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Italy confirms post-Brexit visa rules for British nationals

After the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31st 2020, British citizens hoping to move to Italy will require a long-stay visa, Italian authorities have confirmed.

Published: 18 December 2020 12:35 CET

Italy confirms post-Brexit visa rules for British nationals

The bureaucratic process involved in moving to Italy is set to get a lot more complex for Brits from January 1st. photo: AFP

“Starting from January 1st 2021, British citizens planning to stay in Italy for more than 90 days (‘long stay’) within 180 days, will be subject to national visa requirements, according to the Italian immigration rules applied to third country nationals,” read a statement posted on the website of the Italian consulate in London on Thursday.

It read: “Starting now, British citizens may submit a Long Stay visa application for entry on 1 January 2021 or later”.

If applying for the following purposes:

• Study
• Religious purposes
• Mission
• Elective residency

Applications for long-stay visas for the following reasons can be made from January 1st, 2021 (as these require you to obtain the 'Nulla Osta' permission document):

– Work (including sport related activities and research)

– Family reunion and adoption

– Investment and start-ups

– Conversion of residence permits originally issued for study or traineeship purposes.

British citizens coming to Italy for a short stay of less than 90 days (in a 180-day period) will not require a visa, the consulate confirmed.

“In accordance with the provisions of the EU Regulation 2019/592, starting from 1 January 2021 (the end of the transition period) the United Kingdom will be added to Annex II of the EU regulation 2018/1806.”

This means that “British citizens will therefore not need a Schengen short-stay visa to spend up to 90 days in Italy within a period of 180 days.”

No details on the process or cost of obtaining a long-stay visa were given.

The consulate advises visiting the Interior Ministry's website for more details about the process of applying for a long-stay visa.

Further details about visas can also be found on the Italian government's dedicated visa information website (available in English).

READ ALSO:

If you are already lawfully living in Italy by the end of this year, your rights should be protected by the Withdrawal Agreement. This extends to your close family members.

British citizens who are moving to Italy before December 31st, or are already here but haven't yet registered as a resident, are strongly recommend to register before the end of the year.

Anyone hoping to move to Italy after the end of the transition period however would be subject to the new visa requirements.

See The Local's Brexit section for more details and updates.

Member comments

Anonymous - 23 January 2021 at 17:28 CET

Does anyone know if the 90-day rule applies to UK citizens arriving before 31-Dec?

Arrived in Italy early Dec and submitted residency app that is currently snarled up in bureaucracy and local uncertainty over policy.

Next appointment is scheduled just over a week before I’d need to leave if 90 days counts from my arrival date.

Hoping I can stay until at least 31 March to give this time to resolve but the back up plan is to return to UK and apply for the long-term visa so obviously want to avoid an overstay report.

Can’t seem to find any guidance on whether:
a) 90 days does apply and starts from when I arrived in EU
b) 90 days applies only from 1 January when I became a third-country national (so have until 31 Mar)
c) it doesn’t apply because I arrived before Brexit as an EU citizen

I will contact the consulate/FCO for their take on it but just wanted to check to see if anyone else has already checked the same scenario and what their answer was.
Anonymous - 5 February 2021 at 09:12 CET

Me and my partner are in a similar scenario. We also arrived in early December but failed to apply for residency before the cut-off date.

My understanding is that the 90 days starts from the 1st Jan. This was confirmed by an immigration solicitor. Here is their website – https://www.mazzeschi.it/

They were very quick to reply so might be worth sending them an email yourself.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

How easy is it to get Italy's new digital nomad visa?

The introduction of Italy’s long-awaited digital nomad visa, a full two years after parliament first approved the idea in principle, has generated significant buzz in international remote working circles.

Many questions remain, however, about how to access the visa.

We put some of those to Italian immigration law expert Nick Metta from Studio Legale Metta.

He told us that while in many respects the decree is surprisingly lenient, it also contains some clear hurdles, particularly for self-employed workers.

Besides those obstacles laid out in the text of the law itself, Italian consulates have the power to introduce their own rules, making the visa more difficult to obtain in practice.

We discussed the ways in which the law is more lenient than anticipated, as well as potential obstacles prospective applicants can expect to encounter.

Let’s start by looking at some of the ways in which the application criteria are relatively generous:

The skills threshold is low

The decree requires applicants to be “highly skilled”, which is defined as having a three-year degree with six months’ relevant experience, an accredited professional qualification, or equivalent experience – all of which, Metta says, is surprisingly lenient.

“We would have expected a high level of scrutiny over the “high skills”, but high skills can be really pretty much anything.

“They say if you have a college degree and six months work experience, that’s enough. Does that qualify you as having high skills? I don’t think so.”

As for equivalent professional experience, Metta notes that getting a professional qualification or licence is often easier abroad than in Italy.

Italy’s digital nomad visa allows you to work from anywhere in the country. Photo by David L. Espina Rincon on Unsplash

“Look at lawyers: lawyers could get a licence in Spain without any exam until a few years ago. So a lot of students used to go to Spain, take up their licence and go back to Italy to practice.

