Legal Question in Immigration Law in Italy

According to Law no. 91 of 1992, Italian citizenship can be obtained by naturalisation at the discretion of the government, which expresses its willingness to accept the foreign citizen on Italian soil. This acceptance is based on the participation of the applicant in Italian society, the applicant's personality (lack of social danger, police record) and financial self-sufficiency.

The general requisites are:

�Ten years' legal residency in Italy (five for those who have the status of stateless persons or refugees and four for citizens of the European Community)

�Three years of payment of state contributions

�Financial self-sufficiency

As it has been clarified by jurisprudence, the applicant must be resident in Italy when applying; in case of departure from the country the requisite of permanency is no longer met.

Therefore, I regret to inform you that the period that you spent in Italy from 1982 to 2005 is not useful to acquire citizenship.

However, Italian citizenship laws are quite flexible and I would be delighted to deepen the exam of your case.

If you are interested in a complete advice, please email me at [email protected]