The slow pace of transcribing Italian citizenship recognition certificates remains one of the main bottlenecks faced by Italian descendants who have completed the recognition process through the courts.
The most common justification given by municipalities, especially small ones, is the lack of infrastructure and staff to meet the growing demand.
In towns with two or three thousand inhabitants, the explanation seems plausible: staffing levels are small, and often a single employee performs several functions. With the significant increase in the number of favorable rulings for Italian citizenship obtained through the courts, local offices... (Civil State Office) They have encountered difficulties in processing the transcripts.
However, the problem extends beyond the limits of small towns. Large urban centers, with greater administrative capacity, also face a significant backlog of cases.
The most emblematic case is that of Rome, where, according to a survey released by Italianism in July 2025there were approximately 120 certificates pending transcription.. The data exposes a contradiction: even in the Italian capital, the country's institutional hub, the system is overloaded and there is no concrete forecast for normalization.
Pay more, expect the same.
Since January 1, 2025, Italian municipalities have been authorized to charge fees of up to 600 euros for administrative citizenship recognition processes, and up to 300 euros for issuing old birth certificates. The measure was announced as a way to raise funds to "relieve" municipal offices and increase efficiency in services.
However, in practice, no noticeable improvement has been recorded. Several professionals in the field and citizens awaiting the conclusion of the process report that deadlines remain undefined and official responses continue to be scarce.
The explicit admission by local authorities that the charges were also aimed at reducing the volume of requests has reignited criticism. According to lawyers and experts, the measure is discriminatory against so-called "freelancers." natives — descendants of Italians who live outside the country and claim the right to citizenship.
“The problem is structural and goes beyond a lack of personnel. The absence of effective digitization of records, the lack of standardization between municipalities, and the internal bureaucracy of the municipalities create a scenario of inefficiency that tends to worsen in the face of increasing judicial demand,” explains Reginaldo Maia, an expert in Italian citizenship. Blessed Citizenship.
Meanwhile, thousands of Italian descendants remain in limbo. Some have been waiting for months, others for years. The impasse reinforces a growing perception among lawyers and citizens: the transcription system, as it stands today, has become unsustainable—and the “administrative excuses” are no longer convincing.
Collaboration can speed up citizenship transcriptions.
Instead of focusing criticism on applicants and municipalities, Maia argues that it is possible to build a path of cooperation to reduce delays in the transcription of Italian citizenships recognized judicially.
According to him, one of the simplest—and least explored—solutions lies in Direct collaboration between lawyers and city halls. Generally, the municipality only needs to transcribe the data from the already translated certificate into the city's civil registry book. The problem is that this work is usually done manually, line by line, consuming time and overloading the few available servers.
“To expedite the process, lawyers and consultants can send the translations, once sworn and apostilled in Brazil, in an editable digital format, such as a Word file via PEC or on a USB drive, allowing the comune official to quickly copy, review, and confirm the data with the original documents, without having to retype everything,” he suggests.
The measure, although simple, would—according to Maia—considerably reduce registration time and the risk of errors, in addition to representing a gesture of practical collaboration and empathy between the parties involved. "In an already saturated system, small initiatives can make a big difference in the progress of processes," Maia adds.
