Indians in Italy: the 2026 guide to visas, the Decreto Flussi, permits, health care, rents, tax, driving, schools, citizenship, gurdwaras and Diwali

Italy had 5.37 million foreign residents on 1 January 2025 in the figures of the national statistics institute, ISTAT, and its provisional estimate for 1 January 2026 is 5.56 million. Indians are 3.2% of the 2025 total and the eighth-largest nationality in ISTAT’s table: 171,429 Indian citizens were resident in Italy on 1 January 2025, 250 more than Pakistan (171,179) and fewer than Egypt (174,141), Bangladesh (213,622), Ukraine, China, Morocco, Albania and Romania. That is ISTAT’s latest count by citizenship, and the one for 1 January 2026 had not been published when this page was written. It counts people who hold an Indian passport and are registered as living in an Italian comune. It leaves out the Indians who have taken Italian citizenship, of whom ISTAT records 84,101 between 2015 and 2025, and anyone with a permit who has not yet been registered.

The Indian government counts a wider group. The site’s population line for Italy reads: “About 251,000 overseas Indians (Indian citizens and people of Indian origin) live in Italy: 251,049 in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ estimate for January 2026. That is 171,429 Indian citizens and 79,620 people of Indian origin.” The ministry’s figure for citizens is the same number as ISTAT’s count for 1 January 2025, so what the ministry adds is the 79,620 people of Indian origin, for which we found no method. The three counts answer three different questions and should not be subtracted from one another.

Italy has no separate Indian guides on this site yet for jobs, OCI or passports, so this page deals with work and residence itself. Three levels of government decide most of what follows: the State (visas, permits, tax, citizenship), the regions (they run the health service, so the names and some rules differ between Lombardy and Lazio) and the comune (registration, schools, housing help). Where a rule changes on a date, the date is given, and the open questions are listed at the end of the missions and safety section.

Three counts, three questions

ISTAT publishes two series about Indians that are easy to confuse. The first counts residents: people registered in a comune who hold Indian citizenship on 1 January. The second counts permits: the Interior Ministry’s stock of residence permits held by non-EU citizens on 1 January, whatever their registration. The Indian ministry’s count (251,049 for January 2026) comes on top of both.

Resident Indians have grown by 16% since 2019, and by only 549 people (0.3%) in the last year, from 170,880 to 171,429. The permit series moves in the opposite direction in 2026: 180,618 permits on 1 January 2026, 13% more than a year before. Of those, 75,936 fell in ISTAT’s long-term category and 104,682 in its other, non-long-term one, and it is the second group that grew, by 35% from 77,483. Men are 56.6% of the residents (97,029) and women 43.4% (74,400). We found no published breakdown of Indian residents by age or by state of origin in India, and this guide does not guess at one.

Who has been arriving: the permits issued

ISTAT also counts the permits issued during the year. Indians received 30,227 new permits in 2025, against 16,907 in 2024 and 17,556 in 2023, which is 79% more than the year before. By reason in 2025: work 13,783, family 9,635, asylum and international protection 4,321 (ISTAT groups asylum granted, asylum applications and protection together), study 1,888 and other reasons 600. ISTAT does not say why the total jumped, and the rise in permits held at the start of 2026 is the same movement seen from the other side. A resident count that is flat beside rising permits and arrivals suggests that people leave the register about as fast as they enter it, and some arrivals will not yet have been registered in a comune. Naturalisation, described next, is one exit; ISTAT does not say how much of the gap it explains.

Naturalisations: the community that the passport count misses

ISTAT records 84,101 former Indian citizens who acquired Italian citizenship between 2015 and 2025: 6,176 in 2015, 9,527 in 2016, 8,200 in 2017, 5,425 in 2018, 4,683 in 2019, 5,602 in 2020, 4,489 in 2021, 8,509 in 2022, 9,736 in 2023, 12,258 in 2024 and 9,496 in 2025. These people, and the children who took Italian citizenship with them, are in none of the passport-based counts. They are one reason a gurdwara can be much larger than the resident figure for its town suggests: Novellara, for example, has 448 Indian citizens on ISTAT’s register and a gurdwara that a visiting writer estimated drew almost 2,000 worshippers on one Sunday, although a gurdwara also draws from the towns around it. The ministry’s 79,620 “people of Indian origin” is of the same order as the naturalisations, but the two are different counts and we found no reconciliation of them.

The Punjabi settlement and the later arrivals

The Indian presence in Italy is mostly a Punjabi one, and a working one. Sikh writers in a booklet of the Centro Astalli, the Jesuit refugee service in Italy, say their communities come mostly from Indian Punjab, have lived in Italy for about thirty years (the booklet is undated; the copy we opened was posted in 2023) and number about 100,000 believers, mainly in the north: around Mantua, Turin and in the province of Cremona, with a long-standing presence in the Emilian towns such as Novellara and in the Agro Pontino of Latina province. Italy has no census data on religion, so every figure for the Sikh population, from that 100,000 to the higher numbers in newspapers, is an estimate. The later arrivals are different: the work permits of the Decreto Flussi, students on the Universitaly route and families joining, and the sections below follow each.

Languages

The Punjabi-speaking communities of the farm and dairy towns are the most fully documented, and the gurdwara is their meeting place. The ISTAT tables do not give a mother tongue and no public source we found counts Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu or Bengali speakers in Italy, so the associations are the only evidence of who else is here. Language is the first barrier everywhere: a worker’s contract, the doctor’s forms and the school’s notices are in Italian, and the 2026 decree on schools (see schools) offers free Italian courses to parents who struggle.

South Asian neighbours

Italy’s South Asian communities are of similar size. On 1 January 2025 ISTAT counted 213,622 Bangladeshi, 171,179 Pakistani and 113,705 Sri Lankan citizens. Bangladesh is the sixth-largest nationality in Italy and larger than India, Pakistan is level with it and Sri Lanka is two-thirds of its size. These are separate communities with their own associations, and the numbers are given so that a reader can judge how large the Indian one is beside them.

The regions

Five regions hold three-quarters of the Indian residents (130,480 of 171,429, or 76%), and two of them, Lombardy and Lazio, hold almost half (84,108, 49%). Between the two dates Lombardy, Lazio and Emilia-Romagna lost people on the register while Veneto, Campania and Piedmont grew; ISTAT gives no reasons.

The provinces: farm country, not the big cities

The Indian community in Italy sits in the provinces where there are farms, dairies and factories, not where the big cities are. After Rome, the four largest provinces are Brescia, Latina, Bergamo and Mantua, and the metropolitan city of Milan comes only eleventh.

The eight provinces of the Lombard and Venetian plain and Emilia in that table (Brescia, Bergamo, Mantua, Cremona, Vicenza, Verona, Reggio Emilia and Parma) hold 64,240 Indian citizens, 37% of the country. Latina’s 13,487, with the Anzio–Nettuno coast just north of it in the province of Rome (2,419), is the other cluster. The figures are Indian passport holders; naturalised Punjabis in the same towns are additional.

The towns

The ISTAT register by comune (Tuttitalia’s tables, 1 January 2025) shows how concentrated it is:

• Province of Latina (13,487): Terracina 2,118, Fondi 2,075, Sabaudia 1,623, Pontinia 1,513, the city of Latina 1,508, Aprilia 1,490 and San Felice Circeo 1,087. Those seven comuni hold 11,414, or 85% of the province. The farm where Satnam Singh worked is at Borgo Santa Maria, in the province of Latina.
• Province of Brescia (14,746): Brescia 2,780, Manerbio 605, Leno 540, Quinzano d’Oglio 525, Montichiari 470, Borgo San Giacomo 443, Ghedi 344.
• Province of Mantua (9,573): Suzzara and Viadana 888 each, Castiglione delle Stiviere 630, Goito 584, Gonzaga 399.
• Province of Cremona (6,889): Casalmaggiore 384, Soncino 283, Soresina 276, the city of Cremona 274, Ostiano 255.
• Province of Reggio Emilia (5,160): Novellara 448, the city of Reggio Emilia 431, Campegine 399, Luzzara 388, Poviglio 317.
• Province of Verona (6,240): Verona 1,048, San Bonifacio 647, Monteforte d’Alpone 330.
• Province of Rome (18,228): the city of Rome 11,860, Anzio 1,737, Nettuno 682, Fiumicino 617, Ardea 509, Ladispoli 408.
• Milan (4,172 in the metropolitan city): the city of Milan 2,016, Melzo 131, Pioltello 108.
• Turin (1,740 in the metropolitan city): the city of Turin 816, Pancalieri 171, Carmagnola 64.

The cities

Rome is the one city with a large number of Indian passport holders, 11,860 or 7% of the national total. Milan has 2,016 and Turin 816, which is small beside the 14,746 in the province of Brescia. No source we found counts IT workers, engineers or students among them, and the permit data give one clue only: 13,783 new work permits and 1,888 new study permits went to Indians in 2025. The student route and the Blue Card are covered under studying and visas and work; the city rents are under renting.

How to choose a place

The choice is usually decided by the job. A farm or dairy job comes with a place, often a hamlet some way from a town, and the questions are transport, a doctor and the school bus. A city job comes with rents from about €13 a square metre (Turin) to €22 (Milan). The mission that serves you depends on the region (see missions), and the gurdwara or temple nearest your work is worth finding before you choose a lease.

The work that brought the Punjabis

Sikh workers are on cattle farms and in the dairies of the provinces that make Parmigiano Reggiano, and on farms in the Agro Pontino, the reclaimed plain of Latina province. Wikipedia’s entry on Novellara says its large Sikh community works mainly on cattle farms and in the dairies where Parmigiano Reggiano is made, and a writer for the Lausanne Global Conversation who visited on a Sunday reported the same. Popular articles give figures, such as “60,000 Sikhs in the Po valley” or “up to 60%” of the workforce behind Parmigiano. They are not statistics. The only count we can give is ISTAT’s: 64,240 Indian citizens in the eight provinces named in where Indians live, and 13,487 in the province of Latina, not counting the naturalised or the unregistered.

The death of Satnam Singh

Satnam Singh, 31, lost an arm in a machine accident at the Agrilovato farm in Borgo Santa Maria, in the province of Latina, in June 2024, and died two days later in a Rome hospital. His employer, Antonello Lovato, was accused of driving him home with the severed arm in a fruit crate and leaving him there without calling an ambulance. On 8 July 2026 the Court of Assizes of Latina convicted Antonello Lovato of voluntary homicide with eventual intent (dolo eventuale), granted him the general mitigating circumstances and sentenced him to 16 years; the prosecution had asked for 22. His lawyer said he would appeal to the Court of Assizes of Appeal in Rome, arguing that the charge should be negligent homicide, so the verdict is a first-instance one and may change. Lovato has been in custody since his arrest in July 2024.

A second case runs separately. Antonello Lovato and his father Renzo, described as the farm’s de facto administrator, face a trial for illicit labour intermediation and exploitation (caporalato). Il Post reports that, according to the prosecution, the workers were employed off the books and paid €5.50 an hour; those are allegations in an unfinished trial, not findings. Satnam Singh’s partner, Soni, worked on the same farm. The family, the Lazio Region, the comuni of Latina and Cisterna, the social-security institute INAIL, the union CGIL and the anti-mafia association Libera were civil parties.

What the law changed

Decree-law 145 of October 2024, converted by Law 187 of 2024, gave exploited foreign workers a route out. Under it a foreign victim of illicit labour intermediation and exploitation who cooperates with the authorities can receive a residence permit of six months, renewable, which allows access to assistance services, study and work and can be converted into a work or study permit; workers who help expose exploitation, and relatives to the second degree, can get protection measures, and a worker who helps establish the offence may have state-funded legal aid. The same decree tightened the Decreto Flussi: it digitalised the signing of the integration agreement, required biometric identifiers from national-visa applicants, changed the procedure for seasonal permits, allowed work nulla osta to be suspended for nationals of countries at particular risk, and made family reunification depend on two years’ legal residence, with minor children excepted (all as the Chamber of Deputies’ dossier summarises it).

A later change concerns where workers sleep. The simplification law that Parliament approved on 26 November 2025 replaced the public-housing minimum with the Health Ministry’s hygiene and height standards as the test of whether a flussi worker’s lodging is suitable, and eased the rules for site dormitories and hotels.

What a worker can do

These are practical steps, not legal advice: - Ask for a written contract before the first day and keep the nulla osta and the signed residence contract. Under the Decreto Flussi it is the employer who applies and who signs the residence contract digitally within 15 days of your arrival (decree-law 146/2025 extended it from eight). The jobs guide covers the quotas, the Blue Card, pay under the collective agreements and the scams in full. - Keep a record of the days and hours you work and what you are paid. Work off the books at a low hourly rate is what the Latina prosecutors allege. - Call 112, Italy’s single emergency number, for an injury, and ask for an ambulance first. The Latina verdict concerned an employer who did not call for help; whatever the appeal decides, the first step after an injury is to call. - The union offices of CGIL, CISL and UIL, the labour inspectorate (Ispettorato del lavoro) and the gurdwara’s committee can all point to the right office. The 2024 decree’s special permit is for victims who cooperate with the authorities, so get advice from a union or a lawyer before you report an employer or sign anything. - If a stranger or an “agency” offers a flussi place for money, remember that the application is made by an Italian employer on the Interior Ministry’s portal and the places are filled in order of arrival on the click day; see visas and work.

The ways in

There are two doors for work. The Decreto Flussi is a government decree that sets yearly quotas of non-EU workers, seasonal and non-seasonal, and the employer in Italy applies for the worker. The EU Blue Card is for graduates and other highly qualified workers with a binding job offer and sits outside the quotas. Study and family reunification are the other ways to get a permit, and the studying section and the permit notes below cover them.

The Decreto Flussi 2026–2028

The Prime Minister’s decree (DPCM) of 2 October 2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 15 October 2025 and put into operation by the interministerial circular no. 8047 of 16 October 2025, sets the entries for three years: 164,850 in 2026, 165,850 in 2027 and 166,850 in 2028, 497,550 in all. In 2026 the places are:

Applications go in on click days, at 9:00, in chronological order of submission. The 2026 days were 12 January (seasonal agriculture), 9 February (seasonal tourism), 16 February (non-seasonal employment, for the categories the circular reserves) and 18 February (other non-seasonal and self-employed work and care workers). The sources we opened disagree a little on which quotas were opened on the 16th and the 18th, and none lists the countries with reserved quotas, so we cannot say whether India has any: read the circular. Employers could pre-fill applications from 23 October to 7 December 2025, and applications can be sent until 31 December 2026 while places last. For 2027 the interministerial circular of 1 October 2026 sets pre-filling from 23 October to 7 December 2026 and click days on 12 January and 9, 16 and 18 February 2027; we did not find the 2028 dates in any source.

How the application works

The application is the employer’s, on the Interior Ministry’s portal, and not the worker’s: 1. For non-seasonal work the employer first asks the local employment centre whether suitable workers are available in Italy; it has eight days to answer. 2. A labour consultant, lawyer or chartered accountant certifies the contract and the employer’s finances, unless the application comes through an organisation that signed the 1 October 2024 protocol. 3. The employer needs a certified email (PEC), receives an activation code after the checks, and must confirm the application within seven days. 4. A private employer can submit up to three applications, and one who did not sign a residence contract for an earlier application in the last three years cannot apply. 5. When the nulla osta (work authorisation) is granted, the worker applies for a visa at the Italian mission in India. The Embassy of Italy is at 50-E Chandragupta Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi; its website lists Italian consular offices in Kolkata, Mumbai and Bengaluru. 6. Within 15 days of arriving (eight until decree-law 146/2025), employer and worker sign the residence contract digitally, and the worker then asks the Questura for the permit (below).

The click day is an employer’s procedure, so a worker has nothing to buy for it. Be cautious of anyone who sells a “place”, an “agent’s file” or a nulla osta for a sum. The Milan consulate’s advisory of 31 October 2022 warned of callers who posed as the Italian immigration office, the Embassy of Italy or the consulate itself and pressed Indian nationals, students in particular, to pay money; it says to share no details and pay nothing.

The EU Blue Card

The Blue Card (Carta blu UE, article 27-quater of the Immigration Act, rewritten by decree 152 of 18 October 2023) lets an employer hire a highly qualified non-EU worker from abroad outside the flussi quotas. The requirements, from the government’s own guidance and the Italian Embassy in Tunis: - A binding job offer or contract of at least six months. - Pay not below the national collective agreement and not below the average gross annual pay per employee that ISTAT publishes. The government’s page of 28 March 2024 puts that at about €36,300; we found no official 2026 figure, so ask the employer to check the current ISTAT value. - Qualifications, one of: a degree or post-secondary qualification of at least three years, with a declaration of value or a CIMEA comparability certificate; the rights required for a regulated profession; five years of relevant experience; or, for managers and specialists in information and communication technology, three years’ experience in the last seven. - Documents in certified translation and legalised or apostilled.

