The Captains Regent, two heads of state every six months

Of everything that sets San Marino apart, the thing I most enjoy explaining is how its head of state works. There’s no president, no monarch, no prime minister everyone recognises. There are two people who govern together, serve six months, can’t come straight back and, once they leave, can be reported by any neighbour. It’s a medieval system that still runs, and on 1 October 2026 it’s handover day.

What the Captains Regent do

There are two of them and they hold the role jointly under the principle of collegiality, so neither acts alone. They chair, without a vote, the Great and General Council, the 60-member parliament, and coordinate the government, which in San Marino is called the Congress of State. They’ve been styled Excellency since 1767 and paid for their semester since 1352.

The term lasts six months and begins on 1 April or 1 October. It’s one of the shortest terms for a head of state anywhere, and to me that’s the key to the whole system. With so little time and a partner at your side, nobody builds up personal power. And because regents come from parliament and go back to it, every councillor knows the next semester could be theirs, and that they could be called to account at the end of it.

How are they chosen?

Parliament elects them itself, by secret ballot, at a sitting called in the middle ten days of March for the April semester and of September for the October one. Before the vote, the outgoing Regency processes to the Pieve, today’s Basilica of Saint Marinus, for a rite before the saint’s altar. Councillors are voted on in pairs, and the pair winning half the votes of those present plus one takes it. If none does, there’s a second round between the leading pairs. The winners are proclaimed from the balcony of the Palazzo Pubblico.

To be regent you must be over 25 and a citizen by origin, and not have served in the previous three years. That last rule is the divieto law, in force since the first half of the 16th century. Until 1945 there was no vote at all; regents were drawn by lot from pairs of councillors, as they had been since 1483.

Who are the Captains Regent in 2026?

The term from 1 April to 1 October 2026 is Alice Mina and Vladimiro Selva’s, according to the Office of the Regency. Parliament met on the afternoon of 15 September to choose the next pair, and public broadcaster San Marino RTV reported that Gerardo Giovagnoli and William Casali were elected, with a term from 1 October 2026 to 1 April 2027. I give that with some caution because, as of 29 September, the Regency’s official website still showed the outgoing pair, as you’d expect until the handover. Mina and Selva’s semester also made history, since on 22 August 2026 they welcomed Pope Leo XIV, the first papal visit to San Marino in fifteen years according to the government.

Answering for it on the way out

What I like most is what happens at the end. For 15 days after the term closes, any citizen with the vote can report their conduct, whether for action or inaction. It’s called the Sindacato della Reggenza and dates from 1499. And at midday on the first Sunday after the investiture citizens can also lodge istanze d’arengo, petitions of public interest the Council must debate within the semester. More details like these are in San Marino facts. The legal basis for all of it is in the constitution of San Marino.

From two medieval consuls to today

The two consuls first appear together in a document dated 12 December 1243. In the statutes of 1295 to 1302 they became the Captain and the Defender, and from there came the Captains Regent. Their signatures still carry weight. The 2011 law that finally described the national flag, for instance, was promulgated in the names of that semester’s regents, Maria Luisa Berti and Filippo Tamagnini, a story I tell on the San Marino flag page. The whole sweep is in the history of San Marino.

Seeing the investiture in person

The swearing-in spreads its events across Palazzo Valloni and the neighbouring Palazzo Pubblico, and one of its central moments is the official oration by an invited speaker. The Palazzo Pubblico is closed to tourist visits for restoration in 2026, but the square and façade look the same. Every other fixed date is listed in San Marino events.