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EXPLAINED: How to get an Italian work visa

If you're planning to move to Italy for employment, you'll need a work visa. Here's what you need to know about the main options available and the application process.

Published: 5 October 2021 16:59 CEST
Updated: 8 October 2022 10:12 CEST

The Italian flag flies above a historic city centre.

You need paperwork and patience to get your Italian work visa. Photo by Daniel Sharp on Unsplash

The type of employment visa, your country of origin and your profession are all factors in deciding which route you need to take to working in Italy.

If you’re a citizen of a country covered by the European Union freedom of movement rules, visa requirements do not apply but you will need an Italian residence permit for stays longer than 90 days.

In fact, EU citizens and also nationals from Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland don’t need a permit to work in Italy.

If you’re from another country though, you will need to apply for a work permit and a visa (visto) – a type of Long Stay visa valid for those staying in Italy longer than 90 days.

Since Britain left the EU, Brits are now counted as third country nationals, along with Americans and Canadians, for example. This means UK nationals no longer have the benefits of free movement to live and work throughout Europe, and so must follow the same steps.

Explained: What Brits need to know about visas for Italy after Brexit

So, as a non-EU citizen, there are three main documents you need to live and work in Italy:

a work permit
a work visa
a residence permit (permesso di soggiorno) within 8 days of arriving in Italy.

Men discussing business. — The right work visa in Italy for you depends on your business goals. Photo by DocuSign on Unsplash

Whichever path you take, be that as an employee on the payroll, a freelancer or seasonal worker, you’ll need to keep an eye on the so-called Decreto Flussi (Flow Decree), an annual quota for how many people can enter the country from outside the EEA to work.

While this year’s cap has still not been set, reportedly causing concern for recruitment of seasonal workers, for 2020 the government decree set the limit at 30,850.

READ ALSO:

Out of that figure, 18,000 permits were allocated to seasonal work and the rest assigned to non-seasonal or self-employment (including those converting an existing residency permit into a work permit).

It is important to begin the visa application procedure as soon as possible after the publication of the quota list, because most quotas are filled within a few days. Any applications arriving after the quota is filled, or which are completed incorrectly, are rejected.

Salaried employees

Looking at the figures, getting a visa as an employee for an Italian company has the best statistical chance of success.

“You have a lower chance of being turned down as an employee,” accountant and tax expert Nicolò Bolla told The Local in April.

To get a work visa as an employee, you must find a job first. The good news is that your employer will then complete most of the visa application process for you and all you need to do is provide them with the relevant paperwork.

The employer would then need to obtain a permit for you, or Nulla Osta, from the Italian immigration office (Sportello Unico d’Immigrazione – SUI).

Once you get that from your employer, you can apply for the work visa in your home country at your consulate. From there, you may enter Italy, but still need to apply for an Italian residence permit within 8 days of arriving in Italy.

The permesso di soggiorno is the documentation that allows you to legally live and work in the country.

Businessman in suit. — Get on the Italian payroll? You’ll need an employment visa. Photo: Hunters Race on Unsplash

After that, there’s more administration to do in Italy, which changes according to the country you’re coming from and your specific circumstances.

How you do this if you’re not already in the country is by way of a proxy, who negotiates the procedure for you. You may be asked for various documentation, including signed work contracts, a nulla osta, diplomas and certificates, proof of accommodation in Italy and sufficient funds.

EXPLAINED: What type of visa will you need to move to Italy?

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has an updated visa portal to check what you might need, depending on your country of origin – the Italian authorities could ask you for any documentation they deem necessary.

Aside from the work permit, you’ll need to complete your visa application form, which is in Italian, so you may need help with completing it if you don’t know the language well.

You’ll also need:

A recent passport-sized photo.
A valid passport or ID – the expiration date must be at least three months longer than that of the visa.
The work permit (with help form your employer).

You need to submit the application at least three months before you intend to move to Italy and processing it takes around 30 days, at a cost of €116.

The duration of your work visa is the same as your contract, which cannot be shorter than one year. If you have an unlimited contract, your work permit has a maximum length of two years. How long your residence permit lasts will also correspond to the length of your contract.

‘Highly skilled’ workers

You have another shot at getting a work visa as an employee in Italy if you fall under the EU’s Blue Card remit.

Often referred to simply as ‘Article 27’, this section of European law provides an exemption for non-EU workers who fall outside of national quotas within the EU.

Managers, highly skilled executives, ICT workers, artists, journalists, university lecturers and professors, translators, interpreters and nurses are some of the occupations excluded from the annual cap permitted into Italy.

To be eligible for this scheme in Italy, you must have secured a work contract of at least one year, have a minimum gross annual salary of €24,789.93 and have documentation of your qualifications.

The processing time for getting one of these cards is up to 90 days and costs €100.

Details of which category you might fall into are detailed on the EU’s immigration portal.

A nurse swabbing a patient for Covid. — There are extra opportunities for ‘highly-skilled’ workers to enter Italy. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The self-employment visa

Out of the overall annual quota allowed into Italy from outside the EU, there was an allowance for just 500 self-employed workers in 2020. Competition is high, therefore, and gaining a self-employment visa – which allows you to come to Italy as a freelancer – has one of the highest rejection rates.

Getting a self-employment visa has a distinctive set of requirements and might be more complicated than the process for salaried workers.

To apply for the self-employment visa in Italy, you will need:

A work permit for self-employment.
A residence permit within eight days of entering the country.

The first thing you need to do is get hold of a self-employment work permit with the administrative authorities. For that, you need to find the administrative body that applies to you with the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

They will deem the necessary work permit for self-employment, based on the activity you plan to do in Italy.

To get your self-employment visa, again costing €116, you’ll need to apply at the Italian embassy of your country of residence, and just as with an employee work visa, no later than three months before you intend to move to Italy.

When applying at your local embassy, you will need:

Italian visa application form – select the self-employment option.
A passport-sized photo.
A valid passport or ID – the expiration date must be at least three months longer than that of the visa.
The self-employment work permit (nulla osta).

If your visa is approved, you have six months to collect it and enter Italy.

Business visas

Foreign investors planning to move to Italy to start or continue a business have a few options.

Italy offers an investor visa for those planning to back strategic assets in Italy. Both non-EU citizens and those from within the Schengen zone can apply.

The minimum investment is €500,000 and can run up to €2 million in certain companies, charities or government bonds. This visa entitles you two years’ residency, renewable for further three-year periods, and special tax benefits. Investors’ families are eligible to apply for dependent visas.

Read more about applying for the investor visa here.

Start-ups, on the other hand, would need to apply for a type of self-employment visa, but the application process is different.

For people currently in a non-EU country, applicants would need to apply for the Italia StartUp Visa.

You can submit your paperwork through a direct application form or through a certified incubator – which means you’ve already got backing for your business.

You’ll still need a nulla osta and also a copy of your passport, a completed application form and a forecast of your costs and revenues.

Note:

Whichever type of visa you go for, bear in mind that the process can take a while – it’s best to ask your embassy for an idea of the required timeframe and then start as early as you can.

Remember – after you enter Italy with a long-stay visa, you have 8 days to apply for a residence permit (permesso di soggiorno). The length of time this document will remain valid depends on the type of visa you have.

Please note that The Local is unable to advise on specific cases. For more information about visa applications, see the Italian Foreign Ministry’s visa website, or contact your embassy or local Questura in Italy

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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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