The employer applies online to the Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione. The simplification law that Parliament approved on 26 November 2025 cut the time to issue the nulla osta from 90 to 30 days. The card is valid for two years on a permanent contract and for three months beyond the end of a fixed-term one.

The permesso di soggiorno

A permit is issued by the Questura (the provincial police headquarters). The Milan consulate’s student pages describe the usual first step: a free kit from a post office, a form, photocopies, and an appointment at the Questura where the applicant lives; the same pages list €16.00 for the stamp, €30.46 for the electronic card and €40 for a permit valid from three months to one year, and the post office has the current amounts. A work permit follows the contract, and a renewal is applied for before expiry; the health-service registration continues while the renewal is pending. ISTAT counts 75,936 Indians in its long-term permit category on 1 January 2026, against 104,682 in the other category. Family reunification, after the October 2024 decree, depends on two years’ legal residence (minor children excepted, as the Chamber of Deputies’ dossier puts it). In 2025 Indians received 9,635 new family permits.

Pre-enrolment on Universitaly

An Indian who wants to study for a degree in Italy first pre-enrols on the Universitaly portal, which the Ministry of University and Research runs with the Foreign Ministry; an offer letter from a university does not replace it. For 2026/27 Ca’ Foscari University of Venice gives 30 September 2026 as the last day for non-EU students, and says later applications will not be considered even from accepted candidates. Other universities may set their own earlier dates, so read your university’s page. The Italian Embassy in Islamabad’s notice of 29 May 2026, which restates the national procedure, gives 30 November 2026 as the end of the study-visa application period and says that only students whose pre-enrolment a university has validated can apply for a visa. Check the Italian Embassy in New Delhi and the university for the Indian dates, which can differ.

The visa and the first weeks

After the university validates the pre-enrolment, the student applies for a study visa at the Italian mission in India. The Islamabad notice, which is about Pakistan, adds that neither the embassy nor its outsourcing company charges anything for booking a study-visa appointment, and warns that neither has an official WhatsApp number; treat an “agent” in India who asks for a booking fee with the same caution. ISTAT counts 1,888 new study permits issued to Indians in 2025.

The student permit

On arrival a non-EU student with a study visa applies for the permesso di soggiorno within eight working days. The Milan consulate’s page says to collect the kit from a post office and fill in form 1, then lists: photocopies of the passport and visa, an insurance policy covering illness and injury for the full permit period, the university’s acceptance or enrolment declaration, proof of means (it gives €6,079.45 for the permit period, so ask the university for the current figure), four photographs, and the fees in visas and work. Ca’ Foscari tells its students the same eight-day rule and offers help with the application.

Health, money and registration

A student can register voluntarily with the national health service, even for stays under three months, for an annual flat contribution; the official pages we opened do not give the current amount (an October 2023 government bill proposed €2,000 with a reduction for students), so ask the ASL before paying. Otherwise a private policy valid in Italy is required. The Milan consulate asks Indian students to register on its form and on the MADAD portal, and runs a student corner with notes on accommodation, health insurance, bank accounts and phones, which the first two weeks section draws on. Italian-government scholarships for foreign students are listed on the consulate’s student pages.

After the degree

The government’s Blue Card guidance says a foreigner already legally resident in Italy can apply for the card if the conditions above are met, so a graduate with a qualifying job offer is not obliged to leave first. We did not find an official page on converting a study permit into a work permit, on the time a graduate may stay to look for work, or on student work hours, so check the Questura or the university’s international office.

What changed in 2025, and who it does not touch

Decree-law 36 of 28 March 2025, converted by Law 74 of 23 May 2025, narrowed citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis). It applies to people claiming Italian citizenship through an Italian ancestor, and in outline it limits recognition to two generations, so it matters to descendants of Italian emigrants abroad, not to an Indian family without an Italian ancestor. Applications lodged before 27 March 2025 follow the older rules. We mention it because articles about “the new citizenship law” in the Indian press can read as if they concern every foreigner. They do not.

Naturalisation after ten years

The route open to an Indian is naturalisation by residence (article 9 of Law 91 of 1992), and it has not changed. According to the slides of a lawyer’s training session for the Piedmont immigration network on 4 March 2026: - Ten years of legal residence for citizens of non-EU countries (four for EU citizens, five for refugees and stateless persons). - Income of at least €8,263.31 for an applicant alone, €11,362.05 with a spouse and €516 more for each other dependant, shown by the tax returns of the last three years. - Italian language at least B1 on the European framework. - A contribution of €250. - No list of disqualifying offences, but the file is judged on the applicant’s conduct and a conviction should be rehabilitated first. - A decision in 24 months, extendable to 36.

A person born in Italy to foreign parents and living there can declare a wish to become Italian between the ages of 18 and 19 (the comune must write to remind them), and a spouse of an Italian can apply after two years of marriage if the couple lives in Italy, or three if abroad, halved with children. A referendum on 8–9 June 2025 asked voters to cut the ten years to five; turnout was 30.6%, below the 50% needed, so nothing changed. Between 2015 and 2025 ISTAT recorded 84,101 acquisitions of Italian citizenship by Indians, the most recent year being 9,496.

The Indian side

India does not allow dual citizenship. An Indian who becomes an Italian citizen must surrender the Indian passport, and the Consulate General in Milan has a page on the surrender of the Indian passport and the renunciation of citizenship. Former Indian citizens and their children can apply for an OCI card, which gives long-stay rights in India without being a passport; this site has not yet published an Italy guide to it, so use the consulate’s OCI pages (applications in Milan or Rome, with ready cards returned by courier). Talk to a lawyer before applying if you own property in India or have a pension there.

