Let's continue our series on Italian citizenship. Today we talk about losing citizenship. For the full article, see this link. 
If you're interested in Part 1 and 2, read here.

Losing citizenship

Italian citizenship can be lost in the following ways:

• A. By naturalizing voluntarily as an adult (age 18 and over after 10 March 1975, age 21 and over before then) in a foreign country before 15 August 1992.
  
  B. By renouncing one's citizenship abroad in front of an Italian diplomat or consular official OR stating the intention to renounce one's citizenship to a government official while still residing in Italy and then moving abroad within 1 year.
  
  C. By continuing to serve in a foreign government or military after being ordered to cease by the Italian government and failing to do so within a specified time period. After 15 August 1992, one can also lose Italian citizenship by serving in a foreign military at war with Italy.
  
  D. For an Italian woman,
  • 1. by marrying, and residing with, a foreign man, before 1 January 1948, whose citizenship is automatically transmitted to the woman by marriage.
    2. by the loss of Italian citizenship of her husband, with whom she resides, before 1 January 1948, if she also posses another citizenship (and thus would not be rendered stateless by losing Italian citizenship).

E. For an Italian minor child,

• 1. before 1 July 1912, by the loss of citizenship of the father, if the child resides outside Italy. (This is the so-called 1912 rule.)
  2. on or after 1 July 1912, by the loss of citizenship of the father or legal guardian (after 27 April 1983, of both parents), if the child resides with the father or guardian abroad, if the child is not emancipated, if the child possesses a foreign nationality, and if the child did not acquire that foreign nationality by virtue of being born in a foreign country. An exception to this rule was also made if the mother was the guardian and she lost citizenship by virtue of a new marriage after the death of the child's father.

How can you use this information in practice?

Start with your last Italy-registered ancestor (LIRA). Check that by the time the next person in your line was born your LIRA ha not lost his Italian citizenship (reasons include: naturalization, marriage - for women -, moving abroad as a child). If your LIRA has not lost his citizenship, then the next person in your line is an Italian citizen. Rinse and repeat for all the people in line up to you. 

Why do you need to know if someone in your line lost citizenship?

The main reasons for losing citizenship is through naturalization. Therefore, your line may be failing for these reasons:

1) your LIRA naturalized as a citizen of another country (usually your home country) before the birth of the next person in line
2) your LIRA naturalized as a minor, and his father or mother did too
3) someone in your line's father naturalized before 7/1/1912
4) someone in your line was born after 1948 from an Italian mother, but not an Italian father
5) an Italian woman in your line married to a non-Italian man and got his citizenship, before 1948 and before the birth of the next person in line
6) the husband of an Italian woman in your line naturalized before 1948 and before the next person in line


After examining the above rules and your family history, you can arrive at one of the following conclusions:

• 1. You qualify as a citizen. In this case, you should apply (if you wish).
  
  2. You may qualify, but you're not sure because you lack certain information, such as whether an ancestor naturalized or the date of such naturalization if it occurred. In this case, you may as well make an appointment to apply while you continue to search for this information.
  
  3. You clearly do not qualify, because an ancestor naturalized before the next person in your line was born. In this case, it is advisable not to apply because you will certainly be rejected at any consulate.
  
  4. You fail to qualify, because of the 1948 rule, or because a female ancestor lost her Italian citizenship due to a marriage. In this case, if you wish to pursue this, you should file suit in Italian court, or wait until the law is changed (if it is).
  
  5. You fail to qualify, because of the 1912 rule. In this case, if you wish to try, you should seek to apply at a consulate that is known to not enforce this rule.
  
  6. You seemingly fail to qualify because an ancestor who was born in Italy with both Italian and a foreign citizenship had a parent naturalize after 1912 while that ancestor was still a minor. In this case, you could apply at a consulate that has recognized people in your situation before, or at least one that is not known to have properly understood that such a person would not qualify.
  
  7. You can't determine whether you qualify or not because your case is too complicated. In this case, you should ask experts whether they think you qualify, and if there still is no consensus, apply at a consulate if you wish, being cognizant that you may be rejected.

You already know you qualify and need documents translations? I can help!

Continuing our series about getting Italian Citizenship by Jure Sanguinis in 2020, let's try and understand how to determine if you qualify.
For full information, see this link.

The principles of Italian citizenship are the following:
I. Acquiring citizenship:

• A. A child would be an Italian citizen from birth if:
  • 1. The father was Italian at the time of birth and acknowledged paternity (by, e.g., appearing as the father on the child's birth cert).
    2. The mother was Italian at the time of birth and the child was born on or after 1 Jan 1948. (This is the so-called 1948 rule; see below for a fuller discussion.)
    3. The mother was Italian at the time of birth and the father was either unknown or possessed a citizenship that was not passed to the child.
    4. The child was born in Italy to parents unknown.

B. Everyone who was a citizen of one of the predecessor states of Italy at the time of the founding of the country on 17 March 1861 automatically became a citizen of Italy. This was retroactively true even for former citizens of some states that merged with Italy later, such as the Papal States.

C. Before 27 April 1983, foreign women automatically became Italian citizens upon marriage to an Italian man.

D. Of course one can also naturalize as an Italian citizen, but in that case there would be a record of the naturalization in Italy already and the recognition of that person's citizenship would be unnecessary.

E. Italian citizenship could be reacquired by an adult who previously lost it by returning to Italy and residing there for 2 years, or renouncing any foreign citizenship and returning to reside in Italy within 1 year of the renunciation.

F. A non-emancipated minor child of a man who acquired or reacquired Italian citizenship would automatically acquire Italian citizenship as well, so long as the child was not both living abroad and possessing a foreign citizenship.
N.B.: Mere birth in Italy does not confer citizenship (unless the parents are unknown), so in principle a birth certificate from Italy does not necessarily prove that someone was an Italian citizen.

