Houses in Cinque Terre, Italy. Copyright Gretta Schifano
This week I started the process of applying for Italian citizenship and passports for me and for our two children. I’m sharing my experience here in case it’s helpful to you. But please bear in mind that I have no expertise in this area, and I’m not in any way telling you how to do it – Italian bureaucracy is a thing of mystery, after all.
Italian citizenship
My husband’s parents moved to London from Sicily for work in the 1950s. They always planned to move back to Sicily, and when he was born in London they registered his birth with the Italian authorities. So he is both British and Italian. This means, I believe, that our two children, born in England, and I, born in England to English parents, can all become Italian citizens – as long as I can navigate the complex and inevitably frustrating Italian bureaucracy required to achieve that. (Very sensibly, my husband is keeping as far away from the whole process as he possibly can, because he has a lifetime of experience of how tedious Italian officialdom can be.)
Prior to the June 2016 EU referendum, applying for Italian citizenship had never occurred to me. I’ve always loved Italy. I studied Italian at University, I worked there as an English teacher and have spent many happy times there both on holiday and visiting friends and family. But I’d never thought about actually becoming an Italian citizen, or about contacting the Italian authorities to register our marriage, our daughter’s birth or our son’s adoption. Why would I? But since the referendum I’ve known, reluctantly, that it’s something that I had to do.
EU referendum
I voted Remain in the referendum because I thought that was the best and the right thing to do for the future of my family and of our country. (If you’d like to know why, do read my post How should I vote in the EU referendum?) I was devastated and astonished by the result, and by the toxic atmosphere of racism, arrogance, xenophobia and bluster which it has stirred up. Today I still believe that Brexit is a backwards step which is damaging our country, and I’m astonished that most of our politicians are going along with it. I’d still vote to remain in the EU if we had another referendum tomorrow. But as that’s not an option, it seems that the only way for my family to remain in the EU is for us to all become Italian citizens.
I did vaguely start researching the process of applying for Italian citizenship soon after the referendum. I went to the Italian Consulate website to try and work out what we needed to do. Straight away I had some queries, so I sent them via the website contact form. I quickly received an automated response to say that I’d receive a reply within six months. Disheartened, I left things for a while, hoping that maybe Brexit wouldn’t happen. But it really does seem to be happening, one way or another, and so I really do need to get on with the application.
Certificates
So, the first stage seems to be to register our marriage, our daughter’s birth and our son’s adoption with the Italian Consulate in London. In order to do that, we need original certificates – photocopies aren’t accepted. The original certificates will not be returned to us by the consulate, so I can’t send them the actual original ones which I have at home. Luckily the UK General Register Office has a very efficient website, and I’ve ordered copies of our certificates from there, at a cost of £9.25 per certificate. It takes up to 15 days for the certificates to be delivered, and then I’ll have to arrange for them to be translated by an approved translator and legalised to show that they are genuine. After that, I think that I’ll be able to register with the consulate and then eventually to apply for Italian passports – I’ll keep you posted!
What happened next?
To find out what happened next, read to these posts:
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 2.
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 3
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 4
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 5
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 6
Applying for Italian citizenship – part 7
Over to you
Have you ever applied for citizenship of another country, or would you like to, and why? Please do share your experiences, as I’d love to hear about them.
Hi Gretta, going through the process ourselves, my wife is Italian, born in the UK to Italian parents who emigrated here in the 40s. She was registered by her father and so has always had an Italian citizenship, unfortunately we weren’t aware until relatively recently of the importance of AIRE and keeping it up to date. (In fact neither of us knew about it until a couple of years ago). Cut a long story short, its taken well over a year getting AIRE updated, e.g marriage, change of address etc. (As we all know getting appointments is very difficult, especially so at honorary consuls). That is all complete now, but due to delays in getting an appointment to update everything, the new law came in (which we weren’t aware of) requiring a certificate at B1 level for JM (application by marriage) so mine is very much on hold (At least six years if not longer). However we can still sort out our daughters, again (wish someone told us years ago to register her birth) she is over 18 now so will likely have to go through the expensive, bureaucratic route, compounded by the fact she doesn’t live in the UK currently and can’t apply in her current country of residence (applications limited to full residents of that country only) and London is not viable. Ugh, anyway all the paperwork is ready for her now. It really seems that the charge for over 18s who weren’t registered at birth in Italy is nothing but a punishment fine! Going to submit the birth registration anyhow to London but reading your blog, I’m sure its just going to be returned.
