D.L. 36/2025: The Tajani Decree That Changed Italian Citizenship Overnight

On March 28, 2025, Italy’s government issued Decree-Law No. 36/2025, the most sweeping change to Italian citizenship law in over a century. Issued as an emergency decree without prior parliamentary debate, it imposed a two-generation limit on citizenship by descent and retroactively declared that millions of people “are considered never to have acquired” Italian citizenship. The decree would reshape the lives of diaspora communities worldwide overnight.

What the Decree Did

D.L. 36/2025 introduced a new Article 3-bis into Law 91/1992 (Italy’s citizenship law). The core mechanism was stark: persons born abroad who held another citizenship were declared to have never acquired Italian citizenship unless they fell within specific exceptions.

The operative language was extraordinary. The decree did not merely restrict future applications. It used the formulation that affected persons “are considered never to have acquired” (“sono considerati non avere mai acquisito”) Italian citizenship. This was not a prospective change. It was a retroactive declaration that citizenship never existed, applied to people who, under every prior reading of Italian law, had been Italian citizens from birth.

The Emergency Decree Mechanism

Under Article 77 of the Italian Constitution, the government may issue decree-laws (decreti-legge) in cases of “extraordinary necessity and urgency.” These have immediate force of law but must be converted into ordinary legislation by Parliament within 60 days, or they lose effect retroactively.

The use of this emergency mechanism for citizenship reform raised immediate questions. Italian citizenship law had been stable in its fundamental structure since 1912 and in its modern form since 1992. Critics, including several sitting judges, questioned what emergency could justify bypassing normal parliamentary procedure for a matter as constitutionally significant as the definition of who is and is not a citizen.

The decree was championed by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, whose name became attached to it in public discourse (the “Tajani Decree” or “Decreto Tajani”). It was issued by a government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which had campaigned on a platform of tighter immigration controls and a conception of Italian identity closely tied to ancestry and cultural connection.

The Deadline That Caught Millions Off Guard

Perhaps the most controversial element of D.L. 36/2025 was the March 27, 2025 deadline. To preserve the right to citizenship under the prior rules, an individual had to have filed an application (or had an appointment confirmed) by 23:59 Rome time on March 27, 2025, the day before the decree was issued.

The problem was self-evident: the deadline had already passed by the time anyone knew it existed. The decree was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on March 28. By that point, the window to file had closed. People who were, under every prior understanding of the law, Italian citizens from birth, had lost their citizenship without any opportunity to act.

This issue would later become central to the constitutional challenges. The Tribunal of Mantova specifically invoked Article 24 of the Constitution (the right of defense) on this basis: a forfeiture deadline that expires before citizens know it exists is fundamentally incompatible with constitutional due process.

The Scale of Impact

The global Italian diaspora is vast. Estimates of the number of people worldwide who could have claimed Italian citizenship by descent under the prior rules range widely, but commonly cited figures suggest tens of millions. The decree’s impact was felt most acutely in:

South America: Argentina and Brazil have the largest populations of Italian descendants. Italian consulates in Argentina alone processed 30,000 citizenship applications in 2024, up from 20,000 the previous year. Entire industries of document retrieval, translation, and legal services had developed around citizenship applications.

The United States: An estimated 17 million Americans identify as having Italian ancestry. Citizenship by descent had become a growing movement, with online communities, specialized attorneys, and dedicated service providers helping families navigate the process.

Australia, Canada, and beyond: Smaller but significant populations of Italian descendants in these countries were similarly affected.

The Legal Response

The constitutional challenges to D.L. 36/2025 began almost immediately. The Tribunal of Turin was the first to refer the decree to the Constitutional Court. The Tribunal of Campobasso and Tribunal of Mantova followed with broader challenges. The Court of Cassation’s Sezioni Unite are scheduled to address retroactivity on April 14, 2026.

Meanwhile, many individuals who qualified under the prior rules continued to file cases in Italian courts after the decree’s issuance, arguing that the retroactive application of D.L. 36/2025 is unconstitutional and that the “old rules” should apply to anyone born before the decree’s entry into force. The Constitutional Court’s Sentenza 142/2025, issued four months after the decree, provided powerful ammunition for these arguments by affirming that citizenship iure sanguinis is a permanent, imprescriptible birthright.

From Decree to Law

On May 23, 2025, Parliament converted D.L. 36/2025 into Law 74/2025, making the changes permanent and adding provisions for minors and a limited reacquisition window. The conversion was required by the Constitution’s 60-day limit on decree-laws, and its completion meant that the restrictions could no longer lapse automatically.

The decree and its conversion into law represent the most significant change to Italian citizenship since the country’s unification in 1861. Whether it will survive constitutional scrutiny remains an open question, with multiple proceedings still pending before Italy’s highest courts.

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This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Last updated: March 21, 2026.