Italians Abroad: AIRE, Emigration, Oriundi and New Mobilities

Beyond the AIRE: official data and the wider diaspora

When discussing Italians abroad, the most reliable benchmark is the AIRE, the Registry of Italians Resident Abroad. As of 1 January 2025 there were 6,412,752 registered citizens: a population comparable to a large Italian region, and nearly one in nine Italians when set against the population living in Italy. The AIRE is an administrative register of Italian citizens who have established residence outside the country, and it should be distinguished from a worldwide census of people of Italian origin. It includes those who move abroad for at least twelve months, children born abroad to Italian citizens, and those who obtain Italian citizenship while already living overseas. Registration is linked to the relevant Italian municipality and consular network: it is needed for documents, to record births, marriages and deaths, and where applicable, to vote from abroad ^[1] ^[2]. The register is a solid statistical basis, but it does not capture the full diaspora on its own. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, commonly known as the Farnesina, speaks of roughly 80 million Italians worldwide, including people of Italian descent and oriundi, within the framework of roots tourism ^[4]. That figure of 80 million is an estimate of the vast historical and family legacy produced by Italian migration, to be understood as a cultural and demographic horizon rather than a number to add mechanically to the AIRE total. The grandson of emigrants born in Buenos Aires with Italian citizenship, a fourth-generation Brazilian who retains a Venetian surname, and a young professional who left Milan for Berlin all have different relationships with Italy, yet they belong to this same horizon. Conflating citizenship, descent and cultural identity produces impressive but unhelpful numbers.

Who left and who was born abroad

The Report on Italians in the World 2025 offers the closest available data for distinguishing between first-generation emigrants and those born abroad, though the AIRE categories are administrative rather than genealogical ^[1]. Of those registered, 47.1% were recorded as having emigrated: applying this percentage to the total of 6,412,752 people gives approximately 3.02 million Italian citizens who began their international experience by leaving Italy directly. A further 41.3% were registered by birth: roughly 2.65 million people born outside Italy and registered by virtue of citizenship transmitted through the family. The remaining 11.6%, approximately 744,000 people, covers other reasons, including transfers between consular districts, re-registrations and citizenship recognition.

Translating "registered by birth" automatically as "second generation" would be misleading. This category may include children of recent emigrants, grandchildren of families settled abroad for decades, and citizens born in countries different from those of their ancestors. The Istat data on place of birth is even starker: as of 31 December 2023 only 30.8% of Italians resident abroad had been born in Italy ^[3]. More than two thirds were born abroad. The Italian presence in the world is therefore composed overwhelmingly of communities that now span multiple generations, with their own local histories and distinct identities.

A history that predates unified Italy

Mobility from the Italian peninsula predates mass emigration by many centuries. As early as the year 1000, when no unified Italian state existed, merchants, sailors, artisans, bankers, clergy and soldiers moved between the shores of the Mediterranean, the Levant, the Black Sea and the great European cities. They identified themselves as Genoese, Venetian, Pisan, Amalfitan, Florentine, Lucchese or Lombard — not as Italians in the modern sense. The maritime republics and merchant cities built trading networks, fondaci, trading posts and settlements that made the peninsula's presence visible far beyond its borders ^[5] ^[7]. These medieval movements involved limited numbers and specialised trades, and should be distinguished from the mass departures of the modern age. They did, however, anticipate mechanisms that would remain central: reliance on relatives and fellow townsmen, trust built through language and commercial networks, and the need for protection when living far from one's own city. The consular function itself developed partly to represent and protect merchant groups resident abroad ^[6]. In subsequent centuries, mutual aid societies and emigrant associations would give the same logic a more popular form: creating organised bonds to make life away from home less precarious.

