How much does it cost to apply for Italian citizenship?

There are two, and the prefectures publish both: the EUR 250 contribution, introduced by article 9-bis of law 91 of 1992 and made compulsory by decree-law 113 of 2018, and the EUR 16 stamp duty on the application. The contribution is paid to the Ministry of the Interior before filing and the receipt must be attached. On top of these, for anyone not exempt, comes the cost of certifying Italian at B1 level, which is not a state charge but the price of an exam.

Since 2018 an application by residence or by marriage must be accompanied by proof of Italian at least at B1 level, certified by a recognised body. At an accredited university centre the fee for the CILS B1 Cittadinanza level is EUR 100. The level cannot be banked: failing even one of its four parts means retaking the entire exam and paying the full fee again.

Applicants who obtained a qualification in Italy, and those who signed the integration agreement required of residence-permit holders and already met its language requirements, do not need to sit the exam. For them the cost stops at EUR 266 between contribution and stamp duty. Since the exemption is worth a hundred euro and a whole registration cycle, checking your position before booking is the highest-return check in the entire process.

No, and it is not even the same procedure. Applying for a grant of citizenship, typically by residence or marriage, means paying the EUR 250 contribution. Applying instead for recognition of citizenship already held by descent, as an adult, means paying EUR 600 under the consular fees table annexed to legislative decree 71 of 2011. Confusing the two routes leads to paying the wrong amount and having the file rejected.

Yes. The prefectures state that the contribution payment is valid for one year. This matters more than it sounds, because gathering documents from the country of origin, translating them, having them legalised and waiting for an exam session can easily take several months. It is therefore better to pay the contribution once the rest of the file is ready, rather than at the start, to avoid having to pay it twice.

A lot, but not in a way you can predict upfront: it depends on how many certificates your situation requires and on which country issues them. Each foreign document generally has to be translated into Italian by a translator who swears to its accuracy, then legalised or apostilled to have effect in Italy — two steps with separate costs, repeated for every document. That is why the range published here covers only the items with a certain amount and leaves out those that would vary case by case.