The Tajani Decree explained

In the spring of 2025, the Italian Parliament passed Law 74/2025 (converting the emergency Tajani Decree No. 36/2025), introducing some of the most restrictive changes to Italian citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis) in modern history. While online forums claimed that third- and fourth-generation descendants were permanently cut off, the legal reality inside the Italian tribunals tells a far more nuanced story.

In this inaugural episode, Avv. Salvatore Aprigliano breaks down the precise mechanics of the new reform, the legal exemptions created by the March 27, 2025 grandfather deadline, and the constitutional arguments being used to defend Italian descendants worldwide.

Salvatore also reveals details from two precedent-setting 2026 court decisions secured directly by Aprigliano International Law Firm in the Court of Bologna (Rulings 3335 and 4038), proving that the right to Italian citizenship remains viable for those with the right evidentiary strategy.

The Aprigliano Brief is a multi-part documentary series produced by Red Axe, detailing the landmark court battles and constitutional shifts shaping Italian-American heritage.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• The Core Mechanics of Law 74/2025: A clear analysis of the new two-generation filter and the strict “exclusive citizenship” clause.
• The 4 Grandfathered Safe Harbors: The explicit statutory exemptions tied to the March 27, 2025 deadline that protect applicants under the legacy rules.
• The Birthplace Paradox: Why the new generational restrictions apply specifically to descendants born abroad, and how birth on Italian soil alters the legal analysis.
• Consular Circulars vs. Judicial Independence: Why an administrative refusal at a consulate does not dictate how an independent judge evaluates constitutional rights in court.
• The 2026 Bologna Court Precedents: How establishing “documented intent” prior to the reform deadline opened a successful pathway for 3rd and 4th generation applicants.
• The European Union Legal Defense: Why restricting jure sanguinis raises fundamental questions regarding EU citizenship rights and potential referrals to the European Court of Justice.

English (US)

00:00:00.400 — 00:00:07.360

In the spring of 2025, a massive legal storm hit the international community of Italian descent out of nowhere. The Italian government issued an emergency decree, the so-called Tajani Decree No. 36 of 2025 converted into law 74 of 2025. Italy is restricting who can become Italian, changing citizenship rules that are as old as the country itself. Restrictions introduced last year in the so-called Tajani Decree.

The legislation was approved by Parliament in 25. That changed some of the rules around citizenship by descent. The policy of use sanguinis, Latin for the right of blood, dates back to the founding of the country. The internet forums literally exploded in panic. Blogs and online groups started claiming that your sanguinis was dead.

That third and fourth generation descendants were completely cut off and that the door to Italy had officially closed forever.

00:01:17.280 — 00:01:41.640

Thousands of families felt blindsided, and many felt betrayed. People who had been gathering documents for years investing time, money and hope suddenly faced a dramatic question. Is it all over? But today, I want to tell you one thing clearly. The situation is serious, but it’s not over.

00:02:01.760 — 00:03:16.070

True. This new law has introduced some of the harshest restrictions ever seen in the modern history of Italian citizenship by descent. But it’s not true that every path is automatically closed in 2026 under this new legal framework. Our firm has already secured the first favorable decisions in particularly significant cases.

These are still early results to be read with caution. However, there are some signals from judges that are particularly significant. They show that the Tajani decree has not eliminated all room for protection in the Italian courts. The Tajani decree didn’t just close the door. It radically changed the rules of the game.

And when the rules change, you need a much more precise legal analysis. Today we’ll look at what the Tajani decree actually says. Who is concretely at risk of being excluded? Which categories of cases might still have a viable path, and what legal arguments we are using in the Italian courts to defend the rights of Italian descendants worldwide.

00:03:22.630 — 00:04:16.739

Let’s analyze the mechanisms of law 74 of 2025 in detail. What did the government actually change with this rule? The decree introduced a radical new negative presumption into Italian law. If you were born abroad and hold another citizenship, the law now presumes that you never acquired Italian citizenship at birth.

To overturn this negative presumption and claim Italian citizenship by bloodline, you must now meet extremely strict criteria. First, they’ve implemented a rigid generational filter. The law has limited US sanguinis to the second generation. Meaning you must be the child or direct grandchild of an Italian born citizen.

Second, they’ve added what they call the exclusive citizenship clause under letter C of the new law. You must prove that your parent or grandparent held Italian citizenship exclusively at the relevant time or at the time of their death. If they naturalized as American, Canadian, or Argentine citizens, they were no longer exclusively Italian, meaning the line of descent is broken under this specific rule.

If you read these rules strictly on paper, it looks like a disaster for applicants beyond the second generation, it seems like an absolute wall. But the law has also created safe harbors, protected exemptions, and has completely underestimated the power of the Italian judiciary.

00:05:10.380 — 00:09:03.770

Before we talk about how we are handling the most difficult cases, let’s talk about who is safe from these new restrictions. The law created a grandfather clause anchored to a specific date March 27th, 2025. If you fall into one of these categories, your case is evaluated under the old, much more permissive rules.

The first category you submitted a complete citizenship application to an Italian consulate or town hall before March 27th, 2025. The second you had a consular appointment already scheduled by the consulate before March 27th, 2025. Even if the actual appointment date is set for a later time. The third category relates to those who filed an appeal in court for the recognition of Italian citizenship before March 27th, 2025.

