Citizenship Exams
Italy requires B1 Italian for naturalization. This guide covers the CILS B1 exam, what it tests, how to register, and the full citizenship process for 2026.
Italy changed its citizenship rules in 2022, and many long-term residents were caught off guard. Since December 3, 2021 - under Law Decree 130/2020, which came into effect in early 2022 - applicants for Italian citizenship by naturalization must prove Italian language proficiency at B1 level. This was a significant shift: previously, there was no formal language requirement for the standard naturalization route. If you are planning to apply for Italian citizenship, here is what the language test involves and how the broader process works.
The B1 language requirement applies to applicants for Italian citizenship through standard naturalization (art. 9 of Law 91/1992), which covers:
Applicants who are already Italian citizens by descent (jure sanguinis), by marriage (after two years of legal residency in Italy), or by birth in Italy are not subject to the B1 requirement. Applicants with severe disabilities or illiteracy may apply for exemption through the Prefettura.
The Ministry of the Interior accepts several forms of language certification. You need one of the following:
Of these, CILS is the most widely available internationally, with exam sessions in over 100 countries. Within Italy, all four certifications have exam centres in most major cities.
The CILS B1 (also referred to as CILS Uno-B1) tests four skills across separate timed sections:
Each section is scored separately. You need to pass at least four of the five sections to receive the overall B1 certificate. Failing one section means you can resit just that section at the next session rather than retaking the entire exam.
CILS exams are held twice a year - typically in June and December - at authorised exam centres (centri d'esame) throughout Italy. Registration opens approximately three months before the exam date through the University of Siena's online portal (unistrasi.it). Fees for the CILS Uno-B1 are approximately €130, €160, varying slightly by exam centre.
Important: do not wait until your citizenship application is ready before booking the language test. The next available session may be six months away. Book as soon as you know you will be applying for citizenship, ideally one to two years before you meet the residency threshold.
Once you have your B1 certificate and meet the residency requirement, the citizenship application is submitted online through the Interior Ministry portal (portale.interno.gov.it). The application requires:
Processing times are the longest in Europe for a major country. The statutory deadline is 730 days (approximately two years), but in practice many cases in Milan, Rome, and Naples take three to four years. The Prefettura in smaller cities is generally faster. There is no way to expedite the process beyond ensuring your application is complete and error-free from the start.
Unlike Germany, France, or the Netherlands, Italy does not have a formal civic knowledge exam for citizenship. There is no Italian equivalent of the Einbürgerungstest or Life in the UK test. The B1 language certification is the main formal test requirement. The Prefettura may conduct an interview as part of processing, but this is more of an identity verification than a knowledge test.
That said, basic knowledge of Italian institutions - the President, the Parliament (Camera dei Deputati and Senato), the Constitution of 1948, and the flag and national anthem - is culturally expected and occasionally surfaces in the Prefettura interview. It is worth having a basic understanding of Italian political history, particularly the transition from the First to the Second Republic in the early 1990s, which many Italian officials consider part of common civic knowledge.
The most common failure mode for the CILS B1 is weak written production. The grammar and reading sections are learnable through practice; the writing section requires fluency that only comes from actually writing in Italian regularly. Start writing at least one 100-word Italian text per week, six months before your exam, and have a native speaker or teacher correct it. The oral section is the section applicants most often pass - conversational Italian at B1 comes faster than formal writing proficiency.
Aim for B1 preparation to take six to twelve months from a complete beginner level, or three to six months if you already have A2 Italian. The CILS B1 is a rigorous exam - it is not designed to be easy - but it is consistently passable with structured preparation.