Everything in Italy hangs on the codice fiscale, the tax code, and the order of the steps matters because each step asks for the one before it. The sequence below is the usual one for a worker or student; check it with your employer, university or a patronato (an advice office, usually run by a union or an association) before you rely on it.

1. Within 15 days of arriving: the permit. A worker and employer sign the residence contract (digitally, under the flussi), and a student collects the post-office kit within eight working days. Keep every receipt, and ask the Questura what it accepts as proof that you have applied while the appointment is pending.
2. The codice fiscale. The Agenzia delle Entrate issues it, and it is the number the bank, the phone shop, the health service and the university will all ask for. Ask your employer or university how to get it in the first days; we could not open the Agenzia’s own page, so confirm the procedure there.
3. Registration with a comune. Once you have an address, the comune’s registry office (anagrafe) registers you as resident. It is the registration that makes you a resident for tax and starts the one-year driving clock (see driving); the comune’s office tells you which documents and which proof of address it wants.
4. The health service. Register at your ASL (the local health authority) with the passport, codice fiscale, permit and a self-declaration of residence; see health care.
5. A bank account. The Milan consulate lists three conditions: be 18, hold a valid passport or ID and have a codice fiscale. The bank gives its terms and account details after you sign, and you make an initial deposit before using the account. An employer who pays by transfer needs the IBAN, so do not leave this for the second month.
6. A phone. Italian operators sell prepaid and postpaid mobile plans, and the Milan consulate says you need a valid passport or ID and the codice fiscale to sign up. If your Indian bank or payment app sends its codes to your Indian number, keep that number active.
7. Register with India’s mission. Students are asked to register on the consulate’s form and the MADAD portal. Workers can write to the mission serving their region (see missions).

Two practical warnings. First, take the originals and photocopies of everything to each office. Second, an employer or landlord who asks you to hand over your passport or permit “for safekeeping” is asking for something you should not give; a photocopy is enough.

Compulsory registration

Italy’s national health service (Servizio sanitario nazionale, SSN) gives registered residents a family doctor, a health card (tessera sanitaria), specialist care and hospital care on the same footing as citizens, with co-payments (tickets) that vary by region. The Prefecture of Rome’s page, last updated on 21 May 2024, says registration is compulsory for foreign citizens who hold a permit and work as employees or self-employed or are on the employment lists; for those with a permit, or a pending renewal, for subordinate or self-employment, family reasons, asylum or an asylum application, adoption or foster care, citizenship or religious reasons; and for their dependent family members. Foreign minors must be registered whatever their parents’ status, a rule in force since 2017 according to the government’s integration portal (page last updated in November 2020). A worker who arrives under the flussi, and the family who join, fall into these categories.

How to register

Go to the ASL of your residence, or, the first time, the domicile shown on your permit. Take the passport or ID, the codice fiscale, the permit and a self-declaration of residence or domicile. Registration lasts as long as the permit and does not lapse during a renewal: show the ASL the proof that you applied. It ends if the permit is not renewed or is revoked, unless you have appealed. After registration you choose a family doctor (medico di base) from the ASL’s list, and for a child a paediatrician.

Voluntary registration, and when private insurance is needed

A regularly resident foreigner who is not obliged to register, such as a student, an au pair or a holder of an elective-residence permit who does not work, may register voluntarily if the permit is longer than three months (study permits are an exception) and pay an annual flat contribution; the amount differs by category and the pages we opened do not give a current one. Someone who is not registered must hold private insurance valid in Italy for illness, accident and maternity, including for family members. A permit for medical treatment does not give access to registration: the holder pays the ASL’s tariffs.

Emergencies and people without papers

The single European emergency number in Italy is 112. A person without a permit can get urgent and essential care with a temporary card for foreigners (STP), according to the government’s integration portal. For children the portal says registration with the SSN is more protective than the STP code, and that the children of irregular residents aged 0 to 6 are exempt from the ticket.

Records from India

Keep your vaccination record and any prescriptions from India, with a translation, because a doctor who starts a long-term treatment will want them.

The two usual contracts

Residential leases in Italy follow Law 431 of 1998, and the two usual kinds are these. The free-market contract runs for four years and renews for four more (the “4+4”); the landlord sets the rent. The agreed-rent contract (canone concordato) runs three years and renews for two (the “3+2”) at a rent inside the bands that local landlord and tenant associations have agreed for the comune; in a comune of more than 10,000 inhabitants it is signed with the help of one of the signatory organisations. Agreed-rent leases keep the rent inside the agreed bands and are taxed less for the landlord, so ask whether the comune has agreed rents. Short and “transitional” leases exist for students and temporary workers.

Deposit, registration and tax

• Deposit. The Agenzia delle Entrate’s guide says the security deposit cannot exceed three months’ rent and is returned at the end of the lease unless the tenant caused damage. That guide is some years old, so check the figure.
• Registration. A lease of 30 days or more must be registered with the Agenzia delle Entrate within 30 days of signing. The landlord normally files it, and an unregistered lease is a warning sign: ask to see the registration receipt.
• Cedolare secca. The landlord who is a private person can choose a flat tax of 21% of the annual rent, or 10% on agreed-rent contracts, instead of income tax on the rent. Choosing it removes the registration tax and stamp duty and the annual inflation update (so the rent is fixed), and the tenant should expect the lease to say so. This is context for reading an offer, not a tenant’s obligation.

What a rent is

The comparison below is Idealista’s monthly asking-rent index. The Milan figure is for the third quarter of 2026, reported on 8 October 2026; the Turin figure is for May 2026, reported on 4 June 2026, and is the latest we found for that city.

