COPY LINK

For members

VISAS

EU Blue Card: Who can get one in Italy and how do you apply?

If you need a visa to work in Italy, could an EU Blue Card be the right option for you? Here’s what to know about taking this lesser-used route.

Published: 18 January 2023 16:12 CET
Updated: 15 June 2023 09:47 CEST

EU Blue Card: Who can get one in Italy and how do you apply?

Photo: Marco Ceschi su Unsplash

All non-EU citizens planning to move to Italy for work will need a valid work visa. The two most commonly used types are self-employment visas (visti per motivi di lavoro autonomo) and salaried employee visas (visti per motivi di lavoro subordinato).

But for employees there is a second, less talked-about option: the EU Blue Card.

First introduced in May 2009 by the European Council, the Blue Card scheme allows highly qualified non-EU nationals to live and work in any member state except Ireland and Denmark.

The benefits afforded by the EU Blue Card vary from country to country. In Italy, card holders on open-ended employment contracts have the right to remain in the country for two years (the card can then be renewed or be allowed to lapse), whereas those on fixed-term contracts are allowed to stay for the entire length of their contract plus three months.

More importantly, unlike Italy’s standard salaried worker visa, the EU Blue Card scheme is not subject to the limitations imposed by the ‘decreto flussi’, a government decree which sets out Italy’s changing annual quota for work permits.

This means that, while there are only so many employee visas available per year, Blue Card applicants face no such limit.

Requirements

There are four main requirements which EU Blue Card applicants must meet, according to the Italian interior ministry.

Applicants must:

Have an undergraduate degree. In order to be accepted by Italian immigration offices, this will have to be validated (dichiarazione di valore) by the Italian consulate of the applicant’s own country of residence. Also, in the case of regulated professions, i.e. occupations that require registration with professional boards or national bars (teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.), all the relevant professional qualifications will have to be certified by the Italian education ministry (MIUR) beforehand.
Have a professional qualification that falls within Level 1, 2 or 3 of the Italian Institute of Statistics’ official jobs classification.
Have a binding job offer from an Italy-based employer that is at least six months in length.
Be offered a salary equal to or over 24,789 euros.

Application process

The first stages of the application process however are handled directly by the employer, which makes it slightly easier for applicants.

After making a formal job offer and once the candidate accepts it, the employer files an online application for a work permit (nulla osta) via the interior ministry’s website.

The application contains the details of the job offer (duration of the contract, job specification, salary, etc.) together with validated copies of the candidate’s degree award and all their other relevant qualifications (see above).

Italy’s interior ministry has 90 days to process the request, after which, if the application is successful, the applicant will be issued a work permit and will be asked to collect their entry visa (visto di ingresso) from their country’s consulate.

After entering Italy through the above visa, the applicant will have eight days to go to their local immigration office (Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione, SUI), fill out an application form for the issuance of a EU Blue Card residence permit (permesso di soggiorno Carta Blu UE) and then post it to their local police station (Questura).

Failure to turn up at the immigration office and post the application form within the given time frame will result in the nulla osta being revoked.

Once the permit is ready, the applicant will be asked to collect it at their local Questura, officially completing the application process.

EU Blue Card residence permits have a two-year validity for people on open-ended contracts, whereas they expire at the end of employment for people on fixed-term contracts.

Common questions:

How much does the application process cost?

There’s a 100-euro application fee plus a number of other administrative costs adding up to a total of around 75 euros.

Can I change my job while on a EU Blue Card residence permit?

Yes, if your new position requires the same level of skill and expertise required by your original position.

All changes must be communicated to and then approved by your local labour inspectorate (Ispettorato Territoriale del Lavoro).

Can I renew my EU Blue Card residence permit?

Yes. Renewal requests must be submitted directly at your regional police station’s immigration office (Questura).

Can I take family members with me?

Holders of EU Blue Card residence permits have the right to be joined in Italy by the following family members (see articles 28, 29 of the Immigration Bill):

Legal spouse
Children under the age of 18
Children over the age of 18 only if they’re financially dependent on the Italian residence permit holder due to serious disability
Parents over the age of 65 only if no children of theirs reside in their country of residence and no children can support them financially due to serious health problems

In order to be joined by the above family members, EU Blue Card holders must have:

Adequate housing
Minimum annual income (this depends on the number of family members joining the applicant)

In order to be joined by family members, Blue Card holders must submit a request at their local immigration office (Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione) and provide proof of their relationship with the relevant family members.

If the request is successful, the Blue Card holder’s family members are given a residence permit for family purposes (permesso di soggiorno per motivi di famiglia) with the same duration as the Blue Card residence permit.

Please note that The Local cannot advise on individual cases. For further information on the EU Blue Card and how to apply, visit the Italian interior ministry’s website.

Member comments

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.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!