Divorce Law in Italy: Separation, Procedures, and Costs

Divorce law in Italy treats the end of a marriage as a staged process: in most cases, spouses must first be legally separated for six months (if they agree on terms) or twelve months (if they do not) before a court will dissolve the marriage. A 1970 statute first created the right to divorce, a 2015 reform cut the waiting period from three years to months, and a 2022 procedural overhaul now lets couples file for separation and divorce in the same proceeding. Three procedural routes exist — the court, assisted negotiation between lawyers, or a direct appearance before a civil registrar — and the right one depends mostly on whether the spouses agree and whether they have minor or dependent children.

When You Can Skip the Separation Period

Legal separation is the usual road to divorce, but Law No. 898/1970 lists specific grounds that allow a spouse to petition directly, without the waiting period. These are:¹

A final criminal conviction of the other spouse for certain grave offenses, including life imprisonment or a sentence of more than fifteen years for intentional crimes, a custodial sentence for sexual abuse or incest, or a sentence for murdering or attempting to murder a child or the other spouse.
Non-consummation of the marriage.
A foreign-national spouse obtained an annulment or dissolution of the marriage abroad, or married someone else abroad.
One spouse has officially changed their legal gender.

These paths are uncommon. Most Italian divorces run through separation.

The Separation Waiting Period

Before 2015, spouses had to live apart for three years before filing for divorce. Law No. 55/2015 shortened that dramatically, and the length now turns on whether the spouses agree:²

Six months for a consensual separation, including cases that start contested and are converted to consensual during the proceedings.
Twelve months for a contested (judicial) separation, running from the date both spouses first appeared before the president of the court.

The clock starts when the spouses appear before the president of the court, or on the date a separation agreement is certified if the couple used assisted negotiation or appeared before a civil registrar.³

While separated, the marriage still exists in law. Some marital obligations are suspended, but neither spouse can remarry. A reconciliation revokes the separation; if the couple later splits again, the clock resets.

The Three Routes to a Divorce

Italian law offers three procedures. All three produce a binding result; they differ in cost, speed, and who can use them.

Court Proceedings

The traditional route runs through the family section of the local tribunal. The petitioner files with the court’s administrative office (the Cancelleria), which assigns a case number and sets a first hearing before the president of the court. The judge is required to attempt reconciliation. If that fails, the judge issues temporary orders on child custody, use of the family home, and financial support while the case continues.³

When the spouses agree on all terms, the court process is streamlined: the judge reviews the proposed arrangement, checks that any children’s interests are protected, and typically issues the decree without extended litigation. Contested cases run far longer because the judge must hear evidence, weigh competing financial and custody claims, and issue a ruling that either party may appeal.

Assisted Negotiation

Couples who agree can avoid court altogether through negoziazione assistita, introduced by Decree Law No. 132/2014. Each spouse retains their own lawyer, and the lawyers negotiate and draft the agreement. It then goes to the public prosecutor’s office for review. If minor children are involved, the prosecutor must authorize the agreement; otherwise, formal clearance is enough. Once cleared, the agreement has the same legal force as a court decree.³

This path is faster and cheaper than going to court because it eliminates hearings and judicial calendars. It has become one of the most common choices for couples without serious disputes.

Divorce Before a Civil Registrar

The cheapest option, also from Decree Law No. 132/2014, lets spouses appear before the civil registrar at the municipality where they married or where at least one of them resides, and sign the agreement directly. Hiring a lawyer is optional.⁴

The restrictions are tight. This route is not available when the couple has minor children, adult children with serious disabilities, or economically dependent children. The agreement cannot include property transfers, only periodic payments such as maintenance. The process requires two appointments at least thirty days apart: the first to draft the agreement, the second to confirm it. The confirmation appointment cannot be postponed for any reason.⁴

Filing Separation and Divorce in One Proceeding

Legislative Decree No. 149/2022, known as the Cartabia reform, added Article 473-bis.49 to the Civil Procedure Code, which lets spouses file for both legal separation and divorce in a single proceeding. Before this change, couples had to finish the separation case, wait out the mandatory period, and then open a second lawsuit for the divorce.

