I booked a consulate appointment before 27 March 2025. Does it still hold?

If the office communicated the appointment to you by 23:59 Rome time on 27 March 2025, condition (a-bis) of article 3-bis keeps your case under the pre-reform rules. The condition is written as an application filed on the day of that appointment, which means the booking preserves the old law only if you actually appear and hand in a file that is complete.

So there are two dates in your case, not one, and the second is the one that most often goes wrong.

The statute puts no outer limit on how far in the future the appointment sits. Confirmations for dates years ahead are exactly the situation this condition was written for.

What to have in hand before the day

• The confirmation itself, with its timestamp. The email or portal confirmation showing the office communicated the appointment, dated on or before the cutoff. Save it as a file, not as a screenshot of a phone notification, and keep the original message with its headers.
• Proof of who the appointment covers. Confirmations are usually per person. A sibling or a child who was not on the booking is not covered by your booking.
• A file the office will call complete. The full chain of civil records, apostilles, and certified Italian translations. The old-law rules on what makes a chain complete still apply to your file, because your file is being judged under the old law.
• The fee. €600 per adult applicant, payable at filing and not refundable whatever the outcome. See the fee page.

Two things that changed in your favour since 2025

The minor issue. On 26 July 2026 the Joint Sections of the Court of Cassation held, in judgment 24045/2026, that a child born abroad who held the foreign citizenship from birth did not lose Italian citizenship when a parent naturalised during the child's minority. On 10 August 2026 the Interior Ministry issued circular prot. 65050, telling consulates and comuni to apply that reading and superseding the restrictive circular prot. 43347 of 3 October 2024. If your chain contains that pattern, the objection your file would have met in 2025 is no longer the administration's position.

Retroactivity is settled domestically. Judgment 63/2026 reasoned in part that people who had already filed or held an appointment kept the protection of the earlier rules. Your position rests on the same footing the Court described.

What is still uncertain

• Article 3-bis(1)(a-bis) of Law 91/1992, added on conversion by Law 74 of 23 May 2025.
• Constitutional Court, judgment 63/2026, deposited 30 April 2026.
• Court of Cassation, Joint Sections, judgment 24045/2026, deliberated 14 April 2026, deposited 26 July 2026; confirmed by judgments 24184/2026 and 24185/2026, deposited 29 July 2026.
• Interior Ministry circular prot. 65050 of 10 August 2026, superseding circular prot. 43347 of 3 October 2024.
• Consular fee €600 per adult application, non-refundable: consulate notices, New York and Boston.

• Proving your ancestor never naturalised
• The €600 fee, and what it buys
• What the July 2026 ruling decided
• What counts as filed before the cutoff

One next step

Your eligibility question is answered by a document you already hold. The work left is the file, and the deadline is your appointment date. Start by writing to your consulate for its current list, and by locating the negative naturalisation evidence, which is the slowest item to obtain.

Our kit is the document half of this: what each slot needs, how to order it, and what consulates ask for when two records disagree.

The free check is still the right place to start if you are unsure which condition covers you.