This blog has held me accountable and turned my life around in the last 3 years.
It’s time to utilize it one more time.
To help me with any long-term visa issues while living abroad, I’m in the process of acquiring an Italian passport. To keep myself accountable (since I’ve been procrastinating), I’ve decided that bi-weekly blogs detailing the process will be good to do.
Maybe you can learn something from it, too. Eventually I will put all of my lessons into one comprehensive document or post that I’ll distribute for those who also want to make THE ESCAPE FROM AMERICA!
INTRODUCTION TO ACQUIRING AN ITALIAN PASSPORT
I’m eligible for an Italian passport because my grandmother’s grandpa (my great-great grandfather) was born in Italy, and was still an Italian citizen at the time that my great grandfather was born.
He renounced his Italian citizenship four years later, so I’m barely in the clear.
Rules I fall under:
Your maternal great grandfather was born in your native country, your maternal great great grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of his birth, your mother was born after January 1st, 1948, and neither you nor your mother nor your maternal grandmother nor your maternal great grandfather ever renounced your right to Italian citizenship. If citizenship is acquired by birth in your country and you meet all these conditions, you qualify for Italian citizenship jure sanguinis.
DOCUMENTS NEEDED FOR AN ITALIAN PASSPORT
I have bolded the copies of the things I already have.
If the “apostille and translation” is not bolded, it means I haven’t done that part–but have the original document.
You must obtain certified copies of the following documents:
- Your maternal great great grandfather’s birth certificate from Italy, also known as an estratto dell’atto di nascita
- Your maternal great great grandmother’s birth certificate
- Your great great grandparents’ marriage certificate (If married outside of Italy, you will need an apostille and a translation into Italian.)
- Your maternal great great grandfather’s certificate of naturalization (Click here if this is not available.)
- Your maternal great grandfather’s birth certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your maternal great grandmother’s birth certificate
- Your great grandparents’ marriage certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your maternal grandmother’s birth certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your maternal grandfather’s birth certificate
- Your grandparents’ marriage certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your mother’s birth certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your father’s birth certificate
- Your parents’ marriage certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your birth certificate (with apostille and translation)
- Your marriage certificate, if applicable (with apostille and translation)
- Your spouse’s birth certificate, if applicable
- Birth certificates for all your children under the age of eighteen, if applicable (with apostille and translation)
- Any applicable divorce decrees/certificates (with apostille and translation)
- Death certificates for anyone listed above (with apostille and translation, if for your mother, grandmother, great grandfather or great great grandfather)*
*I have great grandparents death certificates. Missing great-great grandparents.
How to get a second passport. Genius! This is the kind of blog that helps men change their lives.
RoK, OTOH, just runs vapid “9 Ways All Women Suck!” with a 63-word post and eleven idiotic stock photos. Or Captain Crapitalism, who puts a seven-word sentence as a post, with a link to a lame study that slanders English majors, women or cat owners.
Keep up the good work, Kyle!
Thanks very much for your comment! Really appreciate it.
And yes…here’s all you need to know about Captain….https://thisistrouble.com/2016/05/16/post-college-graduate-reality/
I saw that when you posted it. That douche has about as much class as a spent tampon as the garnish for the Thanksgiving salad. I don’t know why Glenn Reynolds gives him so much help.
LOL. Yeah, I always liked him…up to that point.
He tried to cover it up with some BS about traveling. Some “alpha”.
100% agree with you about the other sites. Every success is about actionable steps. If you can’t present them, then it’s just a dream.
Thanks!
Great info! A surprising number of people in the United States and Canada are eligible for a second passport through lineage. Unfortunately, many just don’t realize it.
I went through a similar process to get my Irish passport. Somewhat of a headache to get all the documents in order but worth it.
Hoping to take advantage in some way before the EU’s inevitable collapse.
That’s rad. How do you do it, if you don’t mind?
Do you just walk in with your American passport and on say day 89 of 90 walk out, fly back in the next day and use your Irish passport?
Regrettably, from what I understand, a second passport doesn’t help to circumnavigate restrictions on how long a tourist can stay in a country (for instance, if a country permits me to stay 180 days in a calendar year, I can’t just leave once my days are up, enter on a different passport and get another 180).
This is because custom data systems track your information by name, birthdate and, these days, biometrics, in addition to just your passport number. So in theory, I’d show up as the same person regardless of what passport I use and they’d see that I’d already been in the country and deny me re-entry.
You might be able to get away with it for awhile, but I imagine that eventually the system would flag someone with 2 passports under the same name, birthdate address etc, if not right away.
All that being said, I haven’t tried it. Would be interesting to hear from someone who has.
But a second passport does help to get around some visa fees. For example, as a Canadian, I have to pay to enter Argentina and Brazil. As an “Irishman” I don’t.
I was more thinking of taking advantage of the Irish passport in the context of being able to live anywhere in the EU without restrictions one day – I haven’t much interest in living in Ireland specifically.
But that of course all depends on the increasingly uncertain future of the EU.
I want to live in the EU or Ukraine, so I’ll either get this passport and be set for the EU–if I have to open a business to get residency in Ukraine I’ll just pay someone a couple hundred bucks and do that.
You can get residence in Ukraine by opening a business? What about citizenship, or a passport?
Opening an LLC is peanuts. Don’t care about citizenship or passports. I’d much rather have the Italian PP with EU freedom.
I would not actually invest any real money in my Ukranian company.
Is there any list of European countries that offer second passports to descendants from those countries?
Scotland, ireland, Italy are the ones I know off hand
https://thebillfold.com/how-to-get-eu-citizenship-country-by-country-ed6694f6111a#.b1anagnte
Thanks for sharing this!
Awesome post. This is the kind of topic that should be discussed more. Actionable information.
Thanks very much my man. Funny, because I really meant this as more of a just a way to hold myself accountable–but glad to see people are finding value in it!
Unbelievable on what stupid requirements they give out passports nowadays: based on 5 generations ago relatives.
And then we complain about immigration…
I agree, but at least giving out passports helps weight the population demographics back towards non immigrants.
You can do the same In Hungary too I believe you can go back 3 generations but you have to learn Hungarian too.
Sounds correct. No Hungarian in me though!