The first thing you need to do in order to live in Italy as self-employed is to get a Long-stay self employed visa (Visto di lavoro autonomo).
Italy basically want’s you to come there and pay your taxes there and spend your money there since most of the young people are leaving Italy to search for jobs. But, this information did not seem to get to the embassies at the time of writing this post. So they may fight you in the beginning on issuing you this visa type or try to limit your stay to X amount of days for some unknown reason.
The way to handle them is show that you know the rules, you are not asking them for information on how to get it. You already know what is required and you know that this visa let’s you renew your residency permit as much as you want, and you just want to set up an appointment to give them all the documents and get the visa.
Basically, show no fear. If that doesn’t work, you might have to lawyer-up and have him/her turn on the pressure.
This visa’s validity is for 1 year and it’s type is ‘national’. Meaning, it doesn’t give you any benefits in other EU countries.
It lets you stay in Italy for that amount of time and you can come and go as you wish. (Assuming they marked “multiple” entries on that visa and not “single”, and assuming you are not passing through any Schengen countries until you’ve received your first residency permit)
It also lets you work from Italy using your country’s tax account until you get things sorted out in Italy. (That might cause some taxation complications with your country depending on the tax agreement between the countries and how aggressive is the tax agency in your country)
The visa like any Italian visa is non-renewable. Meaning, if you would like to stay more than a year or be able to do anything a normal resident does in Italy within that year, you will need to get your residency permit (permesso di soggiorno).
Within this year you should sort out all of your bureaucracy involving your relocation as self-employed which is a lot.
So, what are the requirements for getting this visa?
- To be self-employed in your country already and be able to show tax returns for the previous year showing that you are making money as self-employed or a contract with a customer that specifies an unlimited duration and your compensation per hour and amount of hours per month.
- You need to show that you have a minimum annual income that is the “minimum required by law for the exemption from participation in health care costs” which at this time is around 8,500 Euros per year.
- Getting a ‘Nulla osta’ from Questura.
Questura means the primary police station in the city you want to relocate to. They handle all of the immigration stuff.
‘Nulla osta’ means that they certify they have no problems with you living in Italy.
To get this certificate, they will check the that you are not wanted by Interpol or something like that and that there is still availability based on the immigration quota limit for this type of visa (called Decreto Flussi, So probably best to try to get this document close to when new quotas are published each year). At this time, there are about 500 visas of this type available each year.
Before going to Questura, you should get the documents from Camera di commercio and bring then with you. - Getting 2 certificates from ‘Camera di commercio’.
‘Camera di commercio’ is the chamber of commerce.
They will need to give you a document showing how much money you need to have in order to start your business according to your profession. The current amount is set to 17,700 euros for all professions.
They might ask for proof before giving you the document or they might not. The embassy later on might do the same.
Another thing you will get is also a ‘Nulla osta’ from them. But this depends on your type of profession. You may need to get something else instead from a different place if your profession is regulated. (i.e. electrician, doctor etc..) - Proof of long-term accommodation (I was able to convince the embassy to settle for 3 months from the appointment date). Meaning, a rental agreement. And this rental agreement needs to have several months left from the date of your appointment. If you do the contract when you go to Italy the first time and you only got 1 month left by the time of your appointment it will not be enough. And since you can’t get a normal rental contract in Italy before you get the receipt from the postoffice for your permesso di soggiorno appointment, your choice is basically AirBnb and this kind of stuff..
They might press you on getting a normal long-term rental contract. So clear it up with them first.
Show them the law that prohibits homeowners from renting you an apartment before you get your permesso di soggiorno (as explained in this post) , then tell them you will sign an AirBnb contract for 3 or 4 months and you will give them that contract (called “contratto transitorio”). They should give up at that point. If they don’t, you’ll need a lawyer.
* If you make your booking through the AirBnb link, you will get a discount.
So basically, you need to start living in Italy before anyone lets you live in Italy (crazy I know…).
If you have a friend in Italy and you can get a letter stating you’ll be living there, that could work too. - You will need to fill-up a visa application form which you can download at your country’s embassy’s website.
- 2 passport-size photos
- Your passport
- You’ll need to pay for the visa. At my embassy it was 116 Euros in cash. (I payed with local currency)
So, to get requirements 3, 4 you will need to go to Italy and spend 2-3 weeks there on a tourist visa (Visto di ingresso) assuming all goes well.
If you are from one of the few non-EU countries exempt from being required a tourist visa – just go to Italy.
Once you have all that, you will need to email / call your embassy in order to make an appointment.
Depending on how busy they are and whether it’s close to the beginning for a scholastic year at the universities, the appointment may be set 1-2 months ahead. So you might want to check the times of setting an appointment before you begin, and if it takes a lot of time, set it up before you even go to Italy under the assumption that you will get all the documents by then. You can always cancel your appointment.
Still wanna relocate? 😀
