Italian citizenship by descent: the Florida documents, done right

Let's be straight with you: a perfect stack of apostilles can't make you eligible. Start with the law.

Decree-Law 36 of March 28, 2025 was converted into Law 74 of May 23, 2025, in force from May 24, 2025. According to the Italian Consulate General in Miami's citizenship by descent page, the new Article 3-bis of Law 91/1992 treats a person born abroad who holds another citizenship as never having acquired Italian citizenship, unless an exception applies. The main exceptions are:

• Filed in time under the old rules. Applications filed by 11:59 p.m. Rome time on March 27, 2025, or covered by an appointment date the office communicated by then, or court cases filed by that deadline.
• A parent or grandparent who held only Italian citizenship (or held only Italian citizenship at death).
• An Italian parent who lived in Italy for at least two consecutive years after becoming a citizen and before your birth or adoption.

Where things stand as of October 2026: the Constitutional Court rejected challenges to Article 3-bis brought by the Tribunal of Turin in judgment no. 63 of 2026, filed April 30, 2026. In order no. 147 of 2026, filed July 23, 2026, it referred a separate question to the Court of Justice of the European Union about EU citizenship rules. That referral doesn't suspend the law. Plan under Law 74/2025.

One more trap the Miami page flags: under Interior Ministry circular 43347 of October 3, 2024 and Cassazione rulings, a parent who voluntarily naturalized abroad while the child was a minor living with them caused that child to lose Italian citizenship too, even if the child was born in the U.S. The line can break there.

The Miami consulate handles applicants who are legally and stably resident in its district: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Puerto Rico, plus the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dutch St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba, Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas. You book through the Prenot@mi system, and the consulate says instructions for submitting documents arrive about a month before your appointment. The fee is €600, charged in U.S. dollars by money order only, and it isn't refunded if the application fails.

Two things the consulate is firm about: every document must be submitted at once, complete and in original, or the procedure won't start; and new-law applicants must prove the exception they rely on. For the "only Italian citizenship" exception, that means records such as negative citizenship certificates or renunciation records. For the two-year residence exception, a historical citizenship certificate. Those come from Italy or another country, not from Florida.

Minor children. Law 74/2025 also created a declaration route for minors whose parent is an Italian citizen. As explained on the Italian Consulate General in New York's minors page, children who were minors on May 24, 2025 and whose parent's recognition was concluded, or appointment offered, by the March 27, 2025 deadline can be declared until May 31, 2029 (a child who turned 18 in the meantime had to file personally by May 31, 2026). That page asks for a long-form birth certificate with an apostille, showing the child's exact place of birth and both parents' birth details, plus an Italian translation. Ask Miami for its own version of this list.

Your file follows the line from the Italian-born ancestor down to you. Every link born, married, divorced or deceased in Florida produces a Florida record that needs a Florida apostille. Italian consulates in the U.S. are clear that the apostille must come from the state that issued the document: the Chicago consulate's translation and legalization page gives the example that an Illinois document needs an Illinois apostille. A New York birth certificate in your line goes to New York, not to us.

• Birth certificates (yours, your parent's, any Florida-born link). Certified copies from the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics or a county health department, signed by the State Registrar, as the Florida Department of State's accepted documents page requires. Ask for the version that shows parents' names and place of birth; the Florida Department of State notes that computer-generated certificates from before 2004 carry limited information. See birth certificate for Italy.
• Marriage certificates. Signed by the State Registrar or a Clerk of the County Court. For transcription, the Miami consulate's marriage transcription request wants a long form or exemplified certificate; if it doesn't show both spouses' dates and places of birth, it also wants the marriage license, apostilled. See marriage certificate for Italy.
• Death certificates for deceased links in the line, from the same Florida vital-records offices.
• Divorce judgments. Any divorce in the line is proven with the final judgment certified by the Clerk of Court, either an original wet-ink certification or the clerk's official e-certification. See court records for apostille.
• Naturalization proof for the ancestor. The consulate wants a foreign authority's certificate on whether and when the ancestor naturalized. Federal records (USCIS, the National Archives) are authenticated by the U.S. Department of State, not by Florida, and we don't handle federal documents.
• Consulate forms 1 to 4. Miami says each must be signed before a Notary Public and apostilled. That's a Florida notarization with a complete notarial certificate, then the Florida apostille.

Our rule on old certificates: we don't accept vital records certified before 2014, because the signature on file must be the current State Registrar's. A copy your family ordered for a 2012 attempt needs replacing. Order through VitalChek or the Bureau of Vital Statistics.

Miami requires official Italian translations of foreign-language records and says on its citizenship page that it doesn't provide translations or request Italian civil-registry certificates for you. The Chicago consulate explains what Italian consulates in the U.S. generally mean: a complete, accurate, typed Italian translation covering everything on the document, including stamps and certifications. It also says the apostille itself doesn't need to be translated.

Our general rule for translations that travel abroad is this: the translator certifies the translation, signs that certification before a different notary (the translator can't notarize their own work), and the notarized translation gets its own Florida apostille. That's a separate document on your order. For Italy, ask Miami before you pay for that step. The consulate's answer on what counts as "official" is the only one that matters, and if your file goes to a comune in Italy instead, the comune may also or instead want a translation sworn in Italy.

Whatever route you take, translate after the apostille, so the translation matches the exact document you file. See certified translation apostille.

Most re-dos happen because someone apostilled a record before checking the names on it.

The apostilles are rarely the slow part. Appointment availability, Italian-side records and the exception paperwork usually take longer. On the Florida side:

• Filing yourself by mail with the Florida Department of State commonly takes several weeks door to door; our site says roughly 5–7 weeks. A rejected request starts the clock again.
• We file in person in Tallahassee and return documents in 5–7 business days, so you can order apostilles once your appointment is in sight rather than years ahead.

Pricing: $220 for one document, $380 for two, and $160 each for three or more. That covers the state fee, request form, in-person filing and FedEx inside the U.S. It doesn't include fees for certified copies from the issuing offices, or notarization. Online notarization is $40 for the first document ($10 notarization fee + $30 technology platform fee) and $20 for each additional one. Shipping finished documents abroad is a flat $100 per order.

Before you ship: