O Consulate General of Italy in São Paulo presented, this Monday (26), the official figures for services performed throughout 2025. In a press conference, the consul Domenico Fornara He stated that the workload had reached historic levels.
"We received 53.000 new registrations." (AIRE)"It's a number that doesn't exist in any other consulate general in the world, not even Buenos Aires or London," he declared. According to him, the profile of those registered in the "registry of Italians abroad" reinforces the workload.
“These 53.000 are mostly new citizens. Unlike those who came from another jurisdiction, the new citizen does not yet have a passport, nor a codice fiscale, nor transcripts, and requests all services at the same time,” the consul explained.
The consulate closed 2025 with 390.038 Italian residents"It's as if we were the municipality of Bologna and I were the mayor, jokingly, of course," he said. According to Fornara, the number increased by 10.000 people compared to the previous year, despite the registrations being much higher.
He explained the difference. “There were 380.000 at the end of 2024 and now we have 390.000. But we made 53.000 new registrations. Why didn't we reach 430.000? Because we did a huge amount of correction work. There were deceased people or people with outdated data. With the support of a task force funded by the DGT, we managed to eliminate about 40 inconsistent records,” he said at the press conference.
Services and records
In 2025, the consulate issued 39.571 passports. “That number doubled compared to 2021. In that year we issued 21.000. Now, we have surpassed 40.000,” Fornara highlighted.
He also acknowledged the bottlenecks: "Many times we need to postpone issuing the first passport because the citizen has just obtained citizenship, but hasn't yet got everything in order," he explained.
Other data includes over 11.000 civil registration processes, 2.234 visas, and 4.541 notarial acts.
Change in legislation
Fornara addressed the impact of Decree 36 of 2025. “The new law affected the civil status sector. Children who previously would only be registered now enter the citizenship process. This increased the workload, because we had to return documents sent after the new rule and schedule new appointments,” said the consul.
System and limitations
Fornara defended the use of the system. Bookings"It's the only official ministerial tool. It has faced a lot of criticism, but it's the most transparent. If we used WhatsApp, as we did before, it would be impossible to guarantee this control. And WhatsApp was vetoed due to privacy concerns."
Regarding customer service, he acknowledged limitations. “We receive thousands of emails per week. To respond to them all, we would need a call center with 30 people. That's unfeasible. But we use social media to answer questions, because one answer can help many people.”
He also commented on the use of intermediaries. “We don’t recognize any agency. It’s written on the website. But hiring someone to schedule appointments with their credentials isn’t illegal. Our role is to make the system more accessible to everyone and reduce the advantage these intermediaries have.”
Bilateral relations
Fornara also highlighted the strengthening of relations between Brazil and Italy. “There has been an intensification of institutional visits. This is a result of political factors and the current context, such as the G7 and G20 presidencies held by Italy and Brazil. The Business Forum brought together 300 companies and various cultural associations.”
He concluded by mentioning cultural efforts. “Beyond consular services, our mission is to promote Italian culture and business. We organize events, exhibitions, rassegne, everything to integrate the Italian System,” he finished.
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Solange Rodrigues Franco de Moraes
January 28, 2026 at 22:48 am
I've been trying for over a year to schedule my daughter's first passport appointment, and I can't. This system is absurd!!!