The fourth category is if you were born in Italy. This point is very important and shows one of the most curious effects of the new law. The restrictions introduced by the Tajani decree only affect Italian descendants born abroad who hold another citizenship. The core of the new rule is precisely this if you were born outside of Italy, the law now looks much more strictly at the generational distance between you and the Italian ancestor.

Imagine this scenario your mother lived abroad. Your family lived abroad. Your entire family line had developed outside of Italy. But for whatever reason, a trip, a temporary stay in the country, a personal circumstance. You were born in Italy. In that case, that seemingly random fact can completely change the legal analysis because the new generational limit only applies to those born abroad.

If you were born in Italy, you are not subject to the same block as those born outside Italian territory. For you, the ordinary rules can continue to apply without the new generational limit introduced by the Italian decree for descendants born abroad, namely the exclusivity of Italian citizenship.

It’s a powerful paradox. Two people can have the exact same bloodline, the same Italian ancestor, the same family history. But one was born abroad and the other was born in Italy. And that difference can change everything. This paradox raises an inevitable question could a phenomenon emerge in Italy, similar to what we’ve seen for years in the United States, where some foreign families chose to have their children born on U.S. soil to secure a U.S. passport?

For them, it’s a new question, but it’s not an absurd one, because after the Tajani decree, the place of birth is no longer a neutral detail for those born abroad. The law introduces very strict generational limits for those born in Italy. However, those limits do not operate in the same way. Of course, simply saying I was born in Italy is not enough to automatically solve every problem.

Every family situation must be carefully evaluated. But one thing is certain this new law has created a powerful paradox. And in the coming years, the issue of birth in Italy could become much more relevant than it was in the past. But what happens if you didn’t submit your application before March 27th, 2025?

And if you are a descendant beyond the second generation without an appointment, or you are starting the process today in 2026, are you automatically excluded? The answer is no. But from this point on, the analysis must become much more precise.

00:09:12.760 — 00:09:34.560

While the Ministry of the interior has adopted a very restrictive interpretation of the new law, the Italian courts remain independent, and this is a fundamental point. The consulate applies the ministry’s circulars. The judge, on the other hand, evaluates the specific case, the evidence produced, the applicable law, and the relevant constitutional principles.

00:09:40.120 — 00:09:54.080

And it is precisely in the courts that in recent months, the first avenues of protection have opened up for some applicants who seemed excluded by the Tajani decree. The Court of Bologna issued two very important decisions, ruling number 3335 of April 17th, 2026 and ruling 4038 of May 13th, 2026. Both cases involved third and fourth generation descendants who had filed their appeals after the Tajani decree came into force and had not secured a viable consular appointment by March 27th, 2025. These are cases that our firm handled directly before the Court of Bologna.

In those proceedings, the State Attorney’s Office argued that under law 74 of 2025, the plaintiffs should be excluded because they were beyond the second generation and did not meet the new restrictive criteria. The Court of Bologna, however, did not accept this approach in both decisions. The judge emphasize the fundamental element, the concrete and documented intent of the applicants to obtain recognition of their Italian citizenship before March 27th, 2025.

In the first case, this intent was shown by documented communications with the consulate. In the second case, it was also shown by a legal retainer agreement signed before the deadline, And ten of the applicants to obtain recognition of their Italian citizenship before March 27th, 2025. In the first case, this intent was shown by documented communications with the consulate.

In the second case, it was also shown by a legal retainer agreement signed before the deadline. Based on these elements, the court ruled that those cases should be evaluated under the framework prior to the reform. This doesn’t mean that every Post Tajani case will be approved. It also doesn’t mean that a single document, taken in isolation, is enough to get a favorable result.

Every appeal depends on the judge, the evidence, the timeline of events and how the case is built. But these decisions prove something very important. The Tajani decree has not eliminated all room for protection in the courts. In some cases, the concrete and documented intent to obtain recognition of Italian citizenship before March 27th, 2025 can become a decisive element of the legal analysis.

Because of this, in the new post Tajani context, Italian citizenship by descent is no longer just a matter of genealogy. It has become, in many cases a legal, evidentiary, and strategic matter. And when a case becomes a complex legal issue, the way it is set up can make a decisive difference. The Tajani decree has profoundly changed the landscape of Italian citizenship by descent, but it has not eliminated all possible avenues of protection in the courts.

It has transformed what many considered a mostly administrative procedure into a complex legal issue that can involve constitutional law, statutory interpretation, documentary evidence, and in some cases, even European Union law. The core point is this if Italian citizenship by descent has traditionally been recognized as a status existing from birth, then a law that now prevents certain descendants from claiming that status raises very significant legal questions.

Is it really just a new rule on recognition, or does it produce effects equivalent to losing the status of an Italian citizen and therefore also European citizenship? This is one of the issues that, in my view, deserves to be explored further before the judges. In the next episode, we will explore the potential relevance of European Union law.

We will see why Italian citizenship is also European citizenship, why this can be important, and why an Italian judge might be called upon to evaluate whether to apply the new law, discipline it in a specific case, or refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union. At our firm, we are analyzing the 2025 reform with a rigorous legal approach, case by case.

If you’ve been told you are excluded because of the Tajani decree, don’t assume your case is necessarily closed. Your family tree. Your timeline, your documents and your legal standing must be carefully evaluated. I’m Salvatore Aprigliano, Supreme court attorney and founder of Aprigliano International Law Firm. Ciao.