Hi Simon, I hope that you manage to get to all sorted out. Why will yours take at least six years? Is that because of the language exam?
Yes, with the new law requiring 4 years from application on top of the time required to get to the relevant standard in Italian that is my best guess. But there is talk of this new law being repealed, so watch this space it is…
That would be good! I did hear from a friend in Italy that there may be an easier exam introduced for citizenship applications, so that could help too. Good luck with it all.
Thank you so much for such an detailed report on the process! <3
You’re welcome Gabriella!
Thanks for this info Gretta. I’m just exploring doing this for our family ( myself, husband and 11 yr old daughter) as we want to be EU citizens after brexit, if at all possible! I don’t know what the process is at all yet but will read your posts to find out more. My mum is Italian and has been in the UK for 61 years! Best wishes in your quest and do let me know if you have any other tips and how you’ve got in
We’ve not got much further at the moment, but I need to get on with it! Good luck with it all, and I’ll write more when we’ve made some progress.
Thanks Gretta, I look forward to hearing from you about it! Thanks Lena
I am applying for citizenship as well. Waiting for hubby( the Italian)’s registration as AIRE to come through ( we moved back to England two years ago) then start the application process. It’s taken, since May last year, forever and we have not received his registration . Which website are you looking at for the application I gather everything is online from now on??
I’ve been looking at the London Italian Consulate website: http://www.conslondra.esteri.it/consolato_londra/en/
Our UK certificates have now arrived, so I need to start the next stage now.
I chased them after 200 days for my AIRE registration, as their quoted lead time is 180 days, or just under 6 months. I sent them the application details and asked when I should expect my registration to come through. Funnily enough, it all then happened very quickly, within 48 hours. I guess if you wait the quoted lead time and then chase, the backlog magically disappears.
Good luck Gretta, this is definitely worth all the work. I wish I could do this for me and my family! I want us to keep our rights as EU citizens – I’m not bothered about being British. Brexit is terribly damaging and has unleashed some very unpleasant feelings and reactions. Hopefully your experiences can help others.
Thanks Jane, I hope so. I wish that you could do this too 🙁
Good luck Gretta … I did not even contemplate applying for italian citizenship (I was put off by the pages of documents required) even though I live in Italy and married to an Italian – but I did register the children’s births with the British embassy. To be Italian you have to have an Italian parent (there is a proposal to give Italian citizenship to babies born in Italy of foreign parents … but who knows if it will be accepted). All the best!
Remember even if you get Italian citizenship in Britain you will always be considered British and in Italy always Italian .
Thanks Jenny. I’m not sure if any of us will actually manage to get it, but I feel that we have to try!
That’s super-interesting, thanks for posting. It sounds like one of those things that’s easily put off because of the daunting amount of bureaucracy, but is so worth doing and relief to get done. The citizenship processes of different countries vary so much, as far as I’m aware, that it can be hard to get a sense of how much difficulty to expect. Anyway, I hope it goes smoothly for you.
Thank you very much. It is daunting, but I hope that by sharing my experience of the process it will help others who are thinking of doing the same thing.
Wow good luck. My boy was born in France but I have no plans to apply for a citizenship or a passport for him as I know what the process can be like. I’m wondering if perhaps they will want your certificates officially translated into Italian? I know we had to get all our documents like that translated into French when we became part of their system many moons ago. I hope the process isn’t too difficult for you
Thank you. Yes, we will need to have our documents translated by approved translators, definitely.