BETTINA HOLM
Italian by birth.
American by choice.
Guidance for Americans and Canadians who wish to claim, keep, or properly live their Italian citizenship.
Who I am
I was born and raised in Bologna, a city of arcades, archives, and long memory. As a child I liked nothing better than to follow a name backwards through the records until it surrendered something nobody in the family had known.
Some years later I moved to the United States with my husband and our children, and came to know the same story from the other side. I became a dual citizen myself, and learnt the procedure as one learns most things in Italy: slowly, and by meeting every obstacle in person.
I hold a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Bologna and have spent a career working inside government, private, and non-profit institutions. My work today draws on both.
Holding two nationalities has given me the freedom to live, travel, and see two worlds, each through the other’s eyes.
What I have done
For a number of years I worked alongside families reclaiming Italian citizenship by descent, through consulates, comuni, and, when the occasion demanded it, the Italian courts.
I traced lines of descent that had fallen silent three generations earlier, and found records in municipal offices that had never seen a scanner. I have sat with clients at eleven o’clock at night their time, explaining why a surname spelled two different ways in 1904 had brought an entire application to a standstill.
What that work taught me is that families are seldom the difficulty. The machinery around them is, and remarkably little of it is ever explained in language a person can act upon.
What clients said of that work
I am deeply grateful to every client who has trusted me with their Italian citizenship journey. Your kind words and heartfelt testimonials mean the world to me, because each application is more than paperwork—it is a living family story. From genealogy research and vital records collection to dual citizenship eligibility assessments and document review, your experiences highlight why careful, personalised guidance matters. Thank you for sharing how reconnecting with your Italian heritage has enriched your lives and inspired others to pursue their own path to Italian dual citizenship.
What I do now
My work has moved upstream. I no longer manage applications.
I help people understand what they are facing, so that they may decide well and spare themselves the cost of predictable mistakes.
Services
- Citizenship mentoring
Whether you still qualify under the rules as they stand after Law 74/2025, which route applies to your particular line of descent, what the March 2025 cut-off means in your case, and whether the undertaking is worth your time. I shall tell you plainly if it is not. - AIRE and consular procedure
Registration, the Fast It portal, records that were never transcribed in Italy, keeping your file current when you move house, and what may sensibly be done when a consulate falls silent. This is where newly recognised citizens most often come unstuck, and it remains the least well-documented part of the whole business. - Relocation to Italy
Residency, the comune, the codice fiscale and who may obtain it and where, enrolment in the health service, and above all the order in which these things must be done. Italy rewards preparation and punishes improvisation. - Cultural and educational coaching
For those living between two countries: how daily life, institutions, and expectations genuinely operate on the other side. Language lessons are widely available; this is something rather different.
A word on what this is.
I do not act in place of the Consulate. I do not conduct case work, submit applications on anyone’s behalf, or issue official opinions. What I offer is orientation and preparation so that when you present yourself to the institutions, you arrive ready.
Why now
Some years ago I used to tell clients who qualified for Italian citizenship that they would do well to apply rather than postpone. My reasoning was not complicated. Citizenship law changes, and in a good many countries it had already begun to move in a more restrictive direction.
A number of them waited, on the reasonable assumption that an entitlement held one year would still be theirs whenever it suited them to use it.
Then the law changed.
In March 2025 Italy introduced a generational limit, and the Constitutional Court has since upheld it. People who would have been recognised the year before are now excluded, and the opportunity they meant to return to had quietly closed behind them.
It may well change again. Very few anticipated what has already happened, and there are proposals before Parliament that would go further still.
My advice to anyone who qualifies today, whether by descent or through residence, is therefore the same. Do not mistake the present rules for permanent ones. Establish where you stand, understand what is involved, and then choose.
There is no harm in choosing not to proceed. There is considerable harm in discovering, some years from now, that the choice is no longer yours to make.
Who I work with
Individuals and families navigating citizenship, AIRE, or a move to Italy, at any stage of the process, including the stages that feel far too early or rather too late.
Institutions and community organisations concerned with Italian citizens abroad: consular bodies, associations, and committees in need of someone who can render procedure into language the people it affects can actually use.
Italian attorneys, for the points of law a mentor should not attempt to settle alone — matters of eligibility, inheritance, or anything that calls for someone qualified to represent a client before the Italian courts.
Do write. A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing; it simply tells you where you stand.