registering your presence in Italy

03/29/2011 - 06:51

looking into residency once more where certain requirements are more than clear even for EU citizens and there are a wealth of laws and forms to fill in even for those of you that think you can just travel to your home here whenever you like and thats all it takes.. anyway here is the link.. polizia di stato in English too.. so for stays under htree months your presence needs to be registered and if stopped without the paers stamped by the police when you declared your presence the official line is that you will be deemed to have been here longer than three months.. for EU citizens that then obliges you to apply to be registered on the anagrafe.. which then means you have to have a certain amount of money in an italian bank account.. which means opening one.. that you have to have a private health insurance .. in fact what it also means by implication is that you will then loose the right to be treated abroad via your national health cover which has limits on too.. regarding your stays away and your rights to treatment if trying to use it for lonegr stays abroad.. funny the more you look the more cans of worms open up..

Comment

Thank you for the information and I must confess that I am most surprised of this requirement for stays under 3 months.... I think that it goes against the EU free circulation policy and I do not think that other EU members have similar requirements. Anyway, this time we will comply with the instructions.... I will tell you about the reaction from the Anagrafe at Bagni di Lucca.....

under three month you just go to the state police.. circulating free in europe is a myth.. and each country has its very own rules.. you will find as an Italian citizen here that you have to conform to these rules and that EU rules do not surpass national laws.. so if italian nationals have to then obviously its a national rule that applies to all..

"Foreign nationals - that is non-EU citizens - may enter Italy provided that they hold both a valid passport and, if required, an entry visa issued in their country of origin. As soon as foreign nationals enter Italy they should apply for a residence permit based on the same motivations specified on their entry visa. A residence permit is not required for business, tourism, short visits or study, provided that the stay does not exceed 3 months. EU nationals do not need a residence permit to stay in Italy." ( from the link above) Note the last point.

Hmmm but I suspect that registering your presence at the police station is not a residency pemit so does not contradict the last statement Bunterboy. I wonder if this is due to the fact that Italian citizens are required to have an identity card and be resgistered in their local comune. If you arrive in Italy and stay at a hotel/B&B, your presence is registered by the hotel with the police, so I'm not sure anything has changed really - just that there is now a form for you to do it yourself.

The idea of registering at the police station is all to do with the anti terrorism laws that were passed in 2001. Fortuantely they are now being repealed - but as to whether there is still the requirement for the police to know where you sleep, Im not sure.

Spreading a bit more alarm and despondency is great fun! But it's much simpler to read the DL in full (in Italian). It says you can ("può") register your presence with the police (there are no penalties prescribed for neglecting to do this) and that unless you can prove to the contrary, ("salvo prova contraria") they'll assume you've been hanging around for more than three months. Thus a plane ticket or ferry stub would be more than enough for a holidaymaker. So I wouldn't worry overlymuch - this DL is about the Italian state being able to throw out 'criminals' or 'threats' from EU countries, (and was specifically written with Rumanians in mind). The offer of the opportunity to register with the police could even be seen as a concession to the Roma lobby, though I've no idea if this was the intention.

The rules about registering even if staying in a hotel go way back beyond 2001 and I've always thought they were just unrepealed bits of fascist law - though given the Red Brigade, the "years of Lead" and the neo-fascist bombing of Bologna station I can see how they may be old anti-terrorist laws.

I had a look at the Italian, Spanish and French versions and in all three they state that EU citizens "can" or "may" register with the State Police for stays of up to 3 months. They warn that if you do not do it, this may implicate that you have been staying for over 3 months.... "unless you can prove to the contrary" as stated by Fillide. I do not know what I am going to do this time...I do not like the idea of spending a full day on this ridiculous matter. Also, that law is quite recent, 2008 is quoted.

