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ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP

How many people get Italian citizenship every year?

Thinking of applying to become Italian? Here's how many other people do it each year, where they come from and how they qualify.

Published: 8 February 2023 10:08 CET
Updated: 25 February 2023 09:16 CET
There are multiple paths to acquiring Italian citizenship.
There are multiple paths to acquiring Italian citizenship. Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP.

If you want to secure your future in Italy, acquiring citizenship can be the best way to go about it – but the route you go down will vary significantly depending on your personal circumstances.

READ ALSO: What’s the difference between Italian residency and citizenship?

Here’s what the most up-to-date information from Istat, Italy’s national statistics agency, says about who gains Italian citizenship, and how.

How many people get Italian citizenship each year?

A total of 121,457 people were granted Italian citizenship in 2021, the last year for which official data is available. 

That’s eight percent less than in 2020, and lower also than 2019 (127,001) and 2018 (112,523).

This may be partially down to delayed effects of the pandemic, given the lengthy application process and the amount of paperwork involved in Italian citizenship applications.

Where do most ‘new Italians’ come from?

In 2021, like most years before it, the vast majority of people acquiring citizenship came from outside the European Union: 109,600 or roughly 90 percent. That’s what you’d expect, since people with EU passports already enjoy most of the same rights in Italy as Italians and therefore have less incentive to apply for citizenship.

The highest number of successful applications came from Albanians (22,493), followed by Moroccans (16,588), Romanians (9,435), Brazilians (5,460), Bangladeshis (5,116), Indians (4,489), Pakistanis (4,410), Argentinians (3,669), Moldovans (3,633), and Egyptians (3,531).

READ ALSO: Reader question: Will my children get an Italian passport if born in Italy?

Citizens of Albania and Morocco have consistently made up the top two since at least 2012, with as many as 36,920 Albanians and 35,212 Moroccans gaining Italian citizenship when claims were at their height in 2016.

People from the top three countries – Albania, Morocco, and Romania – accounted for 40 percent of all new Italian citizens in 2021.

Italian flag coloured smoke is pictured in the sky after Italian Air Force aerobatic unit Frecce Tricolori (Tricolor Arrows) flown over Rome to mark Repubblic Day on June 2, 2021.

Three countries of origin account for 40 percent of new Italian citizens. Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP.

How do most people qualify for Italian citizenship?

In 2021, the most common way to acquire citizenship was either by descent (ius sanguinis, which allows those who can prove descent from at least one Italian ancestor to claim Italian citizenship), by birthplace (ius soli, which entitles people born and raised in Italy by non-Italian parents to claim Italian citizenship at age 18), or by parental transmission (the law that automatically transfers citizenship to the children of adults who acquire citizenship, provided they’re under 18 and living with them at the time).

Altogether 55,897 people qualified for Italian citizenship via one of these three routes in 2021, around 46 percent of the total.

Another 50,973 people (42 percent) qualified via residency in Italy, while 14,587 (12 percent) qualified by marriage to an Italian national.

Claims based on residency decreased by around 15,000 from the year before, while those based on birthplace/descent increased by a little over 4,000, and claims from spouses of Italian nationals remained broadly stable, increasingly by just over 500.

READ ALSO: How foreigners can get ‘fast track’ citizenship in Italy

In 2020 and 2021, citizenship requests via marriage were at their lowest in the past decade, down from 24,160 in 2018 and 17,026 in 2019.

That may reflect a change in the law in late 2018 that allowed the Italian state to take up to four years to process requests for citizenship via marriage, where previously they had to be answered within two years or automatically granted after this point.

The new rules also abolished automatic consent after the deadline, as well as introducing a language test for people applying via marriage or residency.

The number of new Italians acquiring their citizenship via marriage was at a ten-year low in 2020 and 2021. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP.

Where in Italy do most people get citizenship?

The region of Italy with the most successful citizenship claims in 2021 was Lombardy, which granted 29,438 requests – just over 24 percent of the total. The region has topped the list for several years, reflecting the large numbers of foreigners who move there for work or study. 

READ ALSO: How British nationals can claim Italian citizenship by descent

Other regions where high numbers of people gained citizenship were Emilia-Romagna (16,432; 13.5 percent), Veneto (13,229; 11 percent), Piedmont (11,653; 9.6 percent), and Tuscany (9,682; 8 percent). While Lazio, the region of Rome, has a high foreign-born population, just 8,895 people took Italian citizenship there.

The regions handing out the fewest new citizenships, meanwhile, were Sardinia (704), Molise (466), Valle d’Aosta (455), and Basilicata (351).

What else do we know about people who apply for citizenship in Italy?

There’s a fairly even gender balance – 49.6 percent of the total number of new citizens in 2021 were women, compared to 51.4 percent men – though women made up over 81 percent of those who acquired citizenship via marriage.

They’re also mainly young: the largest age group is under-20s, who accounted for 48,324 citizenships granted in 2021.

People aged 20-39 made up another 30,952, while 40 to 59-year-olds numbered 36,326. The number of people over 60 who acquired Italian citizenship was just 5,855.

Member comments

  1. Goof info thanks. Just a query. The article says ‘A total of 121,457 people were granted Italian citizenship in 2021, the last year for which official data is available. That’s eight percent less than in 2020, and lower also than 2019 (127,001) and 2018 (112,523).’ So if the 2018 figure is right, the 2021 figure is not ‘lower’ (but higher). It would also be good to have the number for 2020 as for 2019 and 2018.

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For members

EUROPEAN UNION

How many travellers are turned away at European borders because of 90 day limit?

Many Non-EU nationals, including Britons since Brexit, need to make sure they don't go over the 90-day rule in the EU/Schengen area. But how many people are turned away at European borders because they overstayed?

