Is acquiring Italian citizenship the best way to secure your future in Italy or the European Union? The answer is yes for tens of thousands of people.
In 2019 alone, the last year with consolidated figures available, 127.001 people obtained Italian citizenship.
This is a slight increase from 2018, when 112.523 people became Italian, but still considerably below 2017 (146.605) or 2016 (201.591), when the number of successful citizenship applications saw a spike.
All data mentioned in this report are from Istat, Italy's national statistics office.
Where do most 'new Italians' come from?
In 2019, as in most previous years, the vast majority of people who acquired Italian citizenship – on Italian soil, excluding processes carried out in consulates or embassies – came from outside the European Union: 113.979 or about 90%.
This is to be expected, as people with EU passports already enjoy most of the same rights as Italians in Italy and therefore have less incentive to apply for citizenship.
The largest number of successful applications came from Albanians (26.033), followed by Moroccans (15.812), Brazilians (10.762), Romanians (10.201), North Macedonians (4.966), Indians (4.683), Moldovans (3.788), Ecuadorians (3.041), Senegalese (2.869), Pakistanis (2.722) and Peruvians (2.685).
Citizens of Albania and Morocco have consistently been among the top two since at least 2012, with up to 36.920 Albanians and 35.212 Moroccans, respectively, obtaining Italian citizenship.
Meanwhile, Brazil saw successful citizenship applications increase more than seven times 2012 since.
Other nationalities are far less likely to apply for Italian citizenship, despite having a relatively large immigrant population in Italy: notably, less than 5% of Chinese residents in Italy have acquired Italian citizenship. Presumably because... China does not allow dual nationality.
How do most people qualify to acquire Italian citizenship?
In 2019, the most common way to acquire citizenship was through descent (jus sanguinis, which allows those who prove descent from at least one Italian ancestor to claim Italian citizenship), by place of birth (ius soli, which entitles people born and raised in Italy to non-Italian parents to apply for Italian citizenship at age 18), or by parental transmission (the law that automatically transfers citizenship to the children of adults who acquire citizenship, as long as they are under 18 years old).
In total 57.098 people qualified for Italian citizenship via one of these three routes in 2019, around 45% of the total.
A further 52.877 people (42%) qualified through residency in Italy, while 17.026 (13%) applied through marriage to an Italian citizen.
While claims based on residence or place of birth/descent increased by around 13 and 8 respectively from the previous year, claims from spouses of Italian citizens fell sharply by over 7.
In fact, applications for citizenship through this modality were the lowest last year since 2015; every two years since 2012, they have been close to 20 orders.
A change in law at the end of 2018, which allowed the Italian state to take up to four years to process applications for citizenship via marriage, is to blame. Before the Salvini decree, requests had to be responded to within two years or automatically granted after this period.
The new rules also abolish automatic consent after the deadline, in addition to introducing a language test for people applying by marriage or residence.
Ius sanguinis
Another notable trend is the increase in the number of people claiming Italian citizenship by descent.
In 2016, the year Italy's statistics office began tracking citizenship applications, around 7 people gained citizenship this way; in 2017 it was more than 8 thousand, in 2018 it reached 9 thousand and in 2019 it exceeded 10 thousand.
Most claims for jus sanguinis comes from two countries: Brazil and Argentina, which between them accounted for almost 96% of all citizenship claims by descent in 2019.
Where in Italy do most people get citizenship?
The region of Italy with the most successful citizenship claims in 2019 was Lombardy, which granted 31.437 applications.
The region has topped the list for several years, reflecting the large number of foreigners moving there to work or study.
Other regions where a large number of people obtained citizenship were Veneto (16.960), Emilia-Romagna (12.014), Piedmont (11.702) and Tuscany (11.139).
While Lazio, the region of Rome, has a large foreign population, only 9.258 people have obtained Italian citizenship there.
The regions that granted the lowest number of new citizenships, however, were Sardinia (677), Molise (504), Basilicata (418) and Aosta Valley (361).
The further north you go, the more people base their claims on residency — reflecting the fact that the rich industrial north has long attracted migrants looking for work.
Meanwhile, in the south, and especially in the regions of Calabria, Basilicata and Molise, most claims to citizenship were based on ancestry, the legacy of decades of emigration abroad from impoverished parts of southern Italy.
What else do we know about people applying for citizenship in Italy?
They are mainly women (66.890 in 2019 compared to 60.111 men) and are mainly young: the largest age group is under 20s, who accounted for 45.741 citizenships granted in 2019.
People aged 20 to 39 totaled 39.929, while those aged 40 to 59 totaled 36.316. The number of people over 60 who acquired Italian citizenship was just 5.015.
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