MY CITIZENSHIP APPLICATION PROCESS AND THE BENEFITS OF AN ITALIAN PASSPORT

I'm going to share a little of my journey toward having my Italian citizenship recognized. I've always wanted to live in Europe and have all the guaranteed rights of a European citizen. With Italian citizenship, you can live in any European Union country and fully enjoy the same rights and obligations as someone born on the old continent, in terms of work, study, politics, leisure, retirement…

healthcare, buying property, bank accounts, starting businesses, and much more; you also don't need a visa to enter or leave countries in the European community. Countless advantages made me focus on this goal.

Like many Brazilians, I would start working on the “red passport” project and then stop, since 2009, to be more precise. The two options available at the time were somewhat complicated:

1. Complete the entire process at an Italian Consulate in Brazil.

2. Apply for recognition directly in Italy.

With the first option, the long waiting list always really discouraged me. Waiting around 7 years seemed unreal to me, so I kept putting it off and didn't start the process.

With the second option, the mandatory minimum time I would have to stay in Italy to complete the entire process, together with the high financial investment, around 25 to 30 thousand reais at current prices, were the main barriers.

Finally, here we are in 2019. I've started the process, and this time everything is going to work out!

Eligibility for citizenship through the administrative route

You probably already know that there are some rules for applying to have your citizenship recognized. Let's take a look:

For the paternal line of descent, for example: great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandmother, father, and you, the applicant, there is no restriction on the children's year of birth. You are eligible regardless of the year you were born.

In cases where there is a woman in the line of transmission, whether at the beginning or in the middle of that line of descent, that woman can only pass citizenship on to children born after 01/01/1948. This is my case: my line of transmission begins with my great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, GRANDMOTHER, and my father (born after 1948), so eligibility was maintained. This exists because before 01/01/1948, Italy was a kingdom and only men passed Italian nationality on to their children.

After that date, Italy had a Republican Constitution, which extended to women the right to pass on citizenship, Italian nationality, but only to children born after 1948, when the Italian Constitution came into force.

IMPORTANT:

A woman, whether Italian herself or descended from an Italian man, cannot pass citizenship on to a child born before this date of 01/01/1948. However, there is another way to go through the process, through the courts. Since I didn't need it, I have no idea how it's done, but I'll leave the contact details at the end for the company that helped me with the whole process.

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LET'S GET STARTED

The Dante Causa's Birth Certificate

Once you're sure you're eligible, you'll need to find the DANTE CAUSA's birth certificate. Dante Causa is the expression we should use when referring to the Italian ancestor who gives us the right to Italian citizenship. In my case, I hired Your Concierges (www.yourconcierges.it), a company that, besides providing some travel-related services, also searches for documents in Italy. They acted like a real Sherlock Holmes to obtain the certificate. Through them, I managed to locate the precious certificate in the municipality of Montepulciano, with 14.506 inhabitants, in the province of Siena.

Note: in the Middle Ages, the word commune referred to a town that became emancipated by obtaining a charter of autonomy granted by the king.

Full-Text Certificates for the Other Family Members

Once the dante causa's certificate had been issued, I moved on to the next step: locating the certificates for the other family members in Brazil. This part was easier because I already knew more or less which cities they were in. Using an online certificate search and issuance service, we located and requested everything in full-text form. This part is very important, because some consulates require full-text certificates issued no more than 1 year before the process, so wait to request them until you're sure you're eligible and will go through the process within that timeframe. In my case, we requested them to check whether any certificate contained a serious error. Sometimes a date, name (simple mistakes usually aren't a problem), or place can be wrong, making it necessary to correct the certificate before starting the process. Fortunately, all my ancestors' certificates were correct.

Full-Text Certificate

Sworn Translation

Once you have the dante causa's certificate and have located the other certificates at registry offices in Brazil, you will need to have sworn translations of all the certificates made into Italian. I hired Cidadania ABC, who not only translated everything but also requested the Hague apostilles and sent me everything ready to present to the consulate.

Here are the translation company's contact details: www.cidadaniaitalianaabc.com (http://cidadaniaitalianaabc.com/)

(http://cidadaniaitalianaabc.com/)

Obtaining a Hague Apostille

The Hague Apostille (or Hague Convention Apostille) is simply a seal or stamp issued by the competent authorities and placed on a document to certify its authenticity through the body that issued it, so that it is valid in the required country. With this seal, documents are valid in various countries, including Brazil and Italy.

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Hague Apostille

Booking a Consular Appointment

Honestly, these days, this is one of the hardest parts of the process. I tried a few times to book an appointment through the PRENOTA ONLINE system, but I didn't even come close to succeeding. So I decided to hire Pátria Italiana (http://www.patriaitaliana.com), who took responsibility for booking the appointment for me. At first, I was a little worried about sharing my login details with a company to help me book, but from my first contact with the Pátria Italiana website (http://www.patriaitaliana.com), I noticed that several other people had already hired them and rated their service very highly.

(http://www.patriaitaliana.com)

When I sent an email asking for a quote, I received attentive, confident responses about the service. They explained the entire procedure to me very transparently, which shows that they really do work properly. What's more, payment for the service is only made after they successfully book the appointment. This made me comfortable hiring them, and within a few days they had secured my appointment to submit the documents at the Consulate. Today I'm convinced that without the help of Pátria Italiana (http://www.patriaitaliana.com), I'd still be trying to get that appointment.

(http://www.patriaitaliana.com)

More information about Pátria Italiana's Prenota Online appointment-booking service at: www.patriaitaliana.com (http://www.patriaitaliana.com/)

Summary of the Steps

In short, the steps in the process are as follows:

Check ELIGIBILITY FOR CITIZENSHIP, through the administrative or judicial route;

Search for and obtain all certificates required for the process;

Review the documents involved in the process;

Obtain sworn translations of the documents into Italian;

Obtain apostilles for the certificates and translations;

Book a consular appointment to submit the documents.

Anyway, I hope I've helped motivate you a little so you can complete your process and get that long-dreamed-of red passport!