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Reader question: What do I do if I lose my Italian tax number or health card?

Your Italian tax code will be needed for all sorts of things if you live in Italy - so what should you do if you lose the card?

Published: 5 July 2021 17:06 CEST
Updated: 13 March 2024 13:57 CET
Reader question: What do I do if I lose my Italian tax number or health card?
Photo: Mario Laporta/AFP

Question: “When I first moved to Italy I got my codice fiscale (tax code), but I have since lost the card with the number written on. Can I get it replaced and, if so, how?”

Your codice fiscale is one of the first things you’ll need to apply for when you move to Italy, and one of the most important – it will be needed for all sorts of aspects of life here. (See a guide to getting it here.)

When you register, you may or may not be issued a handy wallet-sized plastic card featuring your Italian tax code. Many local authorities only issue these on request.

Most Italians instead use their health card (tessera sanitaria) as a record of their tax code, as it’s also prominently featured on there.

As a foreign national living in Italy, you’ll be issued with a health card if you’re registered with the Italian National Health Service (SSN, or Servizio Sanitario Nazionale).

Not all of Italy’s foreign residents are eligible for SSN registration, and if that’s your situation you may want to request the tax code card (tesserino di codice fiscale) instead.

READ ALSO: Who can register for national healthcare in Italy?

Whichever card you get, your Italian tax code is needed so often in everyday life that being able to carry it around with you in some form will be helpful.

If either one of these cards is lost, damaged or stolen, the good news is that it’s easy and free to apply for a replacement.

You can order a new copy of either card online through the Italian tax agency (Agenzie delle Entrate) website here.

You will need to provide some personal details – including your tax number, so hopefully you’ll have it written down elsewhere.

The card should be sent out automatically to your registered address.

If you’ve made that request but nothing happened, the official FAQ advises that if you don’t receive the card “within a reasonable period of time” – although what sort of timeframe the agency considers reasonable is not specified – you should contact your local tax office, which issues the cards, to check that the registered address they have for you is correct.

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If you’re requesting a new tessera sanitaria, you can check the status of the application by entering your codice fiscale in the online portal here. You’ll need an electronic ID (such as a SPID) to access this portal.

You can also request a new copy of your tessera sanitaria in person by visiting your ASL, or Agenzia Sanitaria Locale (local health authority) office. Find the details of your ASL here.

A duplicate card can only be requested once per calendar year .

What if my health card is about to expire?

If you have ‘mandatory’ (free) SSN registration, you’re in luck: you don’t have to do anything to renew your tessera sanitaria. The local health authority should send the new card to you automatically when your current one expires, normally after six years.

If the new card doesn’t turn up however, there’s no way to request a renewal online. You will then need to go to your local ASL (health authority office) in person to request it.

If instead you don’t have free SSN registration, but need to pay an annual fee, your card is valid for a year and it won’t be automatically renewed.

In this case, you’ll have to apply for the renewal each year, a process which unfortunately can’t be carried out online.

For more information, check the official tessera sanitaria FAQ website here.

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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?

Published: 13 June 2024 12:48 CEST
Updated: 16 June 2024 08:21 CEST
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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