The waiting period still applies: the court grants the separation first, and the divorce cannot be finalized until the six or twelve months have elapsed. But combining both requests in one filing saves legal fees and administrative work. Italy’s Supreme Court confirmed in 2023 that this combined filing works for consensual cases as well as contested ones. It is the biggest procedural shift since 2015.

Child Custody

Shared custody, affidamento condiviso, is the default under Article 337-ter of the Civil Code. Both parents keep parental responsibility and must jointly decide the major questions about education, health, and residence. Day-to-day choices rest with whichever parent the child is with at the time.⁵

Shared custody does not mean equal time. Courts typically designate one parent as the cohabiting parent and set a schedule for the other. Equal time-sharing is possible when the parents live near each other and the arrangement would not disrupt the child’s school or social life, but it is not the norm.

Sole custody is reserved for situations where shared parenting would harm the child: a parent who poses a physical or psychological risk, has shown no interest in the child, has a serious addiction, or whose conflict with the other parent is so intense that it would damage the child’s wellbeing.⁵

Child support, the assegno di mantenimento, is calculated separately from spousal maintenance. It reflects the children’s needs, the family’s previous standard of living, and each parent’s financial resources, with the goal of minimizing disruption to the children’s lives.⁶

Spousal Maintenance After Divorce

Spousal maintenance after divorce, the assegno divorzile, comes from Article 5 of Law No. 898/1970. The court can order one spouse to pay periodic maintenance if the other lacks adequate financial means and cannot obtain them for objective reasons. The factors are the financial position of both spouses, each person’s contribution to the family’s welfare and wealth, the length of the marriage, and the age and health of the requesting spouse.³

How courts weigh those factors shifted in 2018, when the Supreme Court’s joint divisions reframed the inquiry. The older approach asked whether the requesting spouse could maintain the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage. The 2018 decision replaced that test with a compensatory principle: the award should recognize the sacrifices and contributions of the weaker spouse — career opportunities passed up, domestic work, caregiving — and the economic disadvantage that followed from choices the couple made together about their family life.

Every kind of contribution counts, not only income but also homemaking, childcare, and support that enabled the other spouse’s career. The court considers the requesting spouse’s realistic prospects of becoming self-sufficient, given age, skills, and time out of the workforce. Maintenance amounts are indexed automatically to the cost of living, and the receiving spouse may be entitled to up to 40 percent of the paying spouse’s retirement bonus for the years of employment that overlapped with the marriage.

Property Division

How assets are divided depends on the property regime the couple chose, or defaulted into, at marriage.

If no election was made, the default is comunione legale (community of property), under Articles 177 and following of the Civil Code. Most assets acquired by either spouse during the marriage belong to both equally, regardless of who earned the money or whose name is on the title. Personal property brought into the marriage, gifts, and inheritances directed to one spouse remain separate. When the marriage ends, community assets are split in equal shares.⁷

Couples who elected separazione dei beni (separation of property), either before or during the marriage, each keep full ownership of their individual assets. That election has to be in a public deed or declared in the marriage record to be valid. Disputes can still arise about who owns assets acquired jointly.⁷

The family home is treated separately regardless of the regime. Courts typically assign the use of it to the parent with primary physical custody of the children, even if the other spouse owns it. The assignment lasts as long as the children need residential stability, and it is one of the most contentious issues in Italian divorces.

International Couples: Which Country’s Courts Decide

When one or both spouses are foreign, or when one lives outside Italy, the first question is which country’s courts have authority. Two frameworks apply.

For EU member state nationals, Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, called Brussels II ter, sets the rules. It replaced the older Brussels II bis framework on August 1, 2022, covering divorce, legal separation, annulment, and parental responsibility across the EU.⁸

The central idea in both the EU regulation and Italian domestic law is habitual residence — the country where a person has the permanent center of daily life. Italian courts have jurisdiction if the respondent is domiciled or resident in Italy, but the residency threshold matters: an Italian national must have resided in Italy for at least six months before filing, while a non-Italian national needs at least one year of habitual residence.

