The spouse of an Italian citizen or a party of a civil union with an Italian citizen residing out of Italy may apply for Italian citizenship after at least 3 years from the date of marriage, a requirement reduced to 18 months in case of children born of the couple.
All applicants also need to produce a certification proving a sufficient knowledge of the Italian language with a level B1 as per the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) or higher.
No application for citizenship by marriage can be submitted unless the marriage certificate has been registered in Italy (more information available from HERE).
Applications can only be submitted online through the website of Italy’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. Applications will be processed in the order in which they were entered and all applicants will be contacted to finalize their application. Once finalized, the progress of each application can be monitored from HERE.
More information on how to apply is also available in our flier.
The deadline for finalization of the process has recently been extended to 4 years from the application date.As per the relevant regulation, more detailed information about the entire procedure is available in the Italian version of this page.