Immigraion To Italy

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Permits & Visas

For American passport holders, a passport is the only requirement for stays in Italy of up to three months within a six-month period. No matter if arriving like this, or with a visa, within eight days of arrival in Italy you must register at the local police station, questura. The questura is suppose
to then give you a permesso di soggiorno, permit to stay. In an ideal world that would happen, but in the quagmire of Italian paperwork that would almost be a miracle. Expect to return to the questura multiple times before you actually have the permesso in your hands.

An American friend of mine applied for a three-month student visa in Milan. He dotted all of his ‘i’s and crossed all of his ‘t’s, but when he arrived in Milan to get his permesso di soggiorno he was told that the paperwork was not ready yet, and that he should come back in a few weeks. When he went back he was told the same thing, so every week after that he took the metro to the questura and asked if his visa was ready yet. When his three months were up, he got back on a plane and returned to the United States, never having received his permesso di soggiorno.

This is a typical story of acquiring a permit to stay or work in Italy. Throw in a lot of long lines, tax stamps, waiting, and hassles about details, which differ from office to office, and you have Italian bureaucracy. It is not impossible however, to obtain what you’re after. State employees glowing in their self-importance are made a little easier to swallow when coupled with the generally relaxed nature that American and European immigrants are viewed in. In other words, if you’re in Italy, but the Italian bureaucracy has not yet produced your necessary paperwork, it’s unlikely that you’ll be stopped in the street. You’ll just find getting a well paying job extremely difficult.