Work outside the quotas and the EU Blue Card

Article 27 of Legislative Decree 286/1998 lists the workers who enter Italy outside the quotas and at any time of the year: managers and highly specialised staff of companies with a seat in Italy, university lecturers and professors, translators and interpreters, domestic workers who follow their employer, trainees, seafarers, employees seconded for a specific work, artists and musicians, professional sportspeople, foreign correspondents, digital nomads and remote workers, au pairs and nurses. To these the Blue Card adds the highly qualified workers of every sector, under the European directive as rewritten in 2023.

The procedure

For most of the categories the employer requests the nulla osta from the Sportello Unico of the Prefecture, which issues it within the term the law fixes, and for some a simple communication of the proposal of a contract of stay replaces the authorisation. The worker obtains the visa at the consulate of the country of residence on the strength of the nulla osta and, within eight working days of the entry, signs the contract of stay at the Sportello Unico and requests the permit, which lasts as long as the contract and at most two years, and for the digital nomads and the seafarers at most one year. The permits of article 27 are tied to the activity for which they were issued and are converted into an ordinary permit for employment only where the law allows it.

The EU Blue Card

Legislative Decree 152/2023, in force since 17 November 2023, opened the Blue Card to a worker who holds a university degree of at least three years, or a post-secondary qualification of three years, or a regulated profession, or a higher professional qualification with five years of experience, or, for managers and specialists in information technology, three years of experience in the last seven, and who is offered a contract of at least six months with a pay not lower than the collective agreement and than the average gross pay recorded by the national statistics office, a threshold which the Ministry updates each year and which stands in the region of thirty-five thousand euro a year. The employer of a holder of another permit for highly qualified work no longer verifies the employment centre. The holder may carry on a self-employed activity alongside the employment, may work for ninety days in one hundred and eighty under the Blue Card of another member State, and in the first twelve months changes employer only with the prior authorisation of the labour inspectorate, deemed granted after fifteen days under the decree-law of October 2025. After five years the long-term permit is open.

Transfers within a group and researchers

A manager, a specialist or a trainee employed by a company outside the European Union and transferred to an entity of the same group in Italy enters under articles 27-quinquies and 27-sexies, for at most three years, one for the trainee, without renewal, on a nulla osta requested by the Italian entity, after at least three months with the company abroad. A researcher enters under article 27-ter on a hosting agreement with a university or a research institute accredited by the Ministry, which requests the nulla osta, and obtains a permit of the length of the agreement, with a permit of one year to seek work after it. A British manager posted to the Italian subsidiary of a British group, or a researcher invited by an Italian university, follows these routes and never meets a click day.

If you have an offer of qualified work in Italy, or your company intends to post you there, send us the offer, your qualifications and the structure of the group. We tell you which article applies, what the Sportello Unico will ask for, and we prepare the declarations of value and the translations of the qualifications.