SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

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.

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.

  2. I have just been granted Citizenship and recognised as an Italian citizen by Birthright but no one has mentioned or informed me whether I have to go to the Consulate and Swear an oath of allegiance to the Republic. Can you tell me if I do or do not have to Swear an Oath.
    After twenty months of trying I would hate to throw it all away over this matter.

  3. @John Bryan — If you obtained citizenship by birthright, you do not need to swear an oath of allegiance. You have always been a citizen — just had to “prove” it. Only those who are “gaining” citizenship (who have not had it prior) need to swear the oath, e.g., obtaining citizenship by marriage.

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP

Italy grants citizenship to more people than any other EU country, study finds

Nearly 214,000 people became Italian citizens in 2022, making Italy the EU country with the single highest number of granted citizenship requests, a new study from research body ISMU found.

Italy grants citizenship to more people than any other EU country, study finds

Italy granted citizenship to some 213,716 people in 2022, according to a new study from Italian migration research body ISMU based on data from European statistics bureau Eurostat.

This made Italy the EU country with the highest number of granted citizenship requests, followed by Spain (with 181,581 new citizens), Germany (166,640) and France (114,483).

The number of Italian citizenship claims approved in 2022 was up by around 76 percent compared to 2021 (121,457).

Italy accounted for nearly a quarter (22 percent) of the total number of citizenship requests granted across the bloc: 989,940. 

Of those who acquired Italian citizenship in 2022, around 40 percent came from one of the following three countries: Albania (38,129 successful applications), Morocco (30,953) and Romania (16,302).

The top five was completed by Brazil (11,239) and India (8,509), with no English-speaking nation appearing in the top 20.

READ ALSO: Five surprising Italian citizenship rules you should know about

As for the age of those who gained Italian citizenship in 2022, 37 percent of new citizens were under the age of 20.

According to the study, Italy granted citizenship to a total of nearly 1.5 million people between 2013 and 2022, with 2022 being the year with the highest number of successful applications, followed by 2016 (201,591) and 2015 (178,035).

ISMU’s study provided no details as to which paths to acquire citizenship were the most popular ones in 2022. 

According to the latest data from Italian statistics office Istat, the most common ways to claim Italian citizenship are: ius sanguinis, which allows those who can prove descent from at least one Italian ancestor to claim Italian citizenship; birthplace (or ius soli), which entitles people born and raised in Italy by non-Italian parents to claim Italian citizenship at age 18; and parental transmission, which transfers citizenship to the children of adults who acquire citizenship provided they’re under 18 and living with them at the time.

READ ALSO: The three ways to apply for Italian citizenship

The birthplace or ius soli path has recently been at the centre of nationwide debate after Italian rapper Ghali shone light on the issues faced by second-generation immigrants at the Sanremo music festival.

Italy currently has one of the toughest citizenship regimes in Europe when it comes to children born in the country to foreign parents as they are unable to apply for an Italian passport until they are 18.

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

After turning 18, they have one year to submit their application for citizenship. If the window is missed, claiming citizenship becomes a complex bureaucratic process, which can take at least three years.

SHOW COMMENTS