We found no published rent per square metre for Latina, Brescia, Mantua, Cremona or Reggio Emilia, and rents in those provinces are not those of the cities. If a room comes with the job, whether from an employer or from a relative who arrived earlier, treat it as a lease all the same. Under the flussi the employer must guarantee suitable lodging, and since the law of 26 November 2025 the test is the Health Ministry’s hygiene and height standard, not the public-housing minimum. If the room you are offered is a shared dormitory, ask for the employer’s lodging declaration in writing.

Renting well

Ask for a written, registered contract in your own name, because the comune, the health service and the school may ask for it; keep the receipt for the deposit; read what the monthly “spese condominiali” (building costs) include; and do not pay a deposit for a flat you have not seen. A “landlord” who is abroad and asks for a transfer first is a common pattern in rental scams.

Income tax in 2026

Italy taxes the income of residents on the worldwide total through IRPEF, with three bands in 2026: 23% up to €28,000, 33% from €28,001 to €50,000 and 43% above €50,000. The 2026 budget law (Law 199 of 2025) set the middle rate at 33%, down from 35% in 2025. On top there are regional and municipal surtaxes, which differ by region and comune, and an employee’s tax is withheld through the payslip, with a deduction that diritto.it puts at a maximum of €1,955 for employment income up to €15,000, reducing to zero at €50,000. Ask a tax assistance centre (CAF) or an accountant whether you must file a return; a second job, rental income or income abroad usually means you must.

Who is a resident

Under article 2 of the income tax code (TUIR) a person is resident for tax if, for most of the year, they are registered in the register of residents, or have their residence or domicile in Italy, which is why the comune registration matters for tax as well as for papers. A resident is taxed on income from anywhere, so Indian rent, interest and dividends belong on the Italian return, and the Indian side must be settled as well.

The India–Italy treaty

The convention between India and Italy to avoid double taxation has been in force since 23 November 1995, according to ClearTax’s summary. The rates it lists are 15% (companies holding at least 10%) or 25% on dividends, 15% on interest, and 20% on royalties and fees for technical services, and, in ClearTax’s summary, salaries are taxable in the country of residence unless the work is done in the other country, which may then tax it. A 2005 Nishith Desai note records that India’s Cabinet approved a second protocol to lower the withholding rates to 10%; we could not confirm that it is in force, so do not rely on the lower rates. For the residency and short-stay tests, the pensions and students’ articles, read the treaty text on the Income Tax Department’s website or ask a tax adviser, because the secondary summaries we opened do not cover them.

Social security

Employees and employers pay social-security contributions through the payslip. We did not find an India–Italy social security agreement in the sources we opened, so ask INPS, the social-security institute, before assuming that Italian contributions can be added to Indian pension service or refunded on leaving.

Sending money

This site has no Italy guide on sending money to India yet. The questions to settle are the exchange rate and the fee together, and whether the bank in Italy or a remittance company is cheaper for the amount you send. Keep every transfer in your own name, and record it for the Italian return if the money is income.

The right to a place

A child of foreign parents has the right to education whatever the parents’ permit. Article 45 of Presidential Decree 394 of 1999 recognises this for foreign minors regardless of the regularity of their residence, and the Immigration Act (article 6, paragraph 2) says a permit does not have to be shown for compulsory school services, enrolment included. A school that lacks documents enrols the child “with reserve” (con riserva), and the child can enrol at any time of the school year when newly arrived. Ask the comune what it charges for school meals and transport.

The enrolment calendar

For the first year of primary, lower secondary and state upper secondary school, enrolment is online on the Ministry’s UNICA platform with a digital identity (SPID, CIE, CNS or eIDAS). For 2026/27 it opened on 13 January 2026 and closed on 14 February 2026 at 20:00; the dates for 2027/28 had not been published in the sources we opened, so look for the Ministry’s note in the winter before the school year. A foreign parent without a codice fiscale can still enrol a child by going to the chosen school or the child’s current school, and a newly arrived child can be given a provisional code. The online enrolment covers the first classes of primary and secondary school; for a nursery place (under-threes) or the scuola dell’infanzia (ages 3 to 6) ask the comune’s education office for the application date as soon as you have an address.

The 2026 decree on foreign pupils

A decree-law of 30 September 2026 (no. 170, in force on 1 October) changes how classes are formed from the 2027/28 school year. In primary school the pupils with non-Italian citizenship who were not born in Italy, or did not attend at least two years of infant school, may be at most 30% of each first class; in secondary school the same limit applies to those who have not completed at least three years in the Italian school system with a positive result. Where enrolments exceed it, the provincial school office distributes the pupils among nearby schools, close to home, and funds extra Italian lessons. The decree also lets schools report to social services a parent whose language difficulties prevent cooperation with the school, and social services may offer free Italian courses at the adult education centres up to level A2; a parent who does not attend after a formal warning risks an administrative fine, with exemptions the summary does not list. A decree-law must be converted by Parliament within 60 days, so the final text may differ; read it before the January 2027 enrolment.

Making it work for a child

Ask the school what Italian-as-a-second-language (L2) support it provides. Keep the child’s Indian school certificates; the school may ask for a translation to place the child in a year. School is compulsory from six to sixteen. For a child who joins mid-year, ask in writing for a plan for the year.

The rule

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport’s page on converting foreign licences (last changed on 9 October 2026) says that a driver holding a licence from a country outside the EU and the European Economic Area may drive the vehicles it covers for one year from becoming resident in Italy. The foreign licence must be valid and accompanied by an international permit issued by the country that issued it, or an official Italian translation. After the year the licence has to be converted, and conversion is possible only if the issuing state has signed a reciprocity agreement with Italy. If conversion is not possible, the driver must obtain the Italian licence by examination.

