If your line runs through a grandmother rather than a grandfather, three countries may have stopped it on a date rather than on a fact — Italy at 1 January 1948, Germany at 1 January 1975, Britain at 1 January 1983. Two of those three have a route that repairs the break today. The Italian one does not; it has a court.

Which of the three dates applies to you depends on when the child of that woman was born, not on when she was born and not on when she married. That is the comparison this whole post turns on, and it is the one most often got wrong.

Why citizenship by descent through a mother breaks at all

For most of the twentieth century, several of these countries passed citizenship down the father’s line and treated the mother’s differently or not at all. A child born abroad to a citizen father acquired the citizenship; the identical child born to a citizen mother did not.

Two things follow that a summary usually leaves out.

The break is at the child’s birth, not at the grandmother’s. The rule reads the law in force on the day her child was born. A grandmother born in 1920 whose child was born in 1971 is inside Germany’s old rule; the same grandmother whose child was born in 1977 is not.

A repair route creates citizenship going forward; it rarely rewrites history. Where a route exists, the person who uses it becomes a citizen from the declaration or registration, and what that does for their children is a separate question with its own answer — which is where the British route in particular disappoints people.

Italy: 1 January 1948, and a court rather than a consulate

Italy’s cut-off is the day the Republic’s Constitution came into force.

Under Law no. 555 of 13 June 1912, Italian citizenship passed through the father. The Constitutional Court held in judgment no. 30 of 1983 that this was unconstitutional — but the Constitution itself only took effect on 1 January 1948, so the correction reaches children born on or after that date and no further back.

The practical division is clean, and consulates apply it without discretion:

  • Child of the Italian woman born on or after 1 January 1948 — the line is recognised administratively, at a consulate or a comune, like any other.
  • Child born before 1 January 1948 — the consulate cannot recognise it. The claim goes to an Italian court, which is asked to apply the 1983 judgment to a pre-1948 birth.

That second case is what everybody calls a 1948 case, and it is genuinely a court proceeding with a lawyer, a timetable and a cost. The 1948 case is the post that takes it apart. It is also subject to everything else Italian law now requires: since a decree-law of 28 March 2025, converted with amendments in May 2025, recognition for a person born abroad holding another citizenship generally requires an Italian-born parent or grandparent, so a 1948 case that would have succeeded on the old generation rule may fail on the new one. The Italian line after the 2025 decree has both.

Germany: 1 January 1975, and the declaration that repairs it

Germany’s cut-off is the day its reformed descent rule took effect, and Germany is the one country here that wrote a repair into statute and then extended it down the line.

Before 1 January 1975, a child born to a German mother and a foreign father did not acquire German citizenship at birth in the ordinary way. The route open today is the declaration under section 5 of the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz. Its own wording is the clearest statement of who it is for: it gives the right to declare to children born after the Basic Law came into force who are

  • “Kinder eines deutschen Elternteils, die durch Geburt nicht die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit erworben haben” — children of a German parent who did not acquire German citizenship at birth;
  • children of a mother who lost German citizenship before their birth by marrying a foreigner;
  • children who lost German citizenship through a legitimation effected by a foreigner;

and — this is the sentence that matters for a grandchild — “Abkömmlinge der Kinder nach Nummer 1 bis 3”, the descendants of those children. Checked against the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz on 15 September 2026.

So this is not only a remedy for the person born in 1968 to a German mother. It reaches their children and grandchildren, which is what makes it a descent route rather than a personal one.

It is also the one hard deadline on this site. Section 5 says the declaration right “kann nur innerhalb von zehn Jahren nach Inkrafttreten dieses Gesetzes ausgeübt werden” — it may only be exercised within ten years of the amending Act’s entry into force, in August 2021. A reader who finds this in 2030 has a year and a chain of certificates to assemble. The declaration route is the post with the procedure, and the German line is the verdict on the route as a whole.

Britain: 1 January 1983, and registration under section 4C

Britain’s cut-off is the day the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force.

Under the British Nationality Act 1948, descent passed through the father. The 1981 Act changed that going forward, and a registration route was later added for the people the old rule had excluded: section 4C of the 1981 Act, headed “Acquisition by registration: certain persons born before 1983”. Its first condition is that “the applicant was born before 1st January 1983”, and the section then directs that the case be read on the assumption that maternal descent counted as paternal descent did. Checked against legislation.gov.uk on 15 September 2026.

It is an entitlement rather than a discretion: a person who satisfies the conditions “is entitled to be registered as a British citizen”.

What the British repair does not give you

Here is the part that costs people a year, and it is the reason this post exists rather than a table.

A person registered under section 4C becomes a British citizen by descent. In British nationality law that is a status, not a description, and a British citizen by descent generally cannot pass citizenship to a child who is also born outside the United Kingdom.

So if your mother was born abroad before 1983 to a British-born mother, she may well be entitled to register — and you, born abroad to her, are very likely still not British, even after she does. The repair reaches her and stops. That is a sentence no page paid per application leads with, and it is the single most common disappointment on the British side of this site.

Two things remain worth checking. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 added a discretionary registration route for people left out by historical unfairness in the legislation, and discretionary is exactly the word — that is the point for a lawyer, not a form. And the narrow double-descent provisions occasionally carry a grandparent’s line further than the general rule does: double descent is that gap, and the British line is the verdict.

The three countries where the mother’s line was never the problem

Not every country in this table has a maternal cut-off, and knowing which do saves a search.

  • Ireland. Entitlement through a grandparent under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 turns on the grandparent being born on the island of Ireland. A grandmother born in Cork transmits exactly as a grandfather born in Cork does. What Ireland has instead is the registration-before-birth rule — the Foreign Births Register.
  • Canada. The obstacles on a Canadian line are the generation limit and, before 1977, loss on naturalisation — not the sex of the ancestor. The Canadian line.
  • Poland. Polish citizenship passed from either parent under the Act of 20 January 1920. The Polish breaks are the loss rules and the question of whether the ancestor was ever a Polish citizen at all — the Polish line.

Which date to check first

One question, asked in one order, tells you which of the three paragraphs above is yours:

  1. In which country was the woman in your line born? That picks the cut-off: 1948, 1975 or 1983.
  2. When was her child born — your parent, or you? Compare that birth date to the cut-off. Before it, the old rule applied and you are looking for a repair route. On or after it, there was no maternal break and something else stopped the line.
  3. If a repair route applies, who does it reach? Germany’s section 5 names descendants in the statute. Britain’s section 4C reaches the person registering and, because of the by-descent status, usually stops there. Italy’s is a court.

Then take the answer to the seven breaks and check that nothing else in the chain ended it first — a naturalisation before a birth outranks every repair route on this page, because there is nothing left for them to repair.