For non-EU nationals and other situations outside the regulation, Italy’s private international law statute, Law No. 218/1995, fills the gap. It gives Italian courts jurisdiction when the defendant is domiciled or resident in Italy, or in other circumstances specified by Italian procedural law.⁹

A marriage celebrated abroad does not block Italian jurisdiction, provided the residency thresholds are met. Expatriates and dual citizens may have a choice about where to file.

Recognition of an Italian Divorce Elsewhere

An Italian divorce decree is generally recognized throughout the EU under Brussels II ter without any special procedure. Recognition outside the EU depends on the destination country’s own law. In the United States there is no federal law or treaty on the point, and each state decides independently; most will recognize an Italian decree if both parties were notified, both had an opportunity to participate, and at least one party was a genuine resident of Italy at the time.¹⁰

In the other direction, Law No. 218/1995 generally treats foreign divorce judgments as effective in Italy automatically if they meet basic compatibility requirements, though registration with the appropriate civil registry office is still needed to update official records.¹¹

Costs

Cost depends heavily on the pathway and on whether the case is contested. The court filing fee, the contributo unificato, is roughly €43 for a consensual divorce and €98 for a contested one. Those fees are modest compared with what lawyers charge.

Assisted negotiation is usually the least expensive lawyer-involved option because it skips hearings and procedural complexity. Divorce before a civil registrar costs even less — a small municipal fee, and the lawyer is optional. Contested court proceedings are by far the most expensive, especially when the dispute involves complex finances, business valuations, or long custody battles. Lawyer fees for a straightforward consensual divorce can run a few thousand euros total; a fully contested case with appeals can reach tens of thousands. The Cartabia reform’s combined filing can reduce costs by eliminating a second proceeding.

Religious Marriage, Citizenship, and Residency: A Few Boundaries

Civil divorce dissolves the civil effects of a marriage, including a Catholic marriage celebrated by a priest and registered with the civil authorities under the 1929 Lateran Concordat (revised in 1984). The religious sacrament itself is not affected: a civil divorce is not a Catholic annulment, and the Church considers the couple still married unless a separate canonical proceeding reaches a different conclusion. For civil purposes, including the right to remarry in a civil ceremony, that distinction does not matter; for a practicing Catholic who wishes to remarry in the Church, it does.

Foreign nationals who already obtained Italian citizenship through marriage do not lose it on divorce. If the divorce or legal separation happens while the citizenship application is still pending, however, eligibility ends: the marriage must remain valid through the date the applicant takes the oath of allegiance.¹²

Non-EU citizens on a family residence permit are governed by Legislative Decree No. 30/2007. Divorce does not automatically revoke the right to stay in Italy if the non-EU spouse has a permanent residence card, more than five years of residence, custody of children from the marriage, or was a victim of domestic violence during the marriage. Those who do not meet one of these conditions can apply to convert the family permit into a work or study permit, which requires showing employment or sufficient financial resources.

1
European e-Justice Portal. Divorce and Legal Separation
2
Iris Unimore. The Role of Fault in Separation and Divorce
3
Ministero della Giustizia. Coppie di nazionalita diverse: Separazione e divorzio
4
Comune di Letojanni. Separation and Divorce Before the Civil Status Officer
5
European e-Justice Portal. Parental Responsibility – Child Custody and Contact Rights
6
European e-Justice Portal. Family Maintenance
7
European e-Justice Portal. Matrimonial Property Regimes
8
European Union. Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 of 25 June 2019
9
University of Macerata. Law of 31 May 1995 No 218 Providing for the Reform of the Italian System of Private International Law
10
U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Consular Affairs. Divorce
11
Consolato Generale d’Italia Boston. Recognition of Foreign Judgments
12
Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. Italian Citizenship by Marriage or Civil Union