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EXPLAINED: What is Italy’s PEC email and how do you get one?

If you're looking to save time, paper and postage costs, swap registered mail for registered email. Here's how you can use PEC, or certified email, to send your most important messages in Italy.

Published: 10 June 2021 10:38 CEST
Updated: 29 April 2023 10:42 CEST
Email inbox on laptop
Life in Italy can be much easier with a PEC email. Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

What is PEC?

PEC (pronounced “peck”) stands for Posta Elettronica Certificata, or Electronic Certified Mail.

It’s essentially an email account that gives you proof that your message was delivered.

Messages sent between PEC accounts are certified with a date and time stamp to show when you sent them and when they were received, with a record of receipt automatically emailed to you as an attachment. In Italy – though not outside of it – they have the same legal value as a physical lettera raccomandata (registered letter).

As of mid-2022, according to the Italian government’s statistics, there were around 14.4 million PEC addresses and over 430 million messages exchanged by PEC.

Who needs a PEC?

Anyone over 18 who lives in Italy can get a PEC, as well as Italian nationals who live abroad.

For some people it’s compulsory. As of October 2020 all businesses registered in Italy are legally required to have a PEC account, including self-employed professionals and ditte individuali (sole proprietorships) – basically anyone with a partita IVA, or VAT number.

Even if that’s not you, you can choose to get a PEC in order to get more Italian admin done online. If you need to send important documents or an official request, for instance to change your registered address or register a contract, you can do it via PEC from home without having to print forms or go to the post office.

In some cases, a PEC may be the only way to send something online. For instance, if you’re writing to a PEC address, messages from a regular email account usually won’t get through. (You may be able to configure your PEC to receive messages from ordinary email accounts, and you can always write from a PEC address to a regular one, but in either case the messages won’t be certified.)

That’s a hurdle UK nationals in Italy have run into when trying to make appointments with the police office, or questura, to apply for a post-Brexit residence card, or carta di soggiorno. Booking involves emailing the questura‘s PEC address, which has to be done from another PEC account.

READ ALSO: Permesso di soggiorno: A complete guide to getting Italy’s residency permit

If you only need to use PEC occasionally and don’t think it’s worth opening your own account, ask someone else with a PEC – e.g. your employer, accountant or lawyer – to send the message on your behalf: it doesn’t necessarily have to come from an account in your own name. 

It’s important to remember that when you send a PEC message, you should get an auto-reply confirming receipt. If you don’t, it might mean your email hasn’t gone through, and could land you in hot water – as our reporter found out the hard way.

How do you get a PEC?

PEC accounts are managed by government-approved private providers, with the Poste Italiane, Aruba and InfoCert (Legalmail) among the most used.

Find a full list of authorised PEC providers here. You can find the details of their services, as well as how to apply, on each company’s website. 

The exact procedure for opening an account varies depending on which company you choose, but most providers allow you to do it entirely online. It usually involves entering your personal information (including your codice fiscale, or tax number), choosing a username and password, signing a contract, and showing a copy of your official ID. 

READ ALSO: Disappearing PECs: How lost emails can land you with big fines in Italy

In most cases you’ll also have to pay for a PEC account, with fees usually charged on an annual basis. 

How much does a PEC cost?

It varies by company and what level of service you choose: Aruba‘s basic package starts at €5 plus VAT per year, rising to €40 plus VAT for a “premium” option with more storage and an option to get notifications via SMS.

The Poste Italiane charges €5.50 for one year, €9 for two years and €10.50 for three years (not including VAT), with the option to add storage for an extra fee.

It’s worth shopping around to find the deal that suits you best, especially as providers regularly run promotions offering discounts or free trials. 

You might also find that a PEC comes included for free with certain bank accounts, particularly business ones.

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POLITICS

Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

The year 2024 is a bumper one for elections, among them the European elections in June. Italy is of course a member of the EU - so can foreign residents vote in the elections that will almost certainly affect their daily lives?

Published: 3 May 2024 15:25 CEST
Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy. 

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote? 

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels. 

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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