, partly inadmissible.
Constitutional Court, order 147/2026, deposited 23 July 2026, on referrals from the Tribunal of Mantua and the Tribunal of Campobasso.
Consular fee of €600 per adult application, non-refundable: notices published by the Italian consulates in New York and Boston.

One next step, and it may be to stop

If your nearest Italian ancestor is a great-grandparent, nothing was filed before March 2025, no parent lived in Italy, and no grandparent held Italian citizenship alone on the day you were born, then this route is closed to you today. That is the honest answer, and no product changes it.

If any of those four sentences is uncertain rather than false, the uncertain one is worth resolving before you spend anything. The free check walks them in order and is built to say no.

Run the free check, about two minutes

It ends with a plain no when the answer is no.