Published: 21 May 2023 12:19 CEST
How many travellers are turned away at European borders because of 90 day limit?

The 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Champion, UK’s Lucy Charles-Barclay, may not be able to participate in the next race of the season, on the 21st of May in Kraichgau, Germany.

The reason? She has already used 88 of the 90 days she could spend in the Schengen area over a 180-day period, the athlete said on Instagram.

Non-EU travellers, who since Brexit include Brits, have to be aware of the 90-day rule when it comes to visiting the EU and Schengen area.

People can travel without border checks within countries that have signed up to the Schengen Agreement. These include EU members except for Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland and Romania. Non-EU members Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are also part of the Schengen zone.

Non-EU passport holders who are allowed to visit Schengen countries without a visa can stay for maximum 90 days in any 180-day period, regardless of the number of states they go to. This means frequent visitors to EU countries, such as those who own second homes there, need to keep a careful check on how many days they have built up.

READ ALSO: How does the 90-day rule work for the EU/Schengen area?

The 90-day limit is meant for visits only, so people who intend to become residents have to follow different procedures.

Anyone who wants to stay longer than 90 days in every 180 must apply for a national visa for the country they intend to visit.

Passengers wait under panels at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, in the northeastern outskirts of Paris, on March 4, 2023.(Photo by Geoffroy Van der Hasselt / AFP)

If overstayers are caught they will most likely be ordered to leave, fined or even banned from the Schengen zone for a period of time. Since Brexit, these rules also apply to UK citizens, to the frustration of many second home owners in France and Spain.

The European Union plans to introduce a new border system, the EU entry/exit system, that will require biometric data, including facial images and fingerprints of all passengers entering the EU, helping authorities to systematically identify overstayers.

Travellers refused entry over the 90-day rule

Overall, some 141,060 non-EU citizens were refused entry into the EU in 2022 for various reasons, which are explained below.

Overall the largest number of refusals were reported by Poland (23,330), Hungary (15,780), Croatia (11,800) and Ireland (9,240). Ukrainian citizens accounted for the largest number of refusals, as has been the case in recent years.

According to the latest data published by the EU statistical office Eurostat, in 2022 almost 20,000 people (19,290) were refused entry at the Schengen area’s external borders because they has already exceeded the 90-day limit on previous trips.

This figure was a slight rise on the 2019 figure of 17,695. In the 2020 and 2021 the number dropped to around 10,000 travellers refused entry for having passed the 90-day limit, but the drop can be explained by fewer people on the move due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of the 20,000 refused entry in 2022 over the 90-day rule, more than two thirds were stopped at the Polish (7,570) and Hungarian (5,475) borders. Again most of them were from Ukraine as was the case in 2019. It is not clear whether these were recorded before Poland and Hungary opened their borders to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian’s fleeing the Russian invasion in late February.

Among the countries covered by The Local, Italy refused entry to 695 non-EU citizens because of the 90/180 Schengen rule; Germany denied entry to 465; Spain 345; Switzerland 175; France 170; Austria 125; Sweden 40; and Denmark 30, according to data published recently.

Despite the confusion for Britons after Brexit it appears most travellers are at least aware of the 90 day rule given the small number that were refused entry.

Only 195 British citizens were refused entry into European countries in 2022 because of the 90 day rule. Of these, Switzerland rejected 25; Sweden, Austria and Denmark 10 each; France 5. The figure for Spain read “zero”, suggesting Spanish authorities had not made the data available.

For US citizens the number of travellers turned away at the EU borders last year for having already passed the 90-day limit was 90. The numbers were even smaller for Canadians and Australians but this will be likely linked not only to a low number of frequent travellers to the EU from distant countries. In other words if they have passed the 90 day limit they are unlikely to return within the 180 day period.

As for travellers from India, the 90-day rule does not apply to them because they need a visa to enter the Schengen area.

Other reasons non-EU citizens are turned away

Apart from the 90 day rule there are other reasons why non-EU travellers will be turned away at Europe’s borders ranging from whether they are considered to be public threat or an alert has been issued about them to the fact their passport may be out of date or they have no valid visa or residency permit. Officially non-EU visitors could be turned away if they are not considered to have the means to pay for their trip, however the figures show only 10 people were refused entry (all to the Netherlands) for this reason.

READ ALSO: Are UK tourists in Spain really being asked to prove €100 a day?

Whilst most non-EU travellers have been aware of the rules around valid travel documents it appears many Britons have been caught out since Brexit.

Visitors entering Schengen countries must have a document issued in the ten years before the date of entry and valid until three months after the planned departure date. Since Brexit many British travellers, unaware their passports were invalid, have been turned away at airports and ports.

France for example denied access to its territory – and the Schengen area – to 105 UK citizens because they held no valid travel document.

The total for British citizens turned away from European countries because of invalid travel documents was 335, with 40 denied access to Italy and 30 to Switzerland.

In total 1,305 UK nationals were denied entry at the European external borders in 2022 because of reasons ranging from overstays to no valid visa or document, insufficient means of subsistence or being considered a public threat.

France – which has the largest number of arrivals from the UK due to its proximity – recorded the largest number (440), followed by Switzerland (150), Sweden (75), Italy (60), Germany (45), Denmark (40), Austria (15). Data for Norway was not available at the time of publishing.

Sweden, where authorities have come under pressure over their treatment of British residents after Brexit, refused entry to 40 Britons in 2022 who did not have a valid visa or residence permit.

When it comes to other nationalities, some 1,020 American citizens were turned away at Europe’s borders for various reasons in 2022 and the figure for Indian nationals was 2,045. Just 140 Canadians were turned away and 50 Australian nationals.

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