RELOVA JOURNAL

Blog/Published April 10, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

How to Get EU Citizenship in 2026: Every Legal Path Explained

By Anna Moore

Portugal's move to 10 years, Germany's reverted 5-year path, and Italy's new two-generation cap: what actually changed for EU citizenship in 2026.

Every "EU citizenship in 5 years" guide written before 2025 needs a rewrite, and this is that rewrite. Two of the most-cited pathways moved substantially in 2025 and 2026, and a third quietly closed a door that used to be open to anyone with an Italian great-great-grandparent. Treat the numbers below as the current state, not permanent law — this is the fastest-moving corner of EU immigration policy right now.

Portugal just tripled its clock

For years, Portugal's five-year residency-to-citizenship path was the fastest credible route into the EU passport club, requiring only continuous legal residence and an A2 Portuguese test. That changed with a law signed 3 May 2025 and passed by parliament 1 April 2026: non-EU nationals now face a 10-year residency requirement before naturalization, while EU and CPLP (Portuguese-speaking country) nationals face 7 years. A civics knowledge test is expected to accompany the language requirement, though its exact form was not finalized as this was written. The genuinely painful detail is the transition: people already resident in Portugal under the old five-year expectation are not automatically grandfathered — reporting suggests the clock may reset to the new figure for anyone whose application wasn't filed before the law takes effect, a point contested enough that legal challenges are expected. If you are mid-residency in Portugal banking on the old five-year timeline, get current legal advice rather than relying on any guide, including this one, written before the law's final published text and transitional provisions are settled.

Germany reverted to five years after a brief three-year window

Germany's 2024 citizenship reform did two separate things that are often conflated: it cut the standard naturalization period from eight years to five, and it introduced an accelerated three-year path for applicants showing exceptional integration (C1 German, strong civic engagement). The three-year fast track is gone — Germany rescinded it effective 30 October 2025, reverting everyone to the standard five-year residency requirement with B1-level German (not C1, which was only ever the fast-track bar). Dual citizenship is still permitted under the 2024 reform, a genuine and lasting change from Germany's historical single-nationality default. Applicants who filed under the three-year rule before the rescission were not grandfathered — they now need to meet the five-year standard, a detail worth double-checking directly with your Ausländerbehörde if you filed in that window.

Italy shut the door past two generations

Italy's jure sanguinis path used to be the most permissive citizenship-by-descent program in Europe — no generational limit, provided an unbroken paper trail back to an Italian ancestor who never naturalized elsewhere before their children were born. Law 74/2025, in force since 27 March 2025, imposed a hard two-generation cap: only applicants with an Italian parent, or an Italian grandparent who was still exclusively Italian at the time the applicant's parent was born, now qualify automatically. Great-grandchildren and further descendants are cut out of the standard process. Applications filed with a consulate, comune, or court before 27 March 2025 remain protected under the old no-limit rules — the law was explicitly written to be retroactive for everyone else, though Italy's Constitutional Court, ruling on 12 March 2026, upheld the two-generation cap while leaving some retroactivity questions unresolved. If your ancestral line is three or more generations back, confirm current eligibility with an Italian citizenship attorney before spending money on document retrieval — the calculus that worked in 2023 does not work in 2026.

Malta's investment route is still open, and still expensive

Malta's citizenship-by-investment program remains active and is the fastest nominal route to an EU passport for anyone who doesn't have ancestry or years of residency to work with, but it comes with a price tag in the hundreds of thousands of euros between the direct contribution, real estate or investment requirement, and due-diligence fees, plus an unusually intensive vetting process compared to residency-based paths. It draws periodic scrutiny from the European Commission over the "genuine link" question that also reshaped Italy's law — worth factoring in as a program that has faced pressure to tighten, not loosen, over time.

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