I moved to Venice in June this year and since then have been desperately trying to sort out two things: residency and tax payments! It seems virtually impossible!
I don't know if I am a strange case: I am a freelance journalist paid in pounds in the UK but I do my work here, therefore the Uk tax office told me to 'pay your tax in Italy' but here no one seems to know who I should talk to!
Does anyone know about this/ in similar situation?

My other question is the Carta di Identita, which I have been told now replaces the old 'permesso di soggiorno'. I have been trying to apply for this and was told the E106 health card from UK covered you for health insurance, but another source told me I must get private health insurance?
Does anyone have an answer about this? Any good companies/ advice?

If anyone has even the tiniest inkling I'd be so grateful as the red tape here is driving me mad!!!
:curse:
Julie

Ps, any other expats in Venice/ Veneto region would be great to hear from you!

Hi Julie,

Welcome to the red tape of Italy!

My husband is in a similar situation where he is paid by his company still in the UK and not here, so he has continued to pay tax and national ins in the UK. You are supposed to pay tax in Italy if you are here for more than a certain number of days (not sure of the exact number) and I think this info was posted on this forum a few months ago, so check back over some old posts.

The Carte Identita does not replace the Permesso di Sogiorno - they are different things. I think when we came here last year we went to the comune and they completed the residency forms, we then had our check at home, and then went back to the comune and got our ID cards sorted then. As far as I am aware the Permesso di Sogiorno is no longer required (that is what we were told anyway and we have never had one).

I have friends that moved here in the spring of this year and they had the problem with the private med insurance. The law was changed after we came here. I think you have to have private insurance before they will grant you residency and after you have that you can then be included in the Italian health care system. Until then, the EU health card will cover you for emergency treatment should you need it, I think.

Sorry if these things sound a little vague - my husband dealt with a lot of our paperwork when we first came here as he speaks better Italian than me!

Hope something above helps.

Ciao
Carrie

Carrie, your advice is spot on and what I have been told in the same situation. I believe the health service has a list of approved insurers - mainly Italian I think - but from what I have been told it is also quite reasonable compared to using BUPA or someone and gets you the correct level of care in the system here. Still haven't looked into it myself but I know many who have with no problems. INA would seem a good one to start with!

Thanks very much for the advice. I will look into health insurers at the local azienda sanitaria. But does anyone know if they have to be an Italian health insurance company? Or can any health insurance cover you?

Does anyone recommend one or two health insurance companies particularly?

Thanks again,

Julie

Julie

Forgive me for taking the liberty of E-mailing you. Saw your text on the Internet that you had just moved to Venice in June. My wife and I are going to Venice for the first time on 17/10 for a 5-day stay. Am finding it it incredibly hard to find (rather late booking indeed!) affordable accommodation.

Do you have any ideas/advice for us? I am 58, my wife Susan is 42 & we live in the centre of Amsterdam.

Hope to hear form you.

Brian Downey

My experience hasn't been too bad here - well, no more so than the problems you get in the UK with red tape! I think that the order in which you get everything done is important. What I (with the help of my Italian partner, I have to add) did was:

1) Get my Codice Fiscale. Very simple and quick if you pick your time right. I think I was in the office for about 10 mins.
2) Next was the Permesso di Sogiorno. That took quite a bit longer, spread over two visits. I understand this is no longer obligatory for EU citizens - but for everyone else, it is essential.
3) A visit to the Questura to register my address - I was advised that if I didn't register within the 7 days allowed, I could face a fine of €2.000,00 a day! Just do it.
4) Apply for my Carta D'Identita. Again, it took all of 20 mins in a nice quiet office.
5) Get my Health Card (Carta Regionale del Servizi). With all of my other paperwork complete and in order it was remarkably fast and easily done.
6) After 12 months, remember to get your UK (or wherever) driving license converted to an Italian one. The local driving school will do this for you.

I can't think of anything else to add - just do as every Italian does and have EVERYTHING with you when you do anything. If you give them the opportunity to send you away, they will (Thank you Bozzetto for this tip).

The other thing is to be firm in your resolve - with the documents to back you up -and be nice in the face of everything. Just copy what other Italians are doing - that's why they do it!.

Every public office has a system where you get a number from a machine somewhere and go to the window /sportello) when your number flashes on a screen. Be quick! If you omit the paper number, you will never be seen - no matter how much you shout.

It's pretty easy, really - but different.

ETA: I felt I should add that when I got my P.IVA (exactly the same as getting your VAT number in the UK) I asked my local, friendly commercialista to sort it out for me - which they did within about an hour. That was it! I had my number and was already amongst the ranks of the self-employed in Italy!

