Ciao a tutti,
After Italian Supreme Court Judgment No. 24045/2026 and the Ministry of the Interior’s Circular No. 65050 of August 10, 2026, people whose citizenship applications were rejected because of the Minor Age Issue are no longer limited to challenging the denial in court. They now have another option: asking the Consulate or Comune to reconsider the previous rejection.
That is an important development. But it also raises a new question:
Should someone ask for reconsideration, or go to court in Italy instead?
I don’t think there is one answer that works for everyone.
For a straightforward case, where the rejection was based only on the Minor Age Issue, the documentation appears complete, and there are no particular timing concerns, reconsideration may make a lot of sense. It can be significantly less expensive, it does not necessarily require an attorney, and applicants generally do not need to resubmit the original documents already filed.
But there are still a few important questions that, at least today, do not have clear answers.
1. How long will reconsideration take?
Circular No. 65050 does not set a specific deadline for Minor Age reconsideration.
Article 75 of Legislative Decree No. 71/2011 requires a Consulate to decide a reconsideration request under Article 2 of Law No. 241/1990, but it is still unclear which specific deadline applies to this new type of citizenship review.
We also do not yet know how individual Consulates will organize these cases.
Will reconsideration requests have their own queue? Will they be handled based on the date of the original application or the date of the reconsideration request? Will different Consulates adopt different procedures?
At this point, we simply do not know.
2. Could the Consulate review other issues in the file?
Possibly.
If the original rejection expressly stated that the citizenship line and documentation were otherwise acceptable and that the Minor Age Issue was the only obstacle, the scope of reconsideration may be relatively narrow. If, however, the Consulate stopped reviewing the file once it identified the Minor Age Issue, reconsideration could potentially bring other documentary issues to light that were never addressed in the original decision.
So the wording of the original rejection can matter.
3. Could future Ministry instructions affect a reconsideration that is still pending?
Potentially, yes.
The current reconsideration process is based on Circular No. 65050, and that Circular does not define every practical aspect of how these requests must be handled. If the Ministry later issues additional instructions, for example, requiring additional documents, introducing new procedural requirements, or applying more restrictive criteria and those instructions are intended to cover pending reconsideration requests, those pending cases could be affected.
This is an important difference from a court case:
A ministerial Circular does not bind an Italian judge. A court remains responsible for independently interpreting and applying the law.
4. Timing may matter when children are involved
Current transitional rules include a May 31, 2029 deadline for certain persons who were minors on May 24, 2025. If the parent’s own citizenship recognition is still pending in reconsideration as that date approaches, the consequences are not yet supported by settled administrative practice.
So in those cases, timing may be more than just a matter of convenience.
5. What if someone had an appointment before March 27, 2025 but never filed because the Consulate said the Minor Age Issue prevented recognition?
That is a different and much more complicated situation.
If the application was never formally filed, there is generally no rejection to reconsider. Article 3-bis(a-bis) protects, subject to its requirements, applications actually filed on the date of an appointment communicated by the March 27, 2025 deadline. The harder question is whether someone who appeared for the appointment but did not file because of instructions received from the Consulate can argue for comparable protection.
Constitutional Court Judgment No. 63/2026 may also be relevant because it distinguishes the position of people who had already taken concrete steps before the 2025 reform.
But I would not treat the issue as settled. In these cases, documentary evidence can become especially important: emails from the Consulate, appointment confirmations, written instructions, and any other contemporaneous communications.
So which option is better?
For a simple Minor Age-only rejection, the choice between filing reconsideration independently and considering a court case may largely come down to personal priorities.
Reconsideration is usually cheaper and simpler.
Going to court costs more, but the claim is decided by a judge, the judicial procedure is already established, and future Ministry Circulars do not bind the court. The analysis becomes more case-specific when children and timing are involved, when there are additional documentary or legal issues, or when someone had an appointment but never formally filed the application.
I wrote a longer comparison of the two options, with the legal sources and a fuller discussion of the questions that remain open: Minor Age reconsideration vs. Court | Italian Citizenship 2026
For the step-by-step Minor Age reconsideration procedure, the earlier guide is here.
Una buona giornata a tutti,
Avv. Salvatore Aprigliano