Visas & immigration: Italy
Italy offers a genuinely wide menu of legal pathways — from a retiree’s passive-income visa to a wealthy new resident’s flat tax to a strict annual quota for non-EU workers — and 2025–26 rewrote several of them.
Elective Residency Visa: for those who won’t work in Italy
Aimed at retirees and financially independent people, the Elective Residency Visa requires proof of stable, passive income from outside Italy — pensions, dividends, rental income, annuities — of at least €32,000/year for a single applicant or €38,000/year for a married couple, plus roughly €6,200 per additional dependent. Crucially, holders are not permitted to work in Italy, employed or self-employed. You apply at the Italian consulate covering your current residence, and typically also need to show a long-term lease or property purchase and health insurance before the visa is granted.
Digital Nomad Visa: the newer remote-work route
Introduced in April 2024, Italy’s Digital Nomad/Remote Worker visa targets highly skilled remote employees and freelancers working for non-Italian clients. It requires roughly €28,000–30,000 in annual income (set at three times the healthcare-exemption threshold), at least six months of prior remote-work experience, a university degree or five years of equivalent professional experience, health insurance with at least €30,000 of coverage, and proof of accommodation in Italy. Unlike the Elective Residency Visa, this one lets you keep working — just not for an Italian employer.
Two flat-tax regimes, aimed at very different residents
Italy runs two separate flat-tax incentives to attract new tax residents, and both changed materially heading into 2026:
7% flat tax — foreign pensioners
Move your tax residency to a town under 20,000 people in Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia, Campania, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise, or Puglia (regions hit by 2009/2016 earthquakes get an expanded population ceiling), and all your foreign-sourced pension and investment income is taxed at a flat 7% instead of Italy’s ordinary progressive rates, for up to 10 years. A 2026 expansion added dozens of newly eligible municipalities.
€300,000 flat tax — high-net-worth residents
New tax residents (who weren’t Italian tax residents for at least 9 of the previous 10 years) can elect to pay a flat annual charge on all foreign-source income instead of ordinary tax. The 2026 budget law raised this from €200,000 to €300,000/year, plus €50,000 per additional family member (up from €25,000), for up to 15 years. Anyone enrolled before 1 January 2026 keeps the old, lower rate.
Decreto Flussi: the annual quota for non-EU workers
Non-EU nationals who want an ordinary Italian work permit (not one of the routes above) depend on the Decreto Flussi, an annual government decree fixing how many non-EU workers can enter for employment. Under the new 2026–2028 multi-year plan, roughly 500,000 permits are allotted across three years, with 164,850 available in 2026 alone — split between seasonal work (agriculture, tourism), non-seasonal employment (including quotas reserved for specific "priority" and "cooperation" partner countries), roughly 13,600–14,200 slots for domestic caregivers (badanti), and about 500 for self-employment. Applications open in short, chaotic click-day windows where the quota for popular categories can be exhausted within minutes of opening — employers typically need to have the paperwork pre-filed and ready to submit the instant the portal opens.
| Category | 2026 allocation |
|---|---|
| Seasonal — agriculture | Up to ~47,000 |
| Seasonal — tourism & hospitality | ~13,000–15,000 |
| Non-seasonal — priority-country quota | ~25,000 |
| Domestic caregivers (badanti) | ~13,600–14,200 |
| Self-employment | ~500 |
EU/EEA citizens, students, and jure sanguinis
EU/EEA and Swiss citizens need no visa at all — just register at the comune (iscrizione anagrafica) if staying beyond 90 days. Non-EU students need a national (type D) study visa, proof of enrollment, financial means of roughly €6,000/year, and insurance, then convert it to a study permesso on arrival. And anyone with an Italian parent or grandparent should look at jure sanguinis citizenship by descent — see the Bureaucracy section for how sharply Law 74/2025 narrowed that route.
Decreto Flussi click-days are notorious for crashing the government portal and for quotas in popular categories (especially caregivers and priority-country seasonal work) vanishing in under 60 seconds. If you’re relying on this route, work with an employer or agency that has done it before.
If you have passive income, the Elective Residency Visa is the classic non-work route (€32,000/year single, €38,000 for a couple); if you’re a remote employee, the 2024-launched Digital Nomad visa needs roughly €28,000–30,000; if you’re wealthy, the flat-tax regime jumped to €300,000/year in 2026; and if you want to work locally as a non-EU national without a special visa, you’re competing for one of only 164,850 Decreto Flussi slots in 2026.
Sources & how current this is
Italian immigration and tax rules moved unusually fast in 2025–26 — the flat-tax regime jumped from €200,000 to €300,000 on 1 January 2026, jure sanguinis was rewritten by decree in March 2025, and the June 2025 citizenship referendum failed on turnout. Confirm live figures with a consulate, questura, or commercialista before relying on them.