From countryside to mass emigration

The decisive shift came after the Unification of Italy. From the late nineteenth century, population growth, insufficient land, low wages, seasonal labour and deep economic disparities between regions transformed emigration into a concrete family strategy. People left to pay off a debt, buy a small plot of land, fund a child's education, build a house or try to return with some starting capital. Emigration was not confined to those reduced to absolute poverty. Remittances sent from France, Switzerland, the United States, Argentina or Brazil became an essential resource for many families and entire villages. One person would leave first, find work or a room, and shortly afterwards open the way for a brother, cousin or neighbour. These migration chains formed the informal infrastructure of the great Italian emigration ^[8] ^[9].

Between 1876 and 1976 approximately 26 million people left Italy. The earliest flows came mainly from Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli and Liguria, with European destinations such as France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. As transoceanic routes expanded, departures from Campania, Calabria, Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia grew as well. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the United States became central destinations; Canada, Venezuela, Australia and South Africa rounded out a far wider geography. There was no single type of Italian emigrant: seasonal bricklayers, miners, farm labourers, women employed in domestic service, artisans, small shopkeepers and entire families. Many imagined returning after a few years; for others, children, stable work and new ties turned a temporary journey into a permanent life ^[8] ^[9].

Little Italy neighbourhoods

Little Italies emerged from the need to make an unfamiliar city less hostile. The term is most associated with the United States, but neighbourhoods serving similar functions existed in Canada, Latin America and Australia. There, immigrants could find a room through a relative, buy familiar foods, attend the same parish, read a newspaper in their own language and ask a fellow townsman about work. They were spaces of first arrival, with shops, boarding houses, clubs, social halls, processions and informal services that compensated for the absence of any real welfare system ^[10] ^[13]. Manhattan's Little Italy is the best-known case. Its growth accompanied the arrival of large groups from southern Italy, and the Feast of San Gennaro, first celebrated in New York in 1926 by Neapolitan immigrants, shows how a local devotion could become a public ritual of belonging in another country ^[12]. Living conditions were often cramped, work precarious and social integration difficult. As families improved their circumstances, many left historic neighbourhoods for the suburbs or other cities. Little Italies became commercial and tourist destinations: they now host fewer and fewer Italian residents, but they continue to preserve the names, festivals and memory of a decisive phase of integration ^[11].

Fraternal societies and mutual aid

For emigrants, associations and fraternal orders were a practical necessity. Mutual aid societies, religious confraternities, cooperatives, welfare patronage organisations and regional clubs collected dues from members and stepped in when a family faced illness, unemployment, injury or bereavement. They could pay for a funeral, help a widow, support the children of an injured worker, or offer initial mediation with local authorities. At a time when insurance, pensions and public assistance were limited or non-existent, these networks performed a function close to that of a welfare state. The Library of Congress documents the role of Italian-American mutual aid associations as instruments of everyday solidarity ^[13]. These organisations also help explain how identity was transformed. Many emigrants felt primarily Sicilian, Venetian, Calabrian, Piedmontese or residents of a particular town. Abroad, however, encountering societies that perceived them as a single group fostered a broader Italian consciousness. National identity began to coexist with local origin. A regional festival, a church dedicated to a patron saint, or a hometown association could serve both to help each other practically and to build a new way of feeling Italian.

The post-war period

After 1945 the geography of emigration changed without losing intensity. European reconstruction demanded manpower, while Italy continued to suffer severe regional imbalances. West Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom became the main destinations for millions of Italians heading to mines, construction sites, factories and urban services. Treccani estimates that approximately 5.5 million people were involved in intra-European migration in the post-war period; 1961 was the peak year, with around 400,000 departures ^[8]. At first the model was often male and temporary: the worker left alone, lived in boarding houses or collective accommodation, and hoped to save enough money to return. Then came wives, children and family reunifications. Italian schools, parishes, small businesses and new associations were established. Today in Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, people who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s live alongside children born abroad, bilingual grandchildren and new emigrants who move for university or skilled professions. The European diaspora is a living archive: the memory of the mine and the factory meets the very different forms of contemporary mobility ^[3] ^[8].

