Family members of Italian and EU citizens
The family members of an Italian citizen, and of a citizen of another member State who lives in Italy, enter and reside under Legislative Decree 30/2007, which transposes the European directive on free movement and which Italy applies also to the family of its own citizens who never left. The rules are more favourable than those of the ordinary immigration law: the visa costs nothing, the income and the housing are not examined, and the residence card lasts five years and becomes permanent.
Who is a family member
Article 2 of the decree lists the spouse, the partner of a registered partnership which the law of the host State treats as a marriage, which for Italy is the civil partnership, the direct descendants under twenty-one or dependent, including those of the spouse, and the dependent direct ascendants, including those of the spouse, with the adopted and the fostered treated as descendants or ascendants. Other relatives who are dependent on the citizen or lived with him, and the partner in a stable relationship duly attested, are admitted under article 3 after an examination of the circumstances, and without the exemption from the fee. A British spouse of an Italian citizen is a family member in the full sense, whether the marriage was celebrated in Britain or in Italy.
The visa for family reasons
The national visa for family reasons for the family members of Italian and EU citizens was reintroduced on 1 June 2024, is issued free of charge and in a priority procedure, is valid for one year with multiple entries, and needs no clearance from the Sportello Unico. The file contains the letter of the Italian citizen with his identity document, the certificate of the marriage, of the civil partnership or of the birth which proves the relationship, legalised and translated or already transcribed in Italy, and the proof of the dependency where it must be shown. The transcription of the marriage in Italy is not a condition of the visa, but it is the condition of every later step, from the registration of the family in the comune to the application for citizenship by marriage, and it is requested through the consulate before the move. A visa-exempt family member, as a British spouse, may enter for ninety days without a visa and apply for the card in Italy, but the consulates advise the visa to those who move permanently, because it settles the status at the border and at the Questura.
The residence card
Within eight working days of the entry the family member requests from the Questura the residence card for a family member of a Union citizen, which lasts five years, allows work in employment and on his own account from the first day, and is not subject to the fee for the permits of the immigration law. After five years of continuous residence the card becomes permanent, and the spouse who has lived in Italy for two years, halved by children, may apply for citizenship by marriage, which the page on citizenship by marriage describes. The card of the spouse survives a divorce where the marriage lasted at least three years, one of them in Italy, and the death of the citizen where the family member lived with him for at least a year.
An Italian citizen from Bari who has lived in Leeds since 2010 moves back to Italy in 2027 with his British wife and their two children, who are Italian by birth. The marriage, celebrated in Leeds in 2015, was transcribed in Bari in 2016. The wife obtains the visa for family reasons in Manchester without a fee, requests the residence card in Bari within eight working days, works from the first month, and after two years of residence applies for Italian citizenship by marriage with the B1 certificate.
If you are the spouse or the partner of an Italian citizen and you are moving to Italy, send us the marriage certificate, the documents of both and the date of the move. We tell you whether the marriage must first be transcribed, prepare the file for the visa and the card, and plan the application for citizenship.