Italian Citizenship Jure Sanguinis: Do You Qualify?

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 ;)