So You Want To Live In Italy...A Lesson in Bureaucracy

Finally!

This week, we got our documents allowing us to live in Italy.

It only took us two years.

The process is instructive; it taught is a bit about navigating the Italian bureaucracy.

It all started in November 2016...when we applied for...and got...our Codice Fiscale.

A Codice Fiscale is like a financial social security number.  It allows you to open a bank account, and the number is required on virtually any application that involves taxes or a publicly provided service.

That day, we took the bus to Montepulciano and on our third try found the right office.  Twenty minutes later walked out with the document in hand.

We had the system mastered...or so we thought.

Next step...After we returned to Seattle, a trip to the Seattle Police Department to get fingerprinted, so we could submit an application to the FBI for a criminal background check.

Three months later, the FBI reported that neither Carol nor Roger has an arrest record...at least none that had been recorded in the FBI database.

With the background check in hand, we downloaded the application for an Elective Residency Visa from the Italian Consulate in San Francisco.  The website told us we could only apply to the consulate in San Francisco.  If we sent the application any place else, it would be automatically rejected.

However, the San Francisco Consulate's website neglected to provide any instructions about what documents we needed to submit along with the application.

Fortunately, we were able to find those instructions on the website of the Boston consulate.  We had to assume they applied to San Francisco bound applications as well.

It's not as if the required documents were insignificant.  We needed tax returns, bank statements, letters verifying financial liquidity, a copy of the deed to our apartment, and a letter stating why we wanted to live in Italy...more than 40 pages in all.

We sent the documents off along with our passports...and hoped they would be returned before we were scheduled to leave Seattle for Italy in the Spring of 2017.



We got our passports back, just in time, along with our application and a letter of rejection.  The letter contained no explanation for the rejection.  However, an e-mail sent a few days later said the Elective Residency Visa was not a way to skirt the 90-day limit for tourist visits to Italy.  We had assumed  our letters and deed to the apartment would have been sufficient proof we intended to do more than overstay a tourist visa.  Apparently not.

When we returned to Seattle in November, we started the application process all over again...including the fingerprints and the FBI background check.  This time, we made a point of stressing we weren't tourists.  We owned an apartment in Pienza.

One day, out of the blue, we got an envelop in the mail, return address the Italian Consulate in San Francisco.  It contained our passports...and nothing else.  Had we been rejected again?  When we checked inside we found...

Our Elective Residency Visas....

...with an expiration date of March 2019.

Another step done, but more to go...and now with a deadline.





It's now the Spring of 2018.  Carol and Roger return to Pienza, determined to beat the deadline and obtain our Permesso Sogiorno...permission to live in Italy.

The government web site said we had to go to the nearest Questura (Police Headquarters) to apply.  That would be Montepulciano, so there we went.  Wrong Questura.  Had to go to the one in Siena.  The next day, we hopped the 6:30am bus for the two-hour ride to Siena (the only bus that arrives in time for Questura business hours).  We went on what turned out to be the annual "Police Appreciation Day," a public holiday.  The Questura was closed.  A few days later, we endured the two-hour bus ride again only to be told they couldn't help us at that Questura. We needed to go to a different Questura, the Ufficio Immigrazione... which happened not to be open the day of the week we were there.

A day later, after yet another 2 hour bus ride to Siena, we finally arrived at the right Questura, on a day they were actually open for business.  We waited our turn, only to be asked why we had come there, when we hadn't filled out the proper paperwork yet.  That paperwork was available at our local Post Office in Pienza.

We returned to Pienza, went to the Post Office, and asked for the application.  The postal clerk checked to make sure we had all the necessary supporting documents, told us to go home, fill out the application, and get the requisite €50 tax stamp.

A stamp.  We get that right here the Post Office, right?

No. The Post Office doesn't sell stamps.  The place you buy stamps is...the local Tabac (tobacco shop).

We got the stamps, filled out the forms (with a good deal of help figuring out the instructions), and returned to the Post Office.  On top of the tax stamp, we had to pay another €30 filing fee...for each application.  The clerk's computer then spit out a non-negotiable appointment time when we were required to show up at the Siena Uffucio Immigrazione.

Another 2-hour bus ride from Pienza to Siena.

On the appointed day, we showed up at the Uffucio Immigrazione, stood in what passed for a line, submitted our forms (being sure to show the tax stamps), got our fingerprints taken...and then were then we needed to go back to the other Questura to have yet another set of fingerprints taken.

The finger prints were electronic, but the Immigration Office said they could not share our prints with the Polizia di Stato.  Off we went to the other Questura, had our prints recorded, and were told to return to the Immigration Police.
There, the Immigration Police told us everything was in order, and we should expect approval of our applications in about six weeks.

Eight weeks passed. We heard nothing.  It was time for us to return to Seattle.  We could only hope to pick up the pieces in the Fall.



When we finally returned to Italy In October, we immediately went to the Questura Ufficio Immigrazione, and asked the status of our application.  We were told we needed to purchase yet another tax stamp (Remember, the previous Spring they had told us everything was in order).  Back to the Tabac.  Purchased another tax stamp.  Back to the Post Office where they processed the stamp.

That done, we hopped the bus from Pienza to Siena, returned to the Questura...and were told, again, everything was in order and our ID cards should be available in two weeks.

A month passed, and still no word on the status of our documenti.  Carol again endured the two-hour bus ride to Siena, returned to the Questura...fourth visit...to check on the status of our application.  The documents had been mailed from the government office in Rome and should arrive any day.

Two days later, we get a text message saying our documents are in...and we have to return to Siena in less than a week for another computer-generated appointment time.

Finally, after two years...

The permesso sogggiorno are ours!

Later that day, I told an Italian friend what we had to go through to get our documents, expecting some expression of sympathy.  Instead, his response was, "You think that was bad?  You should try getting a driver's license."