India is not on the list

The Ministry’s list of non-EU states whose licences are convertible names Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, El Salvador, the Philippines, Japan, Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Morocco, Moldova, Monaco, the United Kingdom, South Korea, San Marino, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and Uruguay, with Canada, Chile, the United States and Zambia for diplomats and officials only. India does not appear. So an Indian licence cannot be exchanged, and after one year of residence you need to pass the Italian theory and practical tests (most candidates enrol with a driving school, an autoscuola). Do not count on the Indian licence to stretch beyond the year: the no-exam exchange that exists for the countries on the list does not apply to India.

Practical steps

1. Date the one year from your registration as a resident (the anagrafe date), not from the day you arrived, and write it down.
2. In the first year carry the Indian licence together with an international permit issued by India or an official Italian translation of the licence, which is what the Ministry asks for.
3. Book the autoscuola in good time and ask it in which languages the theory test is offered.
4. If you plan to drive in India on a visit, keep the Indian licence valid; the Italian licence does not replace it.

Before the year runs out

A job outside a town may depend on a car, so work out early how you will get to work after the first year. Ask the employer how other workers travel, whether there is a regional train or bus pass, and how soon the autoscuola can fit you in; the exam is a condition of driving at all once the year has passed, and nothing on the Ministry’s page lets the Indian licence stretch beyond it.

Gurdwaras

Italy has dozens of gurdwaras, concentrated where the Sikh community works. The ones named in the sources we opened:

Wikipedia says there are about 60 gurdwaras in the country. The Centro Astalli booklet says a gurdwara’s langar (community kitchen) is open to everyone and that sitting on the floor to eat is a sign of equality. We could not open each gurdwara’s own page, so confirm the address and the hours by telephone or with its committee before you go.

A rule for those who wear the kirpan

The Court of Cassation (first criminal chamber, sentence 24084 of 15 May 2017) upheld a €2,000 fine, imposed by the Mantua court under article 4 of Law 110 of 1975, on a Sikh man who carried an 18.5 cm kirpan outside his home without a justified reason, and rejected the argument that religious freedom under article 19 of the Constitution covered it. The reasoning was criticised, and we found no change in the law since. If you carry a kirpan, ask the gurdwara committee and a lawyer what size and form the Italian courts have accepted.

Hindu temples

Hindus are harder to count. There is no census of religion, and the figures in Wikipedia’s article on Hinduism in Italy (120,000 in 2015, 180,000 in the 2019 Eurispes estimate and 223,000 in 2023) are estimates of unclear origin, so treat them as a range. The Matha Gitananda Ashram at Località Pellegrino in Altare (province of Savona) is the national seat of the Unione Induista Italiana (UII), according to Wikipedia, which dates it to 1984 and to the swami Yogananda Giri. The same article lists a temple at Pegognaga near Mantua (2011), the Shri Vishnu Temple in Milan (2011), a temple in Novellara (2017) and ISKCON’s first centre in Rome (1973); check each temple’s own page for times. Wikipedia notes that most Hindus in Italy are not affiliated with the UII, and that a temple to Sri Raja Rajeshwari in Reggio Emilia was founded by the Tamil community.

The Intesa between the State and the Hindu Union

The Italian State signed an Intesa (agreement) with the UII on 4 April 2007 under article 8 of the Constitution, and Parliament approved it in Law 246 of 31 December 2012. It gives the UII’s bodies autonomy in appointing ministers of worship and in worship, recognises the civil effect of marriages celebrated by Hindu ministers, gives members the right to spiritual assistance from Hindu ministers, ensures respect for Hindu funeral practice where the law allows, and lets the UII take part in the eight-per-mille tax allocation. A second agreement signed on 15 September 2025 amends it and was approved by Law 93 of 7 May 2026, in force since 27 May 2026; we could not open its text and do not know what it changes. The Intesa covers the UII and the bodies it represents, not every Hindu temple or every Indian. There is no comparable agreement with the Sikh community in the sources we read.

Sikh festivals

The Sikh festivals that reach the Italian press are processions, nagar kirtans, that go through the streets of a town and end with a langar. The Centro Astalli booklet puts Vaisakhi, the birth of the Khalsa, on 13 or 14 April. A selection of what the organisers and the press reported: - Hola Mohalla at Cortenova, in Lombardy, held each year in the second week of March, is organised by the Nihang Singhs in Italy; the South Asian Herald article of 16 March 2026 describes a three-day festival with a nagar kirtan, gatka (martial art) and langar stalls along the route, with devotees from Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain, and one estimate of 30,000 to 35,000. That figure is not verified. - Brescia’s nagar kirtan for the Sikh New Year, held on a Sunday in March 2026 and reported on 24 March, started in Via Corsica, was organised by Gurdwara Singh Sabha Flero with the local congregations, and drew “several thousand” people and hundreds of Italians, according to the same publication. - San Bonifacio’s Vaisakhi procession in April 2023 was put at 3,500 people by the police, with the community around the town’s gurdwara described as four thousand strong. - San Giovanni Valdarno’s Vaisakhi on Sunday 27 April 2025 drew more than 4,000 people from Piazza Cavour through the town, with a free langar at 15:00, organised by townspeople of Indian origin.

We do not have a published 2026 programme for Vaisakhi in the Latina towns or Novellara, and any 2026 date should come from the gurdwara committee.

Diwali

Diwali (Dipavali) falls on Sunday 8 November 2026. The Diwali in Italy page lists the Unione Induista Italiana’s 2026 programme — Turin, Pontedera, Milan and Rome — with the city pages for Milan and Rome, and the events that Italian organisers have published are on the Italy events page. Because the day is a Sunday in 2026 and not a public holiday in Italy, any public celebration is likely to be held on a weekend around it; the events page shows those that organisers have published.

