Does this apply to your family? Answer a few questions and see where your line stands.
Who in your family was born in Italy, and what happened after: that is all the check asks. No email, no account. It runs in your browser and your answers never leave it. It can end with a plain no.
The written answer below explains the rule this page is about. The check above covers your whole line.
Does Italy allow dual citizenship?
On Italy's side, holding another citizenship does not by itself cost you Italian citizenship, and the current descent statute is addressed to people who hold one. What the 2025 reform changed is different in kind: your second citizenship is now the trigger for a test about your ancestor's citizenships, not a reason to give anything up. Whether your other country permits you to hold Italian citizenship is a question of that country's law, and this page does not answer it.
Italy's side, from the texts we can cite
There is no single article we can point at that says "dual citizenship is permitted". Italian law expresses the position by not providing for automatic loss, which means the evidence for it is three provisions read together rather than one headline rule. We would rather say that plainly than manufacture a citation.
- The current statute is written for dual citizens. Article 3-bis of Law 91/1992 opens with "a person born abroad who holds another citizenship". It then asks about the ancestor, not about renouncing anything of yours. A rule requiring renunciation would have no work for that opening phrase to do.
- Loss on naturalisation belonged to the old statute. Under Law 555 of 13 June 1912, articles 8 and 12 caused loss of Italian citizenship in defined cases, including the emigrant who naturalised abroad. Article 17-ter of Law 91/1992 now offers those people a route back, in a declaration window running from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2027, which is a legislature undoing a loss regime rather than maintaining one.
- The Court of Cassation put loss in the hands of the person. In judgment 24045/2026, deposited 26 July 2026, the Joint Sections held that a child born abroad who was a foreign citizen from birth did not lose Italian citizenship when a parent naturalised: loss required that person's own renunciation on reaching majority.
What that adds up to: your own second citizenship is not what closes a descent claim. It is the condition the whole rule assumes.
The place where a second citizenship does decide the case
Not yours. Your ancestor's. Condition (c) of article 3-bis requires that a parent or grandparent holds, or held at the moment of death, exclusively Italian citizenship. The Interior Ministry circular of 28 May 2025 measures that at the applicant's birth, or at the ascendant's death where the ascendant died first.
This is why a grandparent born in the United States is so rarely a candidate: dual from birth, and therefore never holding Italian citizenship exclusively at any later date. The exclusivity page works through the timing in detail.
The other country's side, and why we stop here
Every country decides for itself whether its own citizens may hold another citizenship, and some require a declaration, some tolerate it in silence, and a small number treat acquisition of another citizenship as grounds for loss. That is not Italian law, it changes, and getting it wrong costs a reader a citizenship rather than a fee.
- We do not publish a table of other countries' rules on dual nationality.
- We do not tell you that your own citizenship is safe, in any country, including the United States.
- The office to ask is the citizenship or nationality authority of the country whose citizenship you already hold, in writing, before you file anything in Italy.
What is squarely an Italian question, and answered above, is whether Italy will hold the second citizenship against you. What is not an Italian question is what your first country will do about the Italian one.
Two related rules people mix in here
Reacquisition is not retroactive
An ancestor who reacquires Italian citizenship under article 17-ter becomes a dual citizen from that moment forward. It does not change what they held on the day a descendant was born, so it does not repair condition (c) for that descendant. The window closes on 31 December 2027.
Children of a newly recognised parent
For a parent who acquires or reacquires citizenship from 24 May 2025, a minor child now acquires through the parent only where the child has resided in Italy for at least two continuous years, or since birth if younger, with cohabitation at the date of acquisition. Article 14 of Law 91/1992, as amended. The separate declaration route for children of a parent Italian by birth is on the minors page and it is free.
- Article 3-bis of Law 91 of 5 February 1992, inserted by Decree-Law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted with amendments by Law 74 of 23 May 2025, in force 24 May 2025, for the opening words and for condition (c). Read the converted text in the Official Gazette, checked 10 September 2026.
- Interior Ministry circular of 28 May 2025 (protocol 26185), on when exclusivity is measured.
- Law 555 of 13 June 1912, articles 8 and 12, for the historical loss rules.
- Article 17-ter of Law 91/1992, reacquisition by declaration in a window from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2027, not open to a person who renounced after 16 August 1992.
- Article 14 of Law 91/1992 as amended, for minor children of a parent who acquires or reacquires from 24 May 2025.
- Court of Cassation, Joint Sections, judgment 24045/2026, deposited 26 July 2026, on loss by the person's own renunciation. Read judgment 24045 of 2026 at the Court of Cassation, checked 10 September 2026.
- We have not located a single Italian provision stating a general permission to hold dual citizenship, and this page does not cite one. The position above is read from the provisions listed, each of which is cited by number.
- No source is cited here for the law of any country other than Italy, because this page makes no claim about any.
One next step
The dual citizenship question that decides an Italian file is about your ancestor, on one specific date. The free check asks it that way, for every Italy-born parent and grandparent you have.
Run the free check, about two minutesNo email, no account, and it can end with a plain no.