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TRAVEL NEWS

Carta d’identità: Can I use my Italian ID card for travel?

The carta d'identità is an official identification document attesting to your status as an Italy resident - but can it be used as a travel document?

Carta d'identità: Can I use my Italian ID card for travel?
Travel within the Schengen zone may still require a passport. Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP.

Travel within the EU’s Schengen zone is usually a fairly slick business with reduced or no checks as you cross borders – but that doesn’t mean that you can leave your passport at home.

So integrated is the Schengen Area that if you’re travelling by car or train you may not even notice that you’ve crossed a border and entered another country until you start to see signs in a different language – and that’s the intention of the zone of free movement, created in 1995.

But while EU/EEA citizens can move freely within the zone, it’s a different story for non-EU/EEA citizens.

The rules

Borders between countries in the EU/Schengen area still exist and in order to cross an international border you will need a valid travel document – for EU citizens this can be a national ID card (issued by their own country), but for non-EU citizens that means a passport.

Although both Italian citizens and foreign residents of Italy are issued with a carta d’identità, if you look at the small print on your card as a non-Italian citizen, you’ll notice that it says ‘non valida per l’espatrio’, meaning ‘not valid for travel outside Italy’.

READ ALSO: How will the new app for Europe’s EES border system work?

If you try to cross a border without a valid passport you can be turned back.

While the carta d’identità is your Italian ID document, it doesn’t act as proof of your right to live in Italy and to re-enter the country in the way that a carta di soggiorno, or residency permit card, does.

Passengers wait to board a Ryanair flight at Treviso’s Antonio Canova airport on March 17, 2024. Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP.

It’s a good idea, then, to always have the latter with you when travelling abroad. If you travel without it, you may have your passport stamped as a visitor when you re-enter Italy.

READ ALSO: Can you travel abroad while waiting for an Italian residency permit renewal?

In theory, UK citizens who were legally resident in Italy before Brexit are not required to apply for the carta di soggiorno elettronica provided they can provide alternative proof of their status; in practice, many Brits report having their passports stamped when trying to re-enter Italy without one.

If your passport is stamped in error this may cause delays and questions when you next cross a border, but you cannot be penalised or denied entry provided you can show a valid carta di soggiorno.

On the ground 

As is often the case, there’s a difference between what the rule book says and what happens on the ground, and this is particularly apparent for travel within the Schengen area.

In practice, it’s common to cross a border with no checks at all – although things tend to be stricter if you are travelling by plane.

Cars and trains often pass through with no checks, or with checks when guards will happily accept a carta d’identità or even a carta di soggiorno.

However checks do happen – sometimes this is in response to a security alert, for example after a terror attack, but sometimes it’s random or when the border police are training their new recruits. We regret to say that there is often an element of racial profiling, so travellers of colour are more likely to be asked to produce their travel documents.

Cars can be pulled over at border checkpoints while if you’re travelling by train, police will often board the train close to the border and check passengers.

If you are asked, you will need to show your passport – so don’t forget to take it with you when travelling within the EU and Schengen zone.

Member comments

  1. Can a non-EU citizen use an expired elective permesso di soggiorno if I can show the receipt documenting the submission of a renewal application and the letter setting the interview appointment at the Questura?

    1. Hi, in general you should be able to use the receipt alongside your passport as a supporting document to prove your residency in Italy.
      However, some readers have been told that they shouldn’t do this with the elective residency permit, so we’d recommend checking with your Questura before you travel. Here’s a recent article on that topic: https://www.thelocal.it/20231205/can-you-travel-abroad-while-waiting-for-an-italian-residency-permit-renewa

  2. I just wanted to point out that even when we were EU citizens, I.e. before the Brexit debacle, our carta d’identità stated ‘non valido per l’espatria’ because we were foreign residents in Italy, not Italian citizens. This has therefore not changed. As I understand it, what has changed is that Italian citizens can no longer use their carta d’identità to travel to the UK as a passport is now required with the UK being ‘extra-comunitaria’.

  3. i have dual nationality but am non-resident. I have an ID card but was told at Bologna airport that as I was not born in Italy, it cannot be used for entering Italy (in lieui of a passport).

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For members

ROME

Reader question: How common is air conditioning in Rome apartments?

With summer at the Eternal City's doors and temperatures on the rise, one reader asks: how easy is it to find an apartment in Rome with air conditioning?

Reader question: How common is air conditioning in Rome apartments?

Question: ‘I’m thinking of moving to Rome next year. With the effects of climate change and summers getting hotter, are air conditioners becoming more common in homes? If so, how does that work with the peculiar Italian system of consumption of electricity?”

Last summer was a scorcher in Italy, and Rome last July registered its hottest temperature since records began, at 41.8 degrees Celsius.

Yet despite warnings from Italian health authorities to drink water and stay inside, one object was missing from most homes in the capital: an air-conditioning unit.

READ MORE: Seven tips for surviving (and enjoying) Rome in summer

Air conditioning is far from guaranteed in apartments in Italy in general: partly because of the amount of energy they use, but there’s a long-standing fear of cold air (colpo d’aria) and a belief that if you stand near cold currents, you will be ill.

While this may be true for some people, soaring temperatures suggest this fear will increasingly be put to rest – and the most recent data suggests that it somewhat has.

A growing number of homeowners are looking at installing air-conditioning units in Lazio, the region where Rome sits, with a six percent rise in enquiries from 2021 to 2022.

This increase was attributed to the launch of Italy’s bonus condizionatori, a state incentive launched in 2022 for the purchase of more efficient AC units, as well as to rising temperatures.

The trend seems to be nationwide, with certain types of air conditioning units seeing a 27.9 percent increase in the first half of last year, according to association Assoclima.

READ ALSO: What are the rules for installing air conditioning in your Italian home?

However, this doesn’t mean it’s getting much easier to find an apartment with air conditioning: in Rome, their absence is still all too apparent

If you go into most restaurants, particularly outside the city centre, you will not find it. If you are going on holiday, a lot of places advertise having AC when perhaps it should be a given.

And if you’re renting or buying a property, chances are you’ll be advised to buy a fan and close the shutters on the windows during midday.

Finding an apartment with air conditioning in Rome is possible, but still a rarity. Real-estate search portal Idealista recently surveyed the percentage of properties up for rent or sale in each city which had air-conditioning. Rome did not even make the top 20.

What’s more, it’s hard to know what will happen when air conditioning becomes more common in Rome. There were blackouts last summer in the Rome quarters of Torpignattara, Alessandrino, and Marconi after people turned up their air conditioners in an attempt to keep cool.

Rome isn’t the only part of Italy where this happens: widespread blackouts in Milan in 2022 were blamed on soaring air conditioner use amid extreme heat.

There’s also the fact that standard household power capacity in Italy is set at 3.3 KW (3,300 Watts), which many find is too low to run more than one power-hungry appliance at a time. This limit can be increased by your electricity provider, for a fee, but the expense is often prohibitive.

For all these reasons, air conditioning is still not common in Rome, but it is on the rise. If it’s a must-have for you it’s always necessary to double-check before leasing anywhere.

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