How long does it take, and what changes in 2029?
The only timing figures we can source are the ones written into law: a 36-month deadline for deciding an application, and a transitional rule under which each consulate may accept in a year no more new applications than it completed the year before, with a floor of one hundred. Both come from Law 11 of 19 January 2026, which also moves adult applications from consulates to a single office in Rome from 1 January 2029.
We do not publish a wait-time average for your consulate, because there is no reliable public source for one. That is a deliberate gap, explained below.
The three phases to plan around
Now until the end of 2028
Applications go to consulates as before, but each post's annual intake is capped by how many files it finished in the previous year, with a minimum of one hundred. A post that closed few files last year may accept few this year. How each post runs that queue is not published.
From 1 January 2029
Adults living abroad file with a dedicated directorate-level office at the foreign ministry in Rome, by post, and consulates lose their general competence to receive new adult applications by descent. Files already pending with a consulate stay there.
Not yet written
The implementing rules for the centralised system, including how a mailed file is paid for, formatted and translated, had not been issued as of 7 September 2026.
Why we publish no wait-time numbers
What you can find out is specific to you rather than general: ask your own consulate, in writing, what its current intake situation is and what its published document list requires. Keep the reply. That answer is worth more than any average.
What actually drives your own timeline
- Getting a slot, which is governed by the transitional cap above and by your post's own booking practice.
- Assembling the file, which is usually the longest phase and the one you control. Foreign records requests, apostilles, certified translations and negative naturalisation certificates each run on their own clocks.
- The decision itself, which the 36-month deadline addresses.
- Whether the file is complete on arrival. An incomplete bundle restarts parts of the process and, for a grandfathered appointment, can cost the shelter of the old rules entirely. See that page.
The court route, for comparison
Court timelines vary by tribunal and are not centrally published either. What can be said is that the court fee is €600 per petitioner, that cases go to the tribunal for the ancestor's comune of origin, and that some tribunals are currently staying cases pending the EU referral of July 2026, which extends rather than shortens them. See the route comparison.
- Law 11 of 19 January 2026, published in the Official Gazette on 4 February 2026, in force 19 February 2026: reform of consular services, creation of a directorate-level office at the foreign ministry for reconstruction of Italian citizenship, transitional annual intake caps with a floor of one hundred applications per consulate, a 36-month decision deadline, and centralisation of adult applications from 1 January 2029.
- Implementing decrees for the centralised procedure: not issued as of the date above.
- Court filing fee of €600 per petitioner: article 13, paragraph 1-sexies, Presidential Decree 115/2002, added by Law 207/2024, article 1, paragraph 814.
- Constitutional Court, order 147/2026, deposited 23 July 2026, the referral behind current stay requests.
One caution on this law: pages written while it was still a bill give the centralisation date as 2028. The enacted text is 1 January 2029.
One next step
Since the slowest part is the file rather than the queue, start the document work now regardless of when your slot arrives, and start with the records search that establishes the naturalisation date. Everything else in the file is shaped by what that search returns.
Run the free check first, in case the queue is not your problemFor a share of readers it ends by saying the route is closed, which saves the whole timeline.