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.
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 213,567 people were granted Italian citizenship in 2023, the last year for which official data is available.
The figure was only slightly lower compared to 2022 (213,716), but marked a major increase compared to 2021 (121,457).
The spike in new Italians in 2022 came after a decline that could be attributed to the effects of the Covid pandemic, according to Istat.
Where do most ‘new Italians’ come from?
In 2023, around 92 percent of people (196,000) acquiring Italian citizenship came from outside the European Union.
That was the highest figure in 13 years, marking a 78-percent increase compared to 2021.
READ ALSO: Quick guide: Who is eligible for Italian citizenship?
The highest number of successful applications came from Albanians (31,728), followed by Moroccans (27,901), Argentinians (16,076), Romanians (14,409) and Brazilians (12,891).
Citizens of Albania and Morocco have consistently made up the top two since 2012, with as many as 36,920 Albanians and 35,212 Moroccans gaining Italian citizenship when claims were at their height in 2016.
The number of Argentinians who gained Italian citizenship stood at 16,076 in 2023 – up from less than 4,000 in 2021. This could be partly attributable to the economic crisis plaguing the country, according to Istat.
In more than 88 percent of cases, citizenship was acquired through descent (Argentina was one of the most popular destinations for Italian migrants between 1876 and 1925).
Egypt also saw a considerable increase in citizenship acquisitions, with successful applications registering a whopping 145-percent increase between 2021 and 2023.
How do most people qualify for Italian citizenship?
In 2023, the most common way to acquire Italian citizenship was either by residency (which applies to foreign nationals who legally and continuously reside in Italy for a number of years) 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).
These cases accounted for about 70 percent of all new citizens, with 78,000 acquisitions via residency and 59,000 via parental transmission.
READ ALSO: When are children born in Italy eligible for Italian citizenship?
Successful citizenship by descent claims (iure sanguinis, which allows those who can prove descent from at least one Italian ancestor to claim Italian citizenship) saw a 31-percent year-on-year increase in 2023.
When compared to 2021 data, acquisitions via ancestry were up by 241 percent in 2023.
According to Istat, the increases seen in 2022 and 2023 were partly due to "the particular situation of [year 2021], which was still affected by the pandemic and the resulting difficulties in travelling from one country to another".
Claims based on marriage and birthplace (ius soli, which entitles people born and raised in Italy by non-Italian parents to claim Italian citizenship at the age of 18) were also up by 70 percent and 35 percent respectively against 2021.
Where in Italy do most people get citizenship?
The Italian region with the highest number of successful citizenship claims in 2023 was Lombardy, with 52,197 new citizens.
The region has consistently topped the list in recent years, reflecting the large numbers of foreigners who move there to work or study.
Other regions with high numbers of people gaining citizenship were Emilia-Romagna (26,460) which made up 12.6 percent of the total, Veneto (25,921) and Piedmont (18,915).
Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto were home to around half of all new Italian citizens.
The regions handing out the fewest new citizenships were Molise (1,544), Basilicata (946) and Valle d’Aosta (467).
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