"What I (with the help of my Italian partner, I have to add) did was:"

"have EVERYTHING with you when you do anything."

Your good fortune is having an Italian partner to do it for you, i have said in the past that there is no substitute for some one that can curse in the local dialect in order to get things done. It's a totally different ball game if your fresh off the banana boat, as it were.

I have a "bureaucracy brief case" with all my original documentation (including birth a marriage certs) multiple copies of everything, screen prints from government web sites, pens, paper, passport type photos etc. I take it whenever i go on one of these missions.

Are you sure you did all that in Italy? Italy as in Italia? Which office did you walk in and out of in 10 minutes? I think you were just extremely lucky, must have paid someone else to do it all for you or were just dreaming. Nothing but nothing and NOTHING in Italy is "remarkably fast and easily done"

Yes, I'm sure that I did all of that in Italia. In fact, in Milano. As already noted above, my wife is Italian and I am pretty laid back - that means that I tend to smile a lot and not try to shout and carry on. It works well. My other point is to check the office you are going to go to first. Every office has a quiet time - you just have to find out when that is. Yes, it is a bit of effort, but it is also well worth it. The only lucky part was when we were told that we would be liable for prosecution and a €2000 a day fine for not advising the Questura of my presence within the specified 7 days - then they filled the date in themselves.

And no. No bribes were paid whatsoever. Although the 5 large bodyguards and black stretch Mercedes might have helped...

ETA. Perhaps, Dori Doe, you should relax a little more when you are trying to get things to happen here. It's not a race, you know. Well, not a race that I want to "win", anyway. I see far too many people getting hot under the collar about things here not being the same as in England. Well, they are not - thank goodness. Things can be as difficult here as you want them to be - exactly the same as things are in England. And no, I neither lied to you nor paid an agency to do everything. Remember, my wife is Italian - why would I need to do any such thing? Now, smile. It's a beautiful sunny day.

Nardini

Smile? I'm still
I don't advocate shouting either but whether you shout or smile the nothing is remarkably easy or fast. It's just not realistic to give that impression either. If you had the luck of not getting bogged down in bureaucracy here there must be a reason. Hmmm It doesn't depend on you it depends on the people in the office/institution that you're dealing with. Does having an Italian partner mean that bureaucracy is less? No it just means you don't have to pay someone to translate documents and if you don't speak Italian well enough you have someone to speak for you.

As for being more relaxed and not getting hot under the collar, I don't think I do that as I've been here too long and understand how things are. You always need to be well mannered, as is the norm isn't it? Also firm enough to not get pushed from one office to the next like a lost lamb. For someone who isn't used to it ie Julie I don't think telling her to relax, not get hot under the collar and turn up at quiet moment would change her situation much unfortunately. I think it's pretty normal for her or anyone else to get frustrated and fed up. Maybe she should find herself an Italian husband or you could lend her your stretch and VIP security.

Well,Dori Doe, if you would care to glance back to the point before you got hot under the collar about my comment, you will see that my points were:
1) do things in the right order. If you were to apply for your Carta d'Identità before anything else, you would feel you were being given the "run around", when that would not be the case at all. You would just be doing things in the wrong sequence.
2) Stay calm throughout the entire process. Remember that it is YOU that wants it - not the person on the other side of the counter. They are not "servants" at all, nor do they feel that they are in any way. They are "Statale" - very fortunate and rather superior. That is how the job is seen here.
3) All of my documenti were issued in Milano. I can scarcely believe that people are so much nicer in the public offices of Milano than elsewhere in Italy - I have never subscribed to the "terrone" idea that the Lega Nord hold!

So, I repeat, do your homework - that includes finding out EXACTLY what you need before you apply, have all of your documents (as well as several passport style photos of yourself - smiling!) ready and with you. Go to the office beforehand to find out where it is, when it is most quiet (try 9am or lunchtime) and wear your best attitude.

In other words, be prepared and BE POSITIVE!

Good luck and don't let the whinging poms get you down!

Nardini

I wasn't hot under the collar. I was really laughing. I'm just incredulous as to how easy you want to make it all seem. I simply don't agree. Anyway we'll agree to differ.

Good luck to you too

Hi Julie,

I’m an Australian living in Portogruaro near Venice. After 7 years in Italy I am very much in need of some English conversation...Italians just don’t get irony! I would love to meet up with you for a cappuccino.

Hope to hear from you.

Francesca