Is Law 74/2025 retroactive, and what counts as already filed?
Yes, it is retroactive on its face: article 3-bis says a person born abroad with another citizenship is deemed never to have acquired Italian citizenship, "even before" the article came into force, and the Constitutional Court declined to strike that down in judgment 63/2026, deposited 30 April 2026. What escapes it is a narrow, dated list: a complete application, a confirmed appointment, or a court case, each existing at 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025.
Everything on this page is about that instant, and about which pieces of paper the statute counts.
Counts: a complete application, filed
Condition (a). An application for recognition, complete with the necessary documentation, received by the competent consular office or by an Italian mayor before the cutoff. The word doing the work is complete.
Counts: an appointment the office had confirmed
Condition (a-bis). An application filed on the day of an appointment that the competent office had communicated to the applicant before the cutoff. The confirmation from the booking system is the evidence. The filing itself may be later; the communication of the appointment may not.
Counts: a court claim, filed
Condition (b). A judicial claim filed before the cutoff. The statute adds that officials must take the resulting judgment as it stands, without reopening its reasoning.
Does not count
- Having gathered documents, ordered records, or paid a genealogist.
- Having created a booking-portal account, or having tried and failed to get a slot.
- Having engaged a lawyer or a firm without a case being filed.
- An appointment booked after the cutoff, whatever it was booked for.
- Having been eligible under the old rules and simply not having applied yet.
The argument the courts are still working through
People who were blocked from applying by the consular booking system itself have argued that they should not be penalised for a queue they could not enter. That argument has had some traction: the Court of Cassation, first civil section, in judgment 13818/2026 deposited 12 May 2026, described citizenship by descent as a permanent and imprescriptible right and held that an interest in pursuing recognition exists not only where an application is refused or delayed, but also where obstacles prevent the application from being submitted at all.
That is a route into court, not an exemption from article 3-bis, and it is not uniform across tribunals. It is set out on the page about not being able to get an appointment.
What the Constitutional Court actually said about retroactivity
In judgment 63/2026 the Court found the temporal limitation not unreasonable, reasoning in part that people who had already filed or held an appointment kept the protection of the earlier rules. The challenges based on articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, and on article 117(1) in relation to the EU treaties, were declared unfounded; a further question built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Protocol 4 to the European Convention was declared inadmissible.
- Article 3-bis of Law 91/1992, conditions (a), (a-bis) and (b), inserted by Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted by Law 74 of 23 May 2025.
- Constitutional Court, judgment 63/2026, deposited 30 April 2026, on the Turin referrals.
- Constitutional Court, order 147/2026, deposited 23 July 2026.
- Court of Cassation, first civil section, judgment 13818/2026, deposited 12 May 2026.
One next step
The whole question reduces to one thing you can check today: is there a dated document from before 27 March 2025 with your family's name on it. Find it, photograph it, and keep it with the file. If there is none, the cutoff conditions are closed and the remaining gates are (c) and (d).
Run the free check, about two minutesThe first question it asks is this one.