July 2026 Global Mobility News: Italy's Ancestry Fight Goes To EU Court, Portugal Investors Push Back, US Supreme Court Locks In Birthright Citizenship (+ 5 More Updates)
Global mobility updates you should not miss this month
Each month I track new visas, residency changes, and travel rules so you don’t miss anything.
Visa launches
Rule and fee changes
Travel access changes
Citizenship & investment news
Here is what changed in the last four weeks.
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Italy’s Ancestry Fight Just Landed At The EU’s Top Court
If you have an Italian parent or grandparent, your case moved again in July.
Recap: the 2025 Tajani Decree capped citizenship by descent at two generations and treats many people born abroad with a second nationality as if they never held Italian citizenship at all.
In May, Italy’s Court of Cassation ruled that the right to claim never expires, and that a blocked consulate appointment is enough reason to take a claim straight to an Italian court.
On July 23, Italy’s Constitutional Court made Order No. 147/2026 public.
The judges paused the constitutional challenges against the decree and referred the core question to the EU Court of Justice:
Does cutting off people who were born before the law took effect comply with EU law?
A ruling against the decree could reopen thousands of blocked cases.
I would not celebrate yet.
The decree stays in force while Luxembourg deliberates, and an EU referral usually takes well over a year. But a claim that looked legally dead in June now has Europe’s highest court examining it.
What this means for you:
If the Tajani Decree blocked or narrowed your claim, do not abandon it. Keep the documents for your Italian line together (birth, marriage, and naturalization records), and keep the claim formally alive, by filing or having your lawyer request an adjournment, while the EU court decides.
1,260 Investors Just Took Portugal To The Ombudsman
In April, I covered Portugal’s parliament voting 152 to 64 to double the citizenship timeline from five years to ten.
The law took effect May 19.
Two details made it worse than a timeline extension:
The clock now starts when your residence card is issued (time spent waiting in AIMA’s backlog counts for nothing).
Parliament rejected every protection for people still waiting on residence permits.
Back then I wrote that the conflict over pending applications was unsolved.
Now, 1,260 people are forcing the issue.
In late June, nine Portuguese law firms filed a collective complaint with Portugal's Ombudsman on behalf of 1,260 golden visa investors.
Their demand:
Refer the new law to the Constitutional Court and press the government for a transitional solution for everyone who applied before May 18 and is still stuck waiting on a permit through no fault of their own.
On July 24, the group set a deadline.
If nothing moves, legal action starts in September, and the plaintiff group is expected to grow to around 2,000 investors.
My view: this fight matters far beyond golden visa holders. If Portugal can restart the clock on people who applied under the old rules, every pending applicant in every program inherits that risk. If the investors win a transition scheme, everyone stuck in the backlog gets a template to point to.
What this means for you:
If you applied for Portuguese residency before May 18, follow this case. Its outcome decides which rules your citizenship clock runs under. If Portugal is still ahead of you, plan on the ten-year timeline and treat anything faster as a bonus.