Relocating To Italy
This page summarizes what we know about relocation processes for people coming to Italy from foreign countries.
We are pretty new to this and Italy is a very bureaucratic country, where procedures tend to change over time, so we won't go into much detail here. The following overview will hopefully clarify what to expect and help our personnel and the candidate to be on the same page, should we embark on the process.
Relocating from EU
Citizens of EU countries can move freely to Italy and take advantage of an unrestricted labor market.
This means that relocating is as simple as finding accommodation and signing the employment contract. Easy peasy.
Relocating from outside the EU with Blue Card
Moving from outside the EU for working reasons requires the issuing of the Blue Card, an EU permission to practice in the European area. Issuing a Blue Card in Italy is allowed only for high specialization professionals so you must be graduated (Bachelor's degree or higher) in Computer Science or Computer Engineering for us to request the emission of a Blue Card.
Steps to obtain a Blue Card
1. Obtain a Declaration of Value
This document states that the graduation you achieved in your country qualifies as an Italian Bachelor's degree (or higher).
The Italian Embassy or Consulate in your country can release one for you (contact your university if in doubt). This is usually the step with the longer elapse: how much it will take depends on your country's bureaucracy and disposition to emigration of specialized laborers.
Once you got it, make a copy and send the original to us with a fast and secure shipment! We will need it to make our request for your visa.
2. Sign a Letter of Intent
We will sign an agreement about your hiring, clearly stating your job role, your salary, the duration of the contract (usually permanent) and other details.
We can sign the agreement remotely or you can visit (yay!). If you decide to visit, ask your local authorities for a tourist visa. In those cases where traveling costs too much, you can send an original signed copy. In this case, it's advised to send it alongside your Declaration of Value, since we will also need the original letter to make our request.
Of course, we'll also send you our signed copy!
This step will go in parallel with the previous one.
3. Send the request for your Blue Card
This is on SparkFabrik. We will make a formal request for a Blue Card in light of your professional qualification and our will to hire you.
Your country will have then to evaluate the request and issue you a visa to permanently move to Italy.
We need you to send a color scan of your passport (relevant pages) that clearly shows the visa. The visa number must be clearly readable since we'll have to attach it to book the appointment for your Blue Card.
Almost there...
4. Book all the things
Once you have the visa we can book what's necessary:
- We'll agree on the possible arrival date and you'll book your flight.
- We will book your hotel for the first month.
- We will book the appointment in the local Prefecture to sign your Blue Card contract. We cannot guarantee the date of that appointment but the sooner we'll book, the sooner we'll get it.
The day after the appointment (the same day won't work) we'll go together to a local post office to send your request for registration to the immigration offices.
The Blue Card (and residence permit) will be issued after you will go for your registration, but with the postal receipt we can proceed with your hiring.
5. Hiring
Your hiring will legally begin from the day after you get the receipt.
As soon as you'll have your postal receipt you will sign your hiring contract and we'll take care of the rest.
6. Registration
With your postal receipt, you will also get a date for an appointment at the immigration offices. You'll have to leave your fingerprints and other information. After the registration, you will be issued your Blue Card and the process will finally be over.
Our role
We will take care of collecting all the documents if not for your Declaration of Value (you must provide it on your own, sorry).
We will be present during all the necessary steps, so you don't get lost in bureaucracy or with possible non-english-speaking operators in the various offices.
Costs
Of the costs involved in your relocation, SparkFabrik will cover:
- The hotel for the first 30 days. Having a 30-day long accommodation is mandatory to book the appointment in Prefecture.
- The costs of all the paperwork (stamps, postal expenses, etc).
- Meals vouchers (lunch) for your first days of staying in the office before your actual hiring (see caveat #1 below).
Your flight, local transportation and other expenses are supposed to be on you.
We are working to switch to a relocation fee model, reimbursing a flat fee of ideally € 1.000 for you to spend as better fit your moving plan.
Mind though that you will still have restrictions on your accommodation for the first 30 days so that it will be apt to require the Blue Card.
Caveats
There will be a gap between your arrival and the appointment you will have in Prefecture for the Blue Card contract signing, plus two more working days from the signing to the legal hiring. We'll do our best to shrink that gap but since it doesn't entirely depend on us, it is better to take into account 7 to 15 days passing between your arrival and your actual hiring. Of course, during that period you will be a welcomed guest to our offices so you can get acquainted with the environment and the people and possibly get to know something about how we work.
As an immigrant from outside the EU, you will have to attend 2 days of civic education. The training calendar will be provided when your sign your Blue Card contract. If for any reason you won't be able to attend an event you must provide proper justification or you'll invalidate your Blue Card request. The training has no costs. SparkFabrik won't count the training days as leave or off-time, they'll be on us.
For an incoherent regulation, you can be hired with the sole postal receipt but you can't have an Italian bank account without a definitive residence permit. Since Italian companies are bound to pay wages with traceable transitions, in the first couple of months or so (depending on when you'll get your registration appointment), we will have to either pay you on a foreign bank account or pay you with checks. In the second case, you will have to change checks in cash at our bank branch. This is an annoyance we are working to solve.
For bureaucratic reasons, passing the first 30 days in a hotel is the quickest way to activate the Blue Card contract procedure. There are other options but they will take (way) longer. Among them, you may want to rent an apartment before your trip. In this case, consider that you will have to produce all necessary documentation for a legal rent agreement by the day of your appointment in Prefecture. In addition, you will need to already have an Italian Fiscal Code, which means you have already been in Italy in the past. If you want to go that way SparkFabrik won't be able to act on your behalf, nor refund your costs. We will still do our best to help from a practical perspective, like talking to the apartment owner, collecting physical documents and the like.
Since 30 days pass fast, our advice is to begin to look anyway for a more stable accommodation in the days before your departure. Finding accommodations in Milan may be a non-trivial task depending on your budget, your expectations and the period of the year. As above, we can provide best-effort help, by contacting a shortlist of locators of your choice.
Relocating from outside the EU with a Green Card
If you have relatives in Italy, asking for a family reunification Green Card may be faster.
This permission is available to everyone with a strict relative (parent, child or spouse) who is an Italian citizen or has obtained a regular residence permit. To be entitled to such Green Card you must enter Italy with the proper visa (for family reunification). Ask your local authority how to obtain one. Mind that in case you declare the relative is a spouse, cohabitation is necessary to obtain such Green Card.
SparkFabrik can't help in obtaining such Green Card but the permit allows for normal hiring, exactly like a Blue Card.
Should the relationship that sustains the Green Card cease (divorce, death or other events) while you are already hired, the Green Card can be converted to a Blue Card with a simple request.