Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: how MAECI is organized

A name born in the 1800s, reorganized many times since

The ministry in charge of Italy’s foreign policy carries a name coined in 1848, when the Statuto Albertino gave the Kingdom of Sardinia a Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The current name, with “and International Cooperation” added, instead dates from Article 3 of Law no. 125 of 11 August 2014 — the same law that established the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, AICS.

The internal structure, however, changes more often than the name. In 2010, Presidential Decree 19 May 2010, no. 95 — published in the Official Gazette on 24 June and in force from 9 July that year — reorganized the central administration into 8 Directorates General. That setup stayed in place for fifteen years, until Presidential Decree 3 September 2025, no. 160, published in the Official Gazette on 31 October 2025, amended it by adding a ninth Directorate General.

The organizational chart in force since 1 January 2026

A MAECI ministerial decree dated 4 December 2025 translated the 2025 reform into a detailed operating structure, applicable from 1 January 2026. The Secretary General’s office remains the top administrative body, flanked by three other top-level structures that are not Directorates General: the Diplomatic Protocol of the Republic, which handles protocol and representation; the General Inspectorate of the ministry and its posts abroad; and the Legal Affairs, Diplomatic Disputes and Treaties Service.

The 9 Directorates General cover different areas: political affairs and international security; relations with sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, Europe and international trade policy; growth and export promotion; citizen services abroad and migration policy; development cooperation; cyber affairs and technological innovation; resources and training; and property and administration. Among the new features of the 2025 reform is precisely the Directorate General for cyber affairs, information technology and innovation, which also follows European negotiations on digital issues — an area where the European Union has already produced binding texts such as the EU AI Act.

Each Directorate General is headed by a Director General assisted by two or three deputy directors general, each responsible for several numbered offices: the Directorate General for political affairs and international security, for instance, has four deputies overseeing thirteen offices. Under Article 6 of the ministerial decree of 4 December 2025, every deputy director general has operational autonomy, signs documents intended for use outside the administration, and deals directly with the parties concerned; within each Directorate General, the Minister also assigns deputising duties to one of the deputy directors general, on the director general’s proposal and after consulting the Secretary General.

Practical example: an Italian company looking to enter a new export market usually goes through the relevant embassy, whose trade promotion work falls under the Directorate General for growth and export promotion — one of the strands feeding into foreign trade, a component of Italy’s GDP calculation.

Development cooperation, split between a ministry and an agency

Law 125 of 2014 did more than rename the ministry: it also established AICS, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, operating since January 2016 with its own legal personality, budget and organization. Political coordination of cooperation policy stays with the Deputy Minister in charge, assisted by MAECI’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation; AICS manages the projects in the field, under the ministry’s oversight.

AICS has its headquarters in Rome, on Via Cantalupo in Sabina, a secondary office in Florence, and a network of field offices abroad, alongside project offices in countries of secondary accreditation that report to those field offices. Since 12 December 2023 the agency has been led by Marco Riccardo Rusconi.

Embassies, consulates and cultural institutes

According to the MAECI Statistical Yearbook 2026, with data referring to 2025, the network of Italian posts abroad counted 313 sites in total: a figure that rose from 309 in 2023 to 313 in 2024, and stayed stable in 2025.

Embassies are not evenly spread across regions: 26 in the European Union, 25 in sub-Saharan Africa, 24 in Asia and Oceania, 20 in the Americas, 18 between the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and 17 in the rest of Europe. Italy’s diplomatic missions also include the one to the Holy See, the institution that elects the Pope through the conclave.

Alongside the 85 career consular offices recorded in the same statistical table, MAECI also lists a separate network: as of 31 December 2025 there were 332 active honorary consular offices, whose heads have no employment relationship with the state and can only receive reimbursements for postal, telegraph and telephone expenses.

The staff

As of 1 January 2026, MAECI counted 4,853 career staff, up 22% on the previous year: 1,122 diplomats, 45 senior managers, and 3,686 assistants and officials. On the same date, the central administration was organized into 21 units and 97 offices, spread across the 9 Directorates General and the other top-level structures.