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.
What Italian citizenship by descent costs when you do it yourself
One number is fixed, published and not refundable: €600 to the Italian state for an adult application. Everything else is a stack of small record fees, and no honest page can total them for you, because the total depends on how many records your family needs and which offices hold them. Below is every line of that budget, with the figures we can source and the ones we will not invent.
What the €600 buys is on its own page, and the consulate against court comparison is on another. This page is the rest of the money.
The consular fee is charged for examining the file, whatever the answer turns out to be. The comune figure is a ceiling a comune may set under the 2025 budget law, and an application to a comune is inadmissible if that contribution is unpaid or wrongly paid. The dollar rate is fixed only to 30 September 2026, so read the current amount off your own post's page on the day you pay.
The records, which is where the rest of the money goes
Seven lines, in the order they usually start. Every one of them is paid by you, directly to the office that issues the document.
1. The federal naturalisation search, for a United States line
The index search on Form G-1041, then the records request on Form G-1041A, at the USCIS Genealogy Program. Where no naturalisation exists, the Certificate of Non-Existence on Form G-1566 is the document instead.
USCIS publishes the amount on its fee schedule, Form G-1055, and not on the form pages. We print no figure. Read it at the agency's own page before you send money.
2. Archive and court copies
The National Archives, for a no-record letter or for the certified petition and oath carrying the red ribbon and gold seal. The county court, for anything granted before 27 September 1906, when any court of record could naturalise and no national index existed.
National Archives fees vary by facility and county fees vary by county. Both are read off the office's own page on the day.
3. Vital records: birth, marriage, death
One certified copy for each person in the chain, from the state vital records office, or from the county for records older than state registration. New York City runs its own system for the five boroughs.
Varies by state. An informational copy costs the same and cannot be used, because it says on its face that it is not valid to establish identity.
4. The Italian civil records
Italian civil-status certificates are exempt from stamp duty, so the act itself is usually free and the cost is international postage. There is one documented exception with a number in it.
The 2025 budget law lets a comune charge up to €300 for a certificate or extract from an act formed more than a hundred years ago concerning a person other than the applicant. That describes an ancestor's nineteenth-century birth act exactly. It is a ceiling a comune may apply, not a fee every comune charges, so ask in your letter what is due.
5. Apostilles
One per document that your post requires one for, from the authority of the jurisdiction whose official signed it. Group your documents by that authority and send one packet each, with its own return envelope.
State fees are not published here, because there are fifty of them and they change. The federal apostille is reported at 20 dollars per document with 10 to 12 business days from receipt, and that figure is reported by apostille services rather than read off the Department of State's own page.
6. Translations
Charged per original page, front and back. Where a consulate certifies a translation it does not translate: it certifies work done by a professional, and it keeps a list of translators for that purpose.
The page count is the whole price. A one-page list of every document and its page count turns a mystery quote into three comparable quotes.
7. Postage, the line nobody budgets
International mail to Italy, one packet per apostille authority, and a prepaid return envelope with each. It is a recurring cost rather than a single one, because records arrive over months and most of them travel twice.
The total we will not publish
Totals published elsewhere assume a document count. A family whose records sit in one state and one comune pays for a small fraction of the envelopes that a family split across four states and two comuni pays for. The €600 is the same for both, and it is the only line either of them can plan around.
What an agency or a lawyer adds
- Neither is required for a counter application. Applications for recognition are individual, and they are filed in person by the applicant on an appointment booked in the applicant's own name.
- An agency sells the ordering and the chasing. On the public price pages we opened on 9 September 2026, the service packages of a large provider carried no figure at all, only an invitation to write in for an individual quote. We therefore have no agency range to publish, and we are not going to estimate one.
- A lawyer is the ordinary step for a court route, where Italian counsel is required in practice. Published asking prices we found on 7 September 2026 ran from a few thousand euros for a whole family to about €7,000 plus tax per person. That is a spread of asking prices, not a market average.
The longer answer, including when a lawyer is genuinely needed, is on the page about lawyers and agencies.
The two ways a do-it-yourself budget doubles
- Re-ordering. An informational copy where a certified copy was needed. A county document mailed straight to the state when the county clerk has to certify it first. A no-record letter searched under one spelling of a name that appears in five.
- Paying the €600 on a file that was nearly complete. The fee buys the examination, not the outcome, and a file refused for one missing certificate costs exactly what a file that succeeds costs.
- Consular fee of €600 per adult application, non-refundable, and the rate of $699.10 fixed through 30 September 2026: fee notices of the Italian consulates in New York and Boston.
- Law 207 of 2024, the 2025 budget law, article 1, paragraphs 636 to 639: a comune may charge an administrative contribution of up to €600 per adult applicant for recognition applications, and that contribution does not apply to applications made through consular offices; up to €300 for a civil-status certificate or extract from an act formed more than a century ago concerning a person other than the applicant; the consular right raised from €300 to €600; an application to a comune is inadmissible if the contribution is unpaid or wrongly paid. Read through ANUSCA's published commentary quoting the statutory text, not from the Official Gazette. Read Law 207 of 2024 in the Official Gazette, checked 10 September 2026.
- Court filing fee of €600 per petitioner: article 13, paragraph 1-sexies, of Presidential Decree 115/2002, added by Law 207 of 2024, article 1, paragraph 814, in force 1 January 2025; Ministry of Justice circular of 16 January 2025. Read the Ministry of Justice circular of 16 January 2025, checked 10 September 2026.
- USCIS Genealogy Program, Forms G-1041 and G-1041A; Certificate of Non-Existence, Form G-1566, edition 04/01/24; fee schedule Form G-1055. Read on uscis.gov, 7 September 2026.
- Federal apostille reported at 20 dollars per document and 10 to 12 business days from receipt: apostille-industry sources, 7 September 2026, and not the Department of State's own page.
- Certified copies against informational copies, the apostille authority per jurisdiction, and the naturalisation records that need no apostille and no translation: naturalisation table of the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles, version 18 July 2023, read 7 September 2026.
- Italian civil-status certificates exempt from stamp duty; a full copy of an act is issued on the request of a person with an interest in it, article 107, paragraph 1, of Presidential Decree 396 of 3 November 2000.
- Abolition of the €250 fee for a minor child's declaration from 1 January 2026.
- Applications for recognition are individual and filed in person on a booked appointment: notices of the Italian consulates in Brisbane and Sydney, read 9 September 2026.
One next step
Budgeting is the second question. The first is whether any gate in article 3-bis opens for your line at all, because that answer decides whether the €600 is a fee or a donation. The check walks the rules in order, in your browser, and asks for no email.
Run the free check, about two minutesIt can end with a plain no, and that is the cheapest result on this page.