Digital nomads and remote workers
Since April 2024 a citizen of a third country who carries on a highly qualified activity from a distance, for his own clients as a digital nomad or for an employer abroad as a remote worker, enters Italy outside the quotas with a visa of its own, under article 27 of the consolidated act and the decree of the Ministry of the Interior of 29 February 2024, published on 4 April 2024. The route is open to a British citizen and has become, with the elective residence, the visa most requested in London by those who wish to live in Italy without an Italian employer.
The conditions
The applicant must be a highly qualified worker: a degree of at least three years, with the declaration of value for a British qualification, or a regulated profession, or five years of professional experience, or three in the last seven for the specialists in information technology. He must have worked at a distance for at least six months, must show an income from lawful sources of at least three times the threshold for the exemption from the health charges, which the Consulate General in London computes at three times eight thousand five hundred euro, that is twenty-five thousand five hundred euro a year, must hold a medical insurance for the whole stay and the proof of an accommodation in Italy, and must not have, nor must his employer have, a conviction in the last five years for the offences on the employment of foreigners which the decree lists.
The application in London
The consulate receives the applicant in person and decides within one hundred and twenty days. For the self-employed the file contains the form, the passport, the photograph, the proof of the qualification, the contracts or the invoices which show the six months of remote work, the payslips, the P60 forms and the self-assessment returns with the receipts of the Revenue which show the income, the registered lease or the extract of the land register of the home in Italy, the insurance, the ticket, and for a resident who is not British the proof of the British status. An employee adds the contract and the letter of the employer which allows the work from Italy. The visa is a national visa of type D.
After arrival
Within eight working days the holder requests from the Questura the permit marked for the digital nomad or the remote worker, which lasts one year and is renewed each year on the proof that the conditions remain, without any nulla osta. The Questura attributes the codice fiscale, the self-employed worker opens a VAT position with the Agenzia delle Entrate, and the family members of the first degree obtain permits of the same length. A holder who spends more than half of the year in Italy becomes resident there for tax purposes and is taxed in Italy on the whole of the income, under the conventions with the country of the employer or of the clients, and the regime for workers who move to Italy may apply to the income produced in Italy. The permit does not count the years towards the long-term permit differently from any other, and ten years of legal residence open the naturalisation.
A freelance designer in Bristol with a degree in graphic design, clients in Britain and the United States, and three years of invoices, rents a flat in Bologna with a registered lease and applies in London with the returns of the last two years, which show thirty-two thousand pounds of income, the insurance and the lease. The consulate issues the visa in the autumn, the Questura of Bologna issues the permit for one year, and she renews it each year with the same proof, taxed in Italy from the first year in which she spends more than one hundred and eighty-three days there.
If you work at a distance and wish to live in Italy, send us your qualification, the proof of your income and of your experience and the home you have found. We tell you whether the file meets the conditions of the decree and of the consulate, and we prepare the declaration of value of the qualification and the translations.