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Reacquisition · the 2027 window

Born in Italy. Naturalized abroad.
You have until December 31, 2027 to take your citizenship back.

By Avv. Dario Scatena · Italian Bar, Foro di Massa · September 1, 2026

For decades, Italian law took citizenship away from Italians the day they became citizens of another country. If that happened to you — or to your parents — the same law that tightened everything else in 2025 quietly opened a door: a reacquisition by simple declaration, with no requirement to move back to Italy. The door closes, permanently, on December 31, 2027. Most of the people it was written for have never heard of it.

Window: July 1, 2025 → December 31, 2027

A declaration filed in time restores Italian citizenship from the day after it is made. After the deadline, the ordinary — far more demanding — rules apply again.

Who this is for

The generation that lost its citizenship at the counter.

Until August 15, 1992, Italian citizenship law contained a rule that surprises every family that runs into it: an Italian who voluntarily acquired a foreign citizenship lost Italian citizenship automatically — no declaration, no warning, often no awareness at all.

That rule fell on the post-war emigrant generation with particular force. Hundreds of thousands of Italians who settled in Canada in the 1950s, '60s and '70s naturalized as Canadians — for work, for a mortgage, for a passport that made travel easier — and, in the same act, ceased to be Italian in the eyes of Italian law. Many only discovered it decades later, at a consulate counter, while trying to renew a document or pass something on to their children.

The 2025 citizenship reform (Decree-Law 36/2025, converted into Law 74/2025) is best known for tightening citizenship by descent. But the same law also created a remedy for exactly this generation: a person born in Italy who was an Italian citizen and lost that status by naturalizing abroad may reacquire Italian citizenship by declaration, filed between July 1, 2025 and December 31, 2027.

The two facts that matter: you do not have to move back to Italy, and you do not have to give up your Canadian citizenship. Canada permits dual citizenship; Italy has accepted it since 1992. What the law asks for is a declaration, made in time, supported by the right records.

How it works

A declaration — not an application, not a lawsuit.

Reacquisition by declaration is procedurally the gentlest instrument in Italian citizenship law. There is no discretionary decision, no interview about your ties to Italy, no queue behind thousands of descent applications. The declaration is made before the Italian consulate competent for your place of residence — for most Italian-Canadian families that means Toronto, Montréal or Vancouver — or before an Italian comune if you are in Italy. Citizenship is restored from the day after the declaration.

What actually decides these files is the paperwork behind the declaration — proving who you were, and exactly how and when you stopped being it:

What the file is built on

  • Your Italian birth record — the atto di nascita held by the comune where you were born.
  • Evidence of your naturalization abroad — for Canada, the citizenship records that establish the exact date you became Canadian.
  • The documentation of your loss of Italian citizenship, as it appears (or should appear) in Italian records.
  • Current identity and civil-status documents, with the translations and legalizations the consulate requires.

The dates are not a formality. Whether your naturalization falls inside the rule, what your Italian records actually say, and whether the loss was ever registered are precisely the points that get checked first — and they differ from family to family. That is legal information, not a promise: no serious lawyer will tell you a file is done before the records have been read.

The next generation

What it means for your children — honestly.

Reacquisition restores your citizenship, from the day after the declaration. It does not, by itself, rewrite your children's position.

For minor children the law provides specific rules. For adult children and grandchildren, the answer runs through citizenship by descent — the part of Italian law that moved most violently in 2025 and 2026: a new descent cap, consular quotas, a Constitutional Court referral to the EU Court of Justice, and a Supreme Court ruling on the so-called minor question. Some lines are helped, some are unaffected, and some must wait for Luxembourg.

This is why the reacquisition window matters beyond the person making the declaration: in several family configurations, a parent's restored citizenship changes what is worth examining for the generation below. Whether it does in your configuration is a records question, not a feelings question — and it is exactly what a free first conversation is for.

The wider picture · 2026

The window is the calm corner of a stormy year.

Everything around citizenship by descent is in motion. The reacquisition window is the one instrument with a fixed rule and a fixed date — which is precisely why it should not be left for last.

March 2025 · the cap

Art. 3-bis L. 91/1992 — the descent cap

Descent applications filed from March 27, 2025 must satisfy a generational limit that, as a rule, requires an Italian parent or grandparent who was exclusively Italian. A genuine narrowing — and the backdrop against which the reacquisition window exists.

23 July 2026 · Luxembourg

Ord. 147/2026 — the cap goes to the CJEU

The Italian Constitutional Court referred the descent cap to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Proceedings that turn on it are affected pending the outcome. For blocked descendants, this is the development to watch.

26 July 2026 · the minor question

Cassazione SS.UU. 24045/2026

Italy's Joint Chambers resolved the long-debated "minor question" and confirmed the cap does not reach applications filed before March 27, 2025. Important precedent; what it changes for a given family depends on the file.

2026 · the consular queue

L. 11/2026 — quotas at every consulate

Adult descent applications are now capped office by office and move to a central office in Rome from 2029. One more reason the declaration route — which does not sit in that queue — is worth understanding now.

Full plain-language overview of where the law stands →

Questions families actually ask

The 2027 window, in plain answers.

Do I have to move back to Italy?

No. The declaration route was written precisely so that former Italian citizens living abroad can reacquire citizenship without re-establishing residence in Italy. You file at the consulate competent for where you live.

I became Canadian in the 1960s and nobody ever told me I lost my Italian citizenship. Is this me?

Very possibly, yes — that is the classic profile: born in Italy, naturalized in Canada while the automatic-loss rule was in force, often without any awareness of the loss. The confirmation comes from the records: your Italian birth act and the exact date of your Canadian naturalization.

What exactly is the deadline?

The declaration must be made between July 1, 2025 and December 31, 2027. This is a statutory window, not an administrative practice: when it closes, the special route closes with it. Consular appointment calendars fill up well before deadlines, so the practical deadline is earlier than the legal one.

Will I lose my Canadian citizenship?

No. Canada permits dual citizenship, and Italy has accepted dual citizenship since 1992. Reacquisition adds Italian citizenship back; it does not touch your Canadian status.

Do my children become Italian automatically if I reacquire?

Not automatically. Minors have specific rules; adult children's positions run through the descent rules — including the 2025 cap now under review at the EU Court of Justice — and must be assessed line by line. In some family configurations a parent's reacquisition meaningfully changes the picture; in others it does not. It is a case-by-case question.

Is there a cost?

There is a fixed government filing fee for citizenship declarations, plus the cost of obtaining and legalizing the supporting records. Whether you need a lawyer at all depends on how clean your records are — a first conversation about that is free and carries no obligation.

Not ready to act?

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Fifteen months of window left.
One conversation tells you if it is yours.

Thirty minutes over Google Meet, free and with no obligation. We look at your dates together — birth, naturalization, what the Italian records likely say — and I tell you plainly whether the declaration route applies to you, and what it could mean for your children. I read every eligibility check personally within 48 hours.

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