Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Canada and Australia

Between 1876 and 1976 some twenty-six million Italians emigrated, and their descendants in Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Canada and Australia are counted in tens of millions. The reform of 2025 was written with them in mind, and the consulates in those countries receive more applications than any other. Beyond the common rules, their lines raise questions of their own, which the courts have answered over the last years and which the consulates apply with a practice of their own. This page sets out the questions which decide most files.

Brazil and the naturalisation of 1889

A decree of the provisional government of Brazil of 14 December 1889 declared Brazilian every foreigner resident in the country who did not declare within six months the wish to keep his nationality. For decades the Italian administration argued that the emigrants who stayed silent had lost the Italian citizenship, and that their lines were closed. The Court of Cassation, in two judgments of its United Sections of August 2022, rejected the argument: the loss of Italian citizenship under the law of the time required an act of will, silence was not one, and the ancestor did not acquire the Brazilian citizenship by a procedure he never took part in. The lines through an emigrant of that period are therefore examined on the ordinary proof, the certidão negativa de naturalização of the Ministry of Justice with the variants of the name, and on the conditions of article 3-bis for those who apply today.

The United States and the minor issue

An Italian who naturalised in the United States before 16 August 1992 lost the Italian citizenship, and the children born after the naturalisation were born to a foreigner. For the children born before it, who were minors and lived with the father when he naturalised, the Ministry of the Interior held from October 2024, in the circular known as the minor issue, that they too had lost the citizenship under the law of 1912, and the consulates refused thousands of applications on that ground. The Court of Cassation, in judgment 24045/2026 of its United Sections, decided the opposite: a child born in a country which grants citizenship by birth held both citizenships from birth and kept the Italian one whatever the father did afterwards. The Ministry withdrew the circular in August 2026 and allowed the refusals founded on it alone to be re-examined without a new application, for the files lodged before 28 March 2025, which article 3-bis protects. For the files lodged after that date the re-examination is made within the conditions of the article. The American proof follows the rules of the page on documents from any country: the letters of no record of the immigration service and of the National Archives, the records of alien status, and the certificate of naturalisation where one exists.

Argentina

Argentina is the country where the Italian lines are most often intact, because the naturalisation of the emigrants was rare and the registers of the Cámara Nacional Electoral certify its absence with a document the consulates accept. The difficulty of the Argentine files lies elsewhere: in the demand, which exceeds the capacity of the consulates of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario, La Plata, Mendoza and Bahía Blanca by years, in the residence rules which each consulate applies before it accepts an application, and in the condition of article 3-bis, which for a line of four or five generations is met only where a parent or grandparent of the applicant still held exclusively Italian citizenship at the applicant’s birth. The grandchildren of an emigrant who died an Italian meet it, and the great-grandchildren do not, unless their own parent or grandparent does.

Canada, Australia and the other countries

In Canada and Australia the emigration is more recent, mostly after 1945, and the lines are short, which makes the condition of article 3-bis easier to meet and the proof easier to assemble: the Department of Home Affairs in Australia and the immigration authority in Canada record the naturalisations, and the Italian consulates in Sydney, Melbourne, Toronto and Montreal list the documents they accept. The capacity is the obstacle there as well: the Consulate General in Sydney suspended new appointments for adult applicants in March 2026 under the yearly limit of Law 11/2026, and the consulate in Toronto reported in the spring of 2026 hundreds of files suspended on the minor issue and awaiting the re-examination which the Cassation has now allowed. In Venezuela, Uruguay and South Africa the consulates apply the same rules with the proof of status which the local authority issues, and the consulate in Johannesburg asks for the statement of the Department of Home Affairs on the absence of South African citizenship, apostilled.

The maternal line before 1948

In every country a line which passes through a woman who gave birth before 1 January 1948 cannot be recognised by a consulate, because the law of 1912 did not allow a woman to transmit the citizenship, and the Constitutional Court removed the rule with effect from the Constitution. Those cases are decided by the court of the comune of the ancestor, within the same conditions of article 3-bis, with a special power of attorney given to a lawyer in Italy and the court fee of six hundred euro for each applicant which the Budget Law for 2025 introduced. We do not conduct proceedings, and the families whose line is of this kind are introduced to the lawyers with whom we work in partnership. The page on the maternal line before 1948 explains the rule.

If your family left Italy for one of these countries, send us the names, the dates and the places of each generation and the documents you hold. The written opinion tells you whether the line is open after 2025, which proof your consulate requires, and whether a refusal already received can be re-examined.