Italian citizens will vote on 8-9 June on a proposal to reduce the number of years a non-EU national must live in Italy before they can seek citizenship. Lorenzo Piccoli, Yajna Govind and Maarten Vink write the referendum is a chance to align Italy with rules in the rest of Europe.
On 8-9 June, Italian citizens will vote in five referendum proposals, including a measure to reduce the residency requirement for non-EU nationals seeking citizenship from ten years to five.
The initiative was promoted by a coalition of relatively small political parties – More Europe, Possibile, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Radicals and the Communist Refoundation Party – and numerous civil society associations, reaching a record number of 637,000 signatures in just a few months, the fastest civic mobilisation on citizenship in Italian history.
What the referendum proposes
The referendum has often been, incorrectly, associated with previous debates on ius soli (right of soil) and ius scholae (citizenship through schooling), which centred on granting citizenship to children born or educated in Italy. However, this referendum is more limited in scope.
Its objective is to modify the timeframe for naturalisation outlined in Italy’s 1992 citizenship law, without altering its core principles. The referendum will not affect other existing requirements. The residency requirement is a necessary but not sufficient condition to become eligible for naturalisation. Applicants will still be required to demonstrate knowledge of the Italian language, as well as proof of sufficient income in previous years, fulfilling tax obligations and having no criminal record.
The current referendum is only focused on the residency requirement for naturalisation and aims to halve it. Currently, individuals must reside in the country for ten consecutive years before applying for citizenship. The process often extends by several years due to administrative delays, including up to three years for application approval and a further six months for the citizenship ceremony. The proposed reform would cut the required residency period to five consecutive years. If successful, it would align Italy’s naturalisation laws with those of most European countries.
How Italy compares internationally
In European and western democracies, five years of legal residence is the most common requirement for naturalisation. Countries like France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Ireland adopt this threshold, often alongside integration requirements such as language proficiency and civic knowledge.
Germany, too, in 2024, changed its citizenship law by reducing the residence requirement from eight to five years. Outside Europe, countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand also have a residence requirement of five years. Italy’s ten-year residency requirement is among the strictest in the EU and among western democracies.
Figure: How Italy’s residency requirement compares with the rest of Europe
Source: GLOBALCIT Citizenship Law Dataset, v3, mode: A06_yrs (embargoed data)
Comparative estimates show that the annual naturalisation rate of foreign citizens living in Italy is 2.6% (in the EU it is 2.3%), but one important consequence of the current law is that Italy has one of the lowest rates of naturalisation among long-term foreign-born residents: only 35% of immigrants with 20-24 years of residence in Italy acquire citizenship, far below the EU average of 53%.
Citizenship and integration – what the evidence shows
The academic literature consistently shows that access to citizenship has positive effects. Naturalised immigrants are more likely to be employed, earn higher wages, and feel a stronger sense of belonging. By contrast, protracted waiting periods for naturalisation delay or dampen these effects. These findings suggest that naturalisation is not only a reward but also an important catalyst for integration.
Critics argue that reducing the residency requirement may weaken national cohesion or reward “short-term” presence. But data from countries with shorter naturalisation timelines shows no such effect. If anything, early access to citizenship fosters deeper civic engagement and loyalty. Indeed, a majority of Italians think that citizenship accelerates the integration process. The last Eurobarometer on the integration of immigrants reports that 87% of Italians believe that acquiring Italian citizenship is an important factor for the successful integration of immigrants in Italy.
With Italy facing demographic decline and labour market gaps, simplifying access to citizenship could also serve broader economic and social policy goals. As research suggests, when immigrants can access full membership, they are more likely to invest in long-term human capital, contribute to the tax base and participate in local governance, benefitting society as a whole.
Why this referendum matters
Despite such strong evidence, the referendum has been quickly subsumed into the country’s polarised political environment. Left wing parties support it, while members of the right-wing government coalition urged their supporters to abstain to invalidate the vote. This is because in Italy, popular referendums require a turnout of over 50% to be legally binding, which results in abstentionism being used strategically to invalidate reform efforts, regardless of the issue at stake.
The threshold of 50% has rarely been met in recent decades, although there have been exceptions. The 1974 divorce referendum, the 1981 referendum on abortion and the 2011 referendum on nuclear power, for example, crossed the turnout threshold. These referendums have something in common: strong emotional resonance. They mobilised voters, civil society and institutions around issues that touched on civic culture and everyday life.
It is unlikely this referendum will stir the same emotional intensity as the landmark votes on divorce and abortion. A telling sign of how little attention it has received came on 5 May, when the Italian Communications Authority issued a formal note urging media outlets not to overlook the referendum.
Yet the implications of the vote are important. If the referendum passes, the Italian citizenship law will finally be aligned with the most common requirement for naturalisation in Europe. However, if turnout falls below the 50% threshold, the result will be invalidated, potentially delaying any meaningful reform of Italy’s outdated citizenship laws for years. Failure to pass the reform would risk widening the gap between access to citizenship and the social integration of hundreds of thousands of long-term residents.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: vchal / Shutterstock.com
