Italian Citizenship Timelines at Consulates in 2026

Descendants of Italians seeking information about consular timelines in 2026 face a highly restricted scenario following Decreto Tajani (DL 36/2025, converted into Lei 74/2025). The consular route now serves only children and grandchildren of Italians, which has significantly changed demand and wait times at Brazilian consulates.

Average processing time at Brazilian consulates

Timelines for Italian citizenship recognition continue to vary considerably depending on the consular jurisdiction responsible for the applicant. Consulates with higher request volumes, such as São Paulo, historically register longer queues than consulates in states with lower concentrations of Italian-Brazilian descendants.

According to information released by the consulates themselves on their official portals, the difference between one jurisdiction and another can mean years of waiting. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte concentrate the largest number of applications in the country, which naturally extends the time between scheduling and process completion.

It is important to note that, following the Decreto Tajani's entry into force, the population eligible for the consular route decreased — since great-grandchildren and later generations can no longer request recognition directly at the consulate. This change tends, in the medium term, to relieve some of the backlogged demand at consulates, although the practical effect on already-formed queues still depends on how each consular office organizes pending request processing.

How the 2025 reform changed procedures

The Italian citizenship reform promoted by Decreto Tajani represented the most significant change in recognition rules in decades. Before the decree, descendants of any generation — grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, and beyond — could, under certain conditions, seek recognition through the administrative route (consular or at the comune), provided they proved an unbroken line of descent without prior naturalization of any ascendant. With the new legislation, consular services became restricted to children and grandchildren of Italian citizens, excluding more distant generations from this pathway, who now depend on the judicial route.

This restriction not only limited the eligible population but also reorganized the documentary analysis required by consulates. Since the number of generations to be proven decreased for those still with access to the consular route, case processing tends to be more straightforward — fewer certificates in chain to verify, fewer genealogical links to validate.

On the other hand, those who no longer meet the consular route criteria — descendants of Italian great-grandparents or earlier generations — must resort to the Italian judicial route, which follows its own proceedings in Italian courts and is not subject to the timelines and scheduling systems of Brazilian consulates.

Decreto Tajani establishes that citizenship by descent, as regards automatic recognition through the administrative route, now reaches only children and grandchildren born abroad, altering the scope of the so-called bloodline for purposes of direct recognition through this route.

Required documentation and timelines for Italian certificates

Regardless of the chosen route, document organization remains a determining factor for process speed. Among commonly required documents are:

• Birth certificate of the applicant and ascendants in the line of descent;
• Marriage certificate of all ascendants involved in the chain;
• Birth certificate of the emigrated Italian ancestor, obtained from the Italian comune of origin;
• Negative naturalization certificate (to prove that the ascendant did not naturalize before the birth of their child, when applicable);
• Sworn translations and Hague apostille of all Brazilian documents.

Obtaining certificates from Italian archives is often one of the most time-consuming stages of the process, especially when the comune of origin still maintains records only in paper format. In recent years, however, various Italian comuni have advanced digitization projects for Italian archives, which has helped expedite certificate issuance and reduce response time to requests sent from Brazil.

Queues, online scheduling, and prospects for 2026

The situation of consular queues remains one of the main points of attention for those still eligible for the consular route. Brazilian consulates use online scheduling systems — such as Prenot@Mi, adopted by various Italian offices abroad — to organize appointment scheduling and request processing.

Consulates typically publish periodically on their official websites information about scheduling volume and any updates in service flow. Since the reduction in the population eligible for the consular route, resulting from Decreto Tajani, is still undergoing adjustment, there is no consolidated official forecast of how much queues will actually decrease throughout 2026. Timeline behavior will also depend on pending judicial decisions in Italy regarding the validity and scope of the reform.

Differences between the consular and judicial routes

An essential point for those researching citizenship recognition in 2026 is understanding that there are now two possible paths, with completely different logic and timelines:

• Consular route: available only for children and grandchildren of Italians, processed at Brazilian consulates and subject to queues and scheduling systems of each jurisdiction.
• Judicial route: processed in courts in Italy, being the necessary path for descendants of more distant generations (great-grandchildren and beyond) since Decreto Tajani's entry into force, in addition to cases involving specific issues about loss and maintenance of citizenship, such as the so-called "minor issue" (related to automatic loss of citizenship of minor children when the father naturalized in another country, provided for in art. 12, §2, of Lei 555/1912).

The judicial route follows its own procedural rules in Italian courts and should not be confused with consular service timelines. Currently, the matter of Decreto Tajani's retroactivity is under review by the Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione, which discuss whether the new law can retroactively extinguish a citizenship right that the descendant has carried since birth under the jure sanguinis principle. Since Sezioni Unite decisions are binding on all Italian judges, the outcome of this ruling should guide how courts will handle citizenship cases going forward.

How to prepare to reduce waiting time

For those still eligible for the consular route or intending to seek recognition through the judicial route, some precautions can help avoid unnecessary delays:

1. Organize all line-of-descent documentation in advance, checking for any discrepancies in names, dates, or spellings between Brazilian and Italian certificates;
2. Begin in advance the search for certificates in Italy, since locating old records in small comuni may require considerable time;
3. Maintain direct contact with the responsible consulate to clarify specific questions about scheduling and required documentation;
4. Evaluate, when necessary, support from specialized Italian citizenship consulting, especially in cases requiring more in-depth legal analysis, such as judicial proceedings or situations of loss and reacquisition of citizenship.

To follow upcoming updates on this topic, it's worthwhile to follow the Italian News published by Raízes Italianas, as well as content about Life in Italy for those planning to establish themselves in the country after recognition.

Timelines for Italian citizenship at consulates in 2026 reflect a transitional moment, marked by changes brought about by Decreto Tajani and expectations surrounding the Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione ruling. Descendants seeking updated information should closely monitor both official consulate channels and the unfolding of judicial discussion in Italy, as both directly impact the time and path necessary for citizenship recognition.

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