Are you applying in Italy ad need help with your translations? You're in the right place! Just shoot me an email ;)

A new year has begun. Wouldn't it be great if you got your Italian citizenship by the end of 2020?

If you're new to the process and don't know what I'm talking about, just know that Italian citizenship is based on the principle of jus sanguinis (Latin "right of blood"), which means that the child of an Italian citizen is automatically an Italian citizen from birth. Thus if an Italian citizen has a child abroad, and then that child grows up in that foreign country and has a child, and so forth, every person in that line may be an Italian citizen, whether they are aware of it or not.

But the Italian Government will acknowledge you as an Italian citizen only if you're registered in an Italian comune (municipality), so you'll have to gather documents proving that you descend from Italians.

The basic steps, as explained in the Tapatalk forum, are the following: 

1. Determine if you qualify. (Sometimes you will not be able to do this step until after steps 5b or 2 are completed.)

2. Determine the consulate at which you must (or can) apply.

3. Make an appointment at that consulate. (Depending on the consulate, this step may be postponed until later in the process.)

4. Determine which documents you will need to submit to the consulate.

5. Obtain those documents.
a. Obtain documents (generally, vital records) from Italy for your ancestor(s) (or yourself, if applicable) who were born there.
b. Obtain naturalization-related documents for your ancestors who emigrated from Italy.
c. Obtain vital records from outside Italy for your ancestors and yourself.
d. Obtain the full set of documents required for divorces, such as a certificate of no appeal.
e. Obtain no records letters, court orders to release records, or alternative records in the case where vital records don't exist or can't be found.
6. Treat discrepancies on your documents.
a. Determine which discrepancies require amendment.
b. Amend documents.
c. Write affidavits for minor discrepancies.
d. Obtain letters from Italy (such as a "positivo/negativo") to resolve discrepancies.
e. Obtain letters from vital record officers concerning discrepancies that cannot be amended.
f. Obtain court orders to amend discrepancies or declare that a person named on one document is the same as that named on another (a "finding of one and the same," a.k.a. a "declaratory judgment").

7. Have documents translated into Italian.

8. Have documents issued from outside Italy apostilled. (This step can often be done concurrently with or before step 7, but sometimes a translation or its certification will require an apostille.)

9. Have documents issued outside the area that is covered by the consulate at which you are applying authenticated by the consulate(s) that does cover the area where they were issued. Consulates vary in the degree to which this is necessary.

10. Fill out forms for you and your ancestors indicating that you have never renounced your Italian citizenship. This step may often be done at the consulate. Such forms for your living Italian ancestors may need to be filled out (and had notarized) by your ancestors themselves.

11. Go to your appointment and apply for citizenship recognition. This step may be done earlier in the process, before all the previous steps are completed, but in that case you'll probably need to have a follow-up appointment.

12. If your application is not accepted, repeat the steps 3 through 11 until your application is accepted. Even if your application is accepted, there may still be missing documents or discrepancies requiring amendment. In that case also, repeat steps 3 through 11. In some cases you may be able to submit new documents without having to do so at a follow-up appointment.

13. When your application has been accepted and is deemed complete, wait for acknowledgment, from either the consulate or comune, depending on the consulate, that your birth has been registered in Italy and you may apply for a passport. This acknowledgment may come in form of a letter, an email, or a phone call, or be told to you in person.

14. Apply for your passport. Some consulates require you to obtain your own birth certificate from the comune where your birth has been registered in order for you to be able to apply for a passport, others merely require confirmation from the comune that your birth has been registered, and some allow you to apply for a passport as soon as they accept your application. Strictly speaking, this step is optional.

If you want to know more about this process, read my other blog posts on the topic!​
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If you're applying in Italy, do not hesitate to contact me for a translation quote!

Happy New Year!

After a long break, where a lot of work and a lot of life happened, I’m back with posting here more regularly. So, a happy new year to all you readers.

Since this is the beginning of a new decade, I’m giving you a couple of videos that will help you make it special: a 3-part series of videos by Marie Forleo on how to review the past decade and plan for the next one and an all-time favorite of mine from TED.

​Enjoy and see you on the blog!

To have the full answer, you can watch this video:

If you don’t speak Italian you should definitely think about hiring help. Italian officers often don’t speak English, so it’d be very difficult for you to understand them and be understood.

You can hire an Italian translator to get your documents officially translated, which is something I strongly recommend you do in Italy if you apply here, and ask her if she could help you in case of need. 

As you can read from this testimonial of one of my clients, I did this for them and helped them save their application. A phone call works wonders sometimes!

Over six months after submitting his paperwork for Italian citizenship, with translations of all required documents certified by a translator in the United States, my husband learned that the translations we had could not be accepted because they were not done by a certified Italian translator in Italy.  We were both dismayed as visa deadlines which would force me to leave Italy were fast approaching.
That’s when we found Natalia Bertelli.  She responded to our first call, understood our situation immediately, and volunteered to work directly with the local official responsible for processing the paperwork to ensure that there would be no further issues.  Within two days, she had reviewed the translations of all eleven documents, found a few errors that our US translation service had missed, certified the documents, and had them back in the hands of the commune official.  Before the week was out, my husband got his official Italian citizenship.  All we had to do was supply Natalia with electronic copies of the originals and the translations.
Natalia was efficient, responsive, and easy to do business with.  She met all her promised deadlines with room to spare and, as far as we are concerned, she saved the day. ​

If you have any questions, let's talk!

If you decide to get a dual citizenship, you'll need to have your documents officially translated. Of course you can choose to apply in your own country or in Italy. In the latter case, I can help! And since this is a different procedure, let's break it down to see what costs are involved!