Emigrate to Spain or another European country and apply for Italian citizenship.
Many people who emigrate intend to apply for Italian citizenship after their arrival in Spain or Europe. We continually receive requests and enquiries from people who enter Spain and intend to apply for citizenship but are not sure what the first steps are.
First of all, it is important not to confuse the possibility of entering through Spain with the possibility of carrying out the procedure in Spain.
If you enter Europe with a tourist visa or without a visa but always as a tourist you have to consider that you have 90 days to submit your application for Italian citizenship. After 90 days of stay in the Schengen territory or in the European Community, you will change from being a tourist to an illegal immigrant.
This means that if you are illegally present there will be no way to regularise your situation and you will have to leave Spain or the Schengen territory for a period of time of say 6 months to re-enter Europe.
The 90 days are counted from the date indicated on the entry stamp in the passport. It does not matter which European country you enter through, the first entry stamp is always taken into account, as there are no customs and police controls within the Schengen area and no stamp is placed on the passport other than the first entry stamp and the first exit stamp of the Schengen area.
If I have arrived in Europe, can I apply for Italian citizenship at an Italian consulate?
Having clarified that you have 90 days to apply for Italian citizenship, we will try to explain where you can apply for Italian citizenship.
To apply for Italian citizenship through an Italian consulate you must prove that you are a resident of the regions or communities for which the Italian consulate is competent.
For example, if I live in Spain, in particular in Seville or Bilbao or Madrid, the competent Italian consulate to apply for Italian citizenship would be the Italian consulate in Madrid. If I live in Valencia, Andorra, Barcelona or Ibiza in this case the competent Italian consulate would be the Italian consulate in Barcelona.
How is residence in Spain proved?
When requesting a meeting to apply for Italian citizenship, you must present a census record from the municipality where you live. Please note that unless you are entering Spain with a work visa or other visa that allows you to take up residence, you will not be able to apply for citizenship at the Italian consulate in Spain.
In a nutshell, a tourist is not allowed to submit this application as the consulate has as its "jurisdiction" only those who are actually resident in that country. In fact, if you try to do so, the consulate will direct you to the consulate of the country where you already have your actual residence.
In this case, we always advise you to take advantage of the 90 days to travel to Italy to present the dossier, possibly in the commune of origin of the family.
If, on the other hand, you can prove that you are registered and have real residence, i.e. that you have a long-term residence permit in the jurisdiction of the Italian consulate, you can present your dossier at the consulate.
In these cases it should be simpler to submit the application, but unfortunately we often encounter various problems.
The first problem will be to make an appointment with the Italian consulate where you will have to go. Many consulates such as in Argentina, Brazil, London and Barcelona no longer give appointments for Italian citizenship.
If you are faced with one of those consulates where it is difficult to apply for a meeting, you can avoid the problem by filing a lawsuit in Italy. Lately, given the complicated situation of many consulates, it is becoming a more expensive but more effective way to obtain Italian citizenship.
If you have any doubts about which consulate you should apply to, here is a list of all the Italian consulates in Spain.
Once you have identified the consulate to which you should apply, the next step is to make an appointment in the system of the Ministero dell'Interno Italiano. This is a computer system that allows you to book an appointment with that consulate in order to submit your application.
Can I add my records to the Italian citizenship family folder?
Here we are faced with the second big problem due to ignorance. It is true that in Argentina, Brazil, Peru and other countries where they have armed many Italian citizenship folders of the whole family, the consulates allow to add only the missing records to the family folder.
I would like to clarify that this practice is a choice of the consulate that already has all the records of the family, but it is not what the law says. On the contrary, in theory, the entire citizenship file should be presented each time.
This is even more true when you emigrate from your place of birth and you want to apply for citizenship at an Italian consulate where they do not have any family records. It is obligatory to present all the records from the emigrant's birthplace to the person applying for Italian citizenship.
Naturally, you will also have to consider the cost of putting together your entire file of records, translated and apostilled. These other costs depend on the number of records (generations of your family tree).