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Jure sanguinis (Italian for 'right of blood') is the Italian citizenship-by-descent regime, which has no generational limit and is the most accessible CBD regime in Europe.
In depth
Jure sanguinis (Italian for 'right of blood') is the Italian citizenship-by-descent regime, which has no generational limit. It is the most accessible CBD regime in Europe, allowing descendants of any generation of Italian emigrants to claim Italian citizenship, provided the line was never broken.
The line is broken when an Italian ancestor naturalizes in another country BEFORE the next child's birth. If the ancestor naturalized AFTER the next child's birth, the line is intact — the child was born Italian and remained Italian.
Jure sanguinis is governed by Law 91 of 1992 and the 1912 Law 555 (which still applies to births before 1992). The consular filing path is available at any Italian consulate worldwide; the judicial 1948 path is available for cases involving pre-1948 female transmission.
Example
An American whose Italian great-great-grandfather emigrated in 1880 and never naturalized can claim Italian citizenship under jure sanguinis, four generations later.
Related terms
A 1948 case is a judicial petition for Italian citizenship filed in the civil court of Rome, available to descendants of Italian women who gave birth before January 1, 1948.
The anagrafe is the Italian civil registry office that maintains records of residents, births, marriages, and deaths in each Italian commune (municipality).
An atto di nascita is an Italian birth certificate, retrieved from the anagrafe (civil registry) of the commune where the person was born.
Citizenship by descent (CBD) is the legal right to acquire a country's citizenship through one's ancestors — typically a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent — without being born in that country, based on the principle of jus sanguinis.
Jus sanguinis (Latin for 'right of blood') is the principle that grants citizenship based on the citizenship of one's parents or ancestors, regardless of where one is born.
Stato civile (civil status) refers to the Italian system of civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths, maintained by the anagrafe in each commune.