Is Diwali a day off?

Not for the public, as the festival is not on Italy’s calendar of public holidays. The Hindu Intesa adds a limited right. Under article 25 of Law 246 of 2012, which gave effect to it, members of the bodies the UII represents may, on request, observe the Hindu festival of Dipavali, “within the flexibility of the organisation of work”, and subject to the essential services the law protects. The UII notifies the date to the Ministry of the Interior by 15 January each year and the Ministry has it published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale. It is a right to ask, not a holiday, and it applies to members of those bodies. We found no equivalent clause for Sikhs and Vaisakhi, so annual leave or a swap of shifts is the practical way.

The 2027 Year of Culture and Tourism

The Italian Embassy in New Delhi posted on 20 October 2026 a call for sponsors for an “Italy-India Year of Culture and Tourism 2027”. We found no programme, so we do not list events, and the site’s events page will show those that organisers publish.

Newcomers are usually pointed to a WhatsApp group first, whether it is run by a gurdwara or a temple, a town, a university or a language community. The groups are one way the community organises itself, and this guide does not pretend otherwise.

What the groups are good at, and what they are not

They are fast: ask at nine in the evening which ASL office is nearest, or which autoscuola offers the theory test in a language you read, and someone may answer before ten. But the link often needs an introduction, the links that circulate go stale, most groups show your phone number to every member, and the answers scroll away. Groups are also a place where scams circulate: the “agent” who sells a click-day place, the landlord abroad who wants a deposit, the employer who needs a fee for a nulla osta. A work contract, a permit or an injury is not a question for a group of strangers; take those to a union, a lawyer or the consulate.

What Namaste Community adds

Namaste Community’s app and website have local groups (moderated and tied to a place), events near you, a directory of Indian businesses and Ask, where members answer questions. You can post under your name or anonymously, which matters if you want to ask about an employer. The Italy groups are at /groups/in/italy, the Italy events page lists the events that organisers publish, and the Italy directory lists Indian businesses, from grocers to translators.

Your first week, in practice

1. Open the Italy groups and join the general one and the one nearest your town. Read before you post: the paperwork answers are usually there.
2. Go to one event or one gurdwara or temple visit in your first fortnight. It is the quickest way from “the Indian community in Italy” as a phrase to three people whose names you know.
3. Ask the question you actually have, and say which region and comune you are in and which permit you hold: the doctor, the school and the rent depend on it.
4. When you have found your flat, your doctor and your grocer, leave a review or an answer for the next person.

The two missions

India has an embassy in Rome and a consulate general in Milan, and the one that serves you is fixed by the region of your registered address.

An address in Brescia, Mantua, Cremona, Reggio Emilia, Verona or Turin files in Milan; Rome, Latina and the other regions listed above file in Rome. Milan’s own page says it is open on working days, Monday to Friday, from 09:00 to 13:00 and from 13:30 to 17:30; applications are submitted from 09:00 to 12:45 by appointment only, and a booking has to appear on the consulate’s appointment-search page to be accepted. Babies under one year and applicants over 67 need no appointment and may come between 09:30 and 13:00 on working days. The consulate’s telephone is +39 02 8057 691. Ready passports and OCI cards are returned by courier, with a prepaid envelope and a return air waybill generated on the consulate’s own link. Phone enquiries are taken from 15:00 to 17:00. The consulate also held a consular camp for passport applications on 21 March 2026, at its own premises.

The Embassy in Rome

The Embassy’s new website did not open for us, so we rely on its older site. That site lists passport and miscellaneous consular applications from 09:30 to 11:00 on working days, visa and OCI applications from individuals at counter 1 and delivery of documents in the afternoon, and says that people from other regions apply in Milan. Check the new site before travelling, because the older pages date from several years ago.

Outsourcing: what we could and could not confirm

India’s missions in Italy have tendered for an outside company to take consular, passport, visa and OCI applications: the Milan consulate carries a notice of 24 December 2021, and an addendum of July 2023 to the Rome embassy’s tender named six planned centres (Rome, Milan, Brescia, Verona, Reggio Calabria and Lecce). We found no confirmation that an agency now runs those centres; Milan’s October 2026 page says applications are made at the consulate. Do not pay anyone who offers to “book” an appointment, and check the mission’s own page first.

Emergencies

• 112 for the police, ambulance and fire brigade anywhere in Italy.
• The Consulate General in Milan’s emergency line is +39 388 164 7527, for theft of a passport, a death or a medical emergency; the consulate asks that it not be used for routine questions.
• A death, an arrest or a serious injury: tell the mission serving your region as soon as you can.

Safety, honestly

Two risks come up in the sources this guide used. The first is work: undeclared work and no help after an accident are what the Satnam Singh case alleges, and the farm work section sets out what the law now offers. The second is fraud: false job offers, fake agents selling visas and phone callers claiming to be the immigration office or the consulate and demanding money. The Milan consulate warned of the last in October 2022 and its advice stands: share no personal details and make no payment because of a call or email. Keep scans of your passport, permit and contract in a folder you can open from India, and never give your passport to an employer or an agent.

Open points on this page

We could not open the Embassy of India in Rome’s new site, the Agenzia delle Entrate’s codice fiscale page, the Polizia di Stato’s permit page or the texts of the 2025 Hindu Intesa amendment and decree-law 170 of 2026. The Blue Card pay figure, the voluntary health contribution for students and the 2028 click days are the figures this page marks as unconfirmed. If something here has gone out of date, tell us through the report link at the end of the page.