This morning as we were walking to Bar Centrale to have our morning cappuccino, I received an SMS notification, but didn’t really pay attention to it until we sat down to enjoy our breakfast. As I pulled out my phone, I noticed that the messages was from the Minstero dell’Interno (for my purposes the office that handles citizenship).  I was instructed to check my “Send” or “IO” app for the actual message.

I opened the IO app with a bit of apprehension. I filed my application for Italian citizenship by marriage on January 8, 2024. The law for citizenship by marriage is that they have 24 months to make a determination, which can be extended by another 12 months if there are extenuating circumstances that require further review.

Gah! Here it was, February 26, 2026 (happy birthday to my eldest, by the way), and I hadn’t heard a peep.  I was actually just thinking about it yesterday as to how long I should wait before I asked someone about the “next steps”.

I had some concerns! American women still frequently take the surname of their spouse, whereas Italians do not. Except for some really unusual circumstances, Italian women who are born and raised solely in Italy never change their surnames.  You have the name you were born with, forever and amen. I had heard so many stories about the complications that were associated with name changes by American women, so I was quite concerned.

When I arrived in Italy 10 years ago, my husband and I went to the Agenzia delle Entrate (basically the Italian Revenue Agency) to get my Codice Fiscale.  This is kind of like an American’s Social Security number, although it’s not as closely held of a secret as a US Social Security number.  In reality, it’s a pretty straightforward formula that takes your name (first, middle, last), date of birth and location of birth and creates a code that becomes your financial number. So, since I used my US passport that had my married name on it, I was given a codice fiscale based on Zanrè as my surname.  I was already dreading having to get a new codice fiscale if I was required to use my maiden name, and that would trigger a cascade of documentation corrections.

Apparently only women reclaiming Italian citizenship (for example, they “renounced” their citizenship when applying for other citizenship) or seeking recognition of their citizenship by birth must use their maiden names for their citizenship quest.

<phew> – I feel like I dodged a bullet here.

It struck me that I was in the middle of a very Italian activity (drinking an espresso and eating a brioche – cornetto for those further south) when I received the news. I jumped up and ran up to the two barista and said “guardate – sono un’italiana” 🙂 – it could not have been a more perfect place and time to get this great news.

Next step is to find out how and when to take the oath and then I’ll officially be a citizen of Italy!