Where the Italy beyond Italy lives today

Contemporary geography still bears the traces of old routes. At the end of 2024 Istat counted approximately 3.448 million Italian citizens resident in Europe and 2.608 million in the Americas; Oceania, Asia and Africa hosted smaller but far from marginal communities ^[3]. The countries with the largest numbers of Italian residents were Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Switzerland and France. Argentina and Brazil reflect above all the depth of transoceanic migration; Germany, Switzerland and France show the weight of twentieth-century European emigration and more recent departures. The regional geography of the AIRE requires careful interpretation. Southern Italy and the Islands accounted for 45.1% of those registered; Sicily, Lombardy and Veneto were among the regions with the largest AIRE communities. That figure reflects ancient family histories as well as recent departures: an Argentine family may be linked to the Sicilian municipality of an ancestor, while a young professional living in London remains tied to the municipality where they lived a few years earlier ^[1].

New departures and multi-stage mobility

Contemporary Italian emigration differs greatly from its nineteenth-century predecessor. Today people often leave by plane, within the European Union, for study, skilled work, research, digital occupations, personal reasons or entrepreneurial projects. In 2024 Istat estimated 156,000 departures of Italian citizens and 53,000 returns, with a net loss exceeding 100,000 people. In 2025 departures fell to approximately 109,000, but the phenomenon remains significant ^[3] ^[14]. Reducing everything to "brain drain" is unhelpful: those leaving include researchers and professionals, but also technicians, tourism workers, artisans, healthcare staff, service workers and families. A growing share consists of secondary migration: Italian citizens already resident abroad who move from one country to another without first returning to Italy. In 2024 there were more than 49,000 such cases; the main destinations included Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany ^[3]. These trajectories also include people born in South America who have obtained Italian citizenship by descent and use it to live or work in Europe. The diaspora is increasingly non-linear: one can be born in Córdoba, have roots in Calabria, study in Barcelona and work in Berlin. A century ago this would have been an exceptional biography; today it is one trajectory among many.

Oriundi: a complex bond

The term "oriundo" should be used without oversimplification. It denotes a person of Italian descent, but it does not automatically tell us whether they hold citizenship, speak the language or maintain a daily relationship with Italy. They may have a grandfather born in Naples and speak perfect Italian; they may have a great-great-grandfather from Veneto and retain only a surname, a family recipe or the desire to visit the ancestral village. They may be an Italian citizen, seek citizenship recognition, or have no interest in doing so. This is why no precise worldwide census of oriundi exists. The figure of approximately 80 million is an estimate of a vast demographic and cultural legacy, not a global register or an identical identity for every descendant ^[4]. Roots tourism, genealogical research, town twinning, the Italian language and economic ties can build useful bridges between Italy and its descendants around the world. They work when they take into account the complexity of people, and not when they reduce everything to an Italian surname or a generic nostalgia. An Argentine, Brazilian, American or Australian oriundo belongs first and foremost to their own society; the relationship with Italy may be intense, intermittent or purely symbolic.

A story still in motion

Italians around the world are not a uniform community. Alongside those who remember leaving by train or ship live children born abroad, grandchildren who speak a mixed language, citizens who move between multiple countries and descendants who rediscover family documents after generations. The AIRE measures the formally registered portion of this reality; its more than 6.4 million members demonstrate that the Italy beyond Italy is a tangible presence ^[1]. The much higher estimates of people of Italian descent tell how deep those departures were, and how deep the families born from them ^[4]. From the medieval merchant to the seasonal labourer, from the Belgian miner to the Little Italy restaurateur, from the Italian-Argentine family to the young remote worker in Europe, the forms of mobility have changed many times. Some elements remain constant: the search for security, the capacity to organise, the strength of family networks and the need to give a name, a festival, a school or an association to the life built far from home ^[6] ^[13]. To read the Italian diaspora is to recognise many communities that, across different eras, have learned to live in more than one place.