“There are still some situations like that, where licences in certain areas are granted with much less scrutiny than would be the case in Italy.”

Access to the Italian job market

In the past, Metta says, Italy’s laws have been staunchly protectionist when it comes accessing the Italian labour market.

“In the previous immigration law, if you wanted to hire someone from overseas you had to demonstrate that there was a lack of available candidates in the same industry for the same role in Italy,” he says – but in the new law, “there is zero about that”.

The decree also doesn’t say that remote workers most be employed by clients or companies based overseas, in theory opening up the domestic job market to non-EU nationals.

“It’s not direct in saying you can be employed by an Italian employer, but there are so many references that make it an obvious conclusion that one could be hired by an employer from Italy.”

Leniency around income and background checks

Metta observes that the law doesn’t specify that your income – which must be at least three times the minimum amount that would grant you free access to Italy’s national health service, or just under €28,000 – must come from work.

That means other income sources, such as rent, could count towards this amount.

The decree also doesn’t require you to undergo a criminal background check or personally sign an affidavit affirming that you don’t have a criminal record.

It’s only employers or clients based in Italy, Metta clarifies, who must self-certify that they’ve not been convicted within the last five years of specific crimes relating to migration, sex work, exploitation of minors or labour exploitation.

What’s involved in applying for Italy’s digital nomad visa? Photo by David L. Espina Rincon on Unsplash

He notes, however, that individual consulates may require the applicant to supply a criminal background check.

“The fact that the law doesn’t ask for a background check in your own country doesn’t mean the Italian consulate won’t ask for it, because for the elective residency visa and other visas the Italian consulates have thrown it in.”

Potential hurdles

While many of the requirements for the digital nomad visa are more relaxed than experts predicted, Metta notes that there are a number of potential hurdles.

Many of these relate to being self-employed – which a majority of remote workers are – as freelancers typically lack a steady income or proof of employment.

Here are some of the obstacles that would-be applicants for the digital nomad visa are likely to face:

Employment contracts and references

The decree requires that applications provide either an employment contract or a ‘letter of collaboration’.

Most freelancers don’t have the former, which means they’ll need to ask their clients to supply the latter.

“Hopefully they have simple engagement letters or letters of collaboration, a track record that they can demonstrate,” says Metta.

He notes that with Italy’s elective residency visa (ERV), consulates often request letters of reference from an accountant certifying your spending and annual income – so something similar might apply here.

“It is very possible that they might ask for a letter recommendation from a client you might have had for a while or evidence of signed engagement letters from other clients; something that would give the consulate similar peace of mind to a contract with an employer.”

Accommodation requirement

The law requires an applicant to prove they already have accommodation in Italy.

While it doesn’t say what kind of proof is required, in the case of the ERV, consulates have made it clear in the past that booking an airbnb doesn’t count: you must have either a rental lease agreement or a property ownership deed.

Metta says he gets usually approaches this rule by advising applicants who don’t own Italian property to sign a 12-month lease agreement, adding a clause that allows them to leave with two or three months’ notice.

Proof of income

For self-employed workers whose annual salary tends to fluctuate year on year, proving you meet the government’s minimum income threshold might be a challenge.

The consulate is likely to request tax returns and bank statements, “and once again, they might ask for a letter of reference from your financial advisor or accountant confirming what you’re saying,” says Metta.

“It’s almost like when you go to apply for a mortgage: if you’re self-employed it’s a little bit tougher.”

When it comes to the ERV, consulates have in the past sometimes raised the income threshold significantly above the government’s limit, and Metta suggests the same could happen here.

Can you make a living while travelling the world? Italy’s new digital nomad visa is expected to make this easier. Photo by Persnickety Prints on Unsplash

He compares two applicants: one “a person who has been working for Microsoft for ten years, wanting to go to Italy with a letter from HR saying it’s totally cool with us if this person moves to Italy”; another “self-employed with six months of experience just fresh out of college with a very very limited track record.”

In the latter case, he says, “the Italian consulate wants to be impressed. €28,000? Ehh…”

“What we recommend is, try to make your application as solid as possible,” he says.

“So if you are fresh out of college with only six months of experience, make sure you have, once again, a letter of recommendation, leads, people who are promising to engage you. Whatever you can, try to throw it in.”

The consulate has absolute power

As mentioned above, an Italian consulate has the power to arbitrarily raise the government’s minimum income threshold and tighten the application criteria – and if yours is strict, there’s not much you can do about it.

“The Italian consulates have discretion based on geography, socio-economic situation, and so many other factors,” says Metta.

While it’s still very early days for the digital nomad visa, some applicants have already reported being turned away by their local consulate.

A member of Facebook group Expats Living in Italy said they were recently informed by the Miami consulate that applicants “must have a masters degree or certification and have contacts with “a company like Apple” to be eligible.

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