i would not worry too much.. its a law and there are rules.. its aimed not at one specific EU country but is a protection against mass population transfers and is aimed specifically at less well of people within the EUwith the requirement for residence application at the comune to be listed on the anagrafe showing that you have sufficient funds and insurance cover to be able to stay here .. so the problem is if you are caught without the document.. then you have to spend a lot of time... has anyone tried opening a bank account..it takes ages ... arranged private health insurance.. almost as long.. visted the comune to apply to be registered.. another half day ..all of them requiring i would say a decent level of Italian to understand what you are signing.. so in a sense its a shortcut to being able to stay in Italy for periods up to 3 months with an easy form to fill in.. but i would not suggest anyone spends their time doing so if they believe it would be better to be forced to make an application for residency in the comune.. the problem with the EU to my mind is that by allowing so called free travel between states it also means that they now share all our info.. and each nation can call up all our details very easily so that applications can be checked with an integrated network that each of out national countries hold.. things like using friends addresses or for instance when you leave the UK with no intention of returning and you loose your right to NHS cover as its a terriory based systemm.. ie as a uk national you only have rights to it if you live there.. so you are supposed to remove yourself from the register when you leave.. what it means is that when you register here the UK then has proof that you then no longer are a burden on their health system and instead you in the caes of Italy are a cost to that countrys health system.. so by making laws to force people to register presences everyone saves paying for people that would like to have advantages of being nationals whilst not actually being a national any longer.. its a bit like the car insurance/owenership/ regsitration debate... it can all be got away with.. because people see certain advantages of keeping one part of their life in one country and accepting all the rules that suit them best in the country they move to.. i doubt very much than any control law here will be repealed and in fact it seems to me that there will be more in more places.. as has been mentioned this is from 2008.. not long ago.. and with the thought of further expansion no one is going to get rid of laws which are esential to their minds in reducing health system costs.. and social security payments.. so there will always be laws to do with a persons ability to pay and or contribute.. and now with very open and shared info between member states they have a very good idea if they want you to settle in their country or not...

I agree with your explanations and I do believe that these measures are directed towards certain nationalities within the EU. Also, health cover has a lot to do with it. A similar thing is happening in Spain with many people requiring medical assistance and this is becoming a real problem for health authorities. As we are over the age of 65 we do have our EU health card... so I do not think that the Italian authorities are going to worry too much about us.

I can't believe you are over 65 Gala, you sound so young!

Thank you, bunterboy. I do try to keep young both in body and mind; however, my birth certificate says otherwise.... Anyway, I do not think that I will ever become the typical little old lady. My enthusiasm for life will keep me young... I hope.....

RE the requirement to register with the police - Annec is right, this was due to fascist-era legislation and predates the formation of the EU. How do I know this? I was expelled from Italy in 1969 for not registering. The legislation was aimed at political or other 'undesirables', and was used against those of a radical political bent or those whose lifestyle was deemed unacceptable, eg hippies- yes, I was one! Actually I had applied for a residence permit, and in fact when a group of us hippies were rounded up and taken to the commissariato, I was told that my application had been approved and my permit was waiting for me. I asked if I could have it, and regularise my presence, but the police officer on duty, with a sad shake of his head, said, "ah, signorina, we can't give you your resident permit because you were found without one". Reeling from this Kafka-esque logic, I didn't bother arguing further. Peace and love, eh!

My wife & I have a small house in Le Marche and due to my redundancy are now planning to move more permanently to live in Italy, early next year. I understand from the reading I've done so far that to gain permission to stay longer than 90 days there are conditions we have to meet. One of these is to have employment or 'suffient means' of support. I'm struggling to find figures for what 'sufficient support' means. Do anyone know how much we have to have in our account to meet this criteria?

There is a lot of info on this sort of topic on this forum 'somewhere' ! But to summarise: My understanding is that you need to have something like 2,500 euros in a bank account (or it may be 5,000 - sorry! it is certainly a minimal amount !). You also need health cover for two years, this may be through a private insurance policy. The costs of living in Le Marche are really what you want them to be in some ways and very much depends on your lifestyle. I think the actual costs (all in) would be circa E30k per annum. 40k would be PLENTY, 20k would be a little in the tight side I think. I'm sure you'll cope and also love it, good luck ! S

it's curious that Adriatica brought this up today because i have just been called by the police,the reason being two british people stayed with us but they claimed the only documents they had with them were British driving licences because they had left their passports in Faenza.As there was no choice itook the licence details and filled in the rest of the form as always The next day the questura a called to tell me off more than sternly that we may NOT take ANY guests who are not in possession of either a valid passport or a valid identity card DRIVING LICENCES including Italian ones are not acceptable as proof of identity in that the issuing authority in italy the !motorizzazione in uk DVLA do not have the "juridic capacity to establish identity"

A single person must have 6040 euros pa income, a couple 8200 and a family 10400 or more. A bank statement or even autodichiarazione should be enough. Health insurance is more tricky and depends entirely on the comune where you live .... in le Marche it seems a nightmare!