Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: In Italy. And you're listening to the Magic Towns Italy podcast.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hello, Anna. Welcome back. Welcome back everyone, to the Magic Towns Italy podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Hi everyone. Happy to be here again.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Anna, it's a pleasure to have you here again after a little Thanksgiving break. What did you do last week for Thanksgiving?
[00:00:23] Speaker C: Yeah, actually nothing special. What about you?
[00:00:25] Speaker A: I ate some chicken, not turkey, but that's it. Yeah, but let's not talk about this. I wouldn't want to upset the vegans who are listening to the show. Today we are having a chat about a topic that is very important to a lot of our listeners.
The new work visa for Italian descendants.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Yeah, we finally got some good news for people with Italian roots. This is something the Italian diaspora has been waiting for forever.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Italy has a enormous diaspora. Countries like Argentina and Brazil have tens of millions of people with Italian heritage. In the US there's about 20 million Italian Americans. These communities we know because most of our audiences, Italian American actually have a strong interest in reconnecting with Italy. And one of the main interests for many has been to obtain Italian citizenship through their ancestry. But in May, things got much harder.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Yeah, Exactly. Back in May 2025, Italy changed its citizenship law and putting this trick to generation limit for claiming citizenship by descent. So now only people with Italian parent or grandparent can automatically get recognized as Italian citizens through blood.
Before that there was no limit at all. So you could go back to great grandparents or even farther. It could prove the family line never broke.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: I helped a lady get her citizenship as early as two years ago through her great great great grandfather who was born in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. So that's before Italy even existed.
The reform from May caused a bit of a stir.
We ourselves at Magic Towns ran a petition and over 600 people.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Who were cut out by the reform, mostly Italian Americans committed to a minimum two year residency period in order to get Italian citizenship. But the government did not listen. A lot of Italian descendants lost their straightforward route to Italian citizenship.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Yeah, it really upset a lot of people and for a good reason.
Literally overnight, thousands of people were in the middle of applying or planning to apply, just had the doors slammed in their face. It was pretty brutal for the diaspora communities.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Someone wrote to us they had already put down €100,000 on renovating property thinking that it would get sit in shape and then suddenly they were cut out and they didn't have a legal way to restraint. Anyway, talking about, yeah, it is crazy talking about positive news law we're talking about.
And the good news is there's A new quota, free work visa for descendants of Italian citizens from certain countries. Can you tell us a little bit what happened, anna?
[00:03:26] Speaker C: Basically, on November 24, the Italian government put out this decree that creates a special work permit for people who are descendants of Italian citizens.
And these permits don't count against their normal immigration quotas. Usually Italy. Italy caps how many works visa they give you each year? The Cretoflusi, which is the yearly immigration quota, those fill up super, super fast. And so this new rule says that if you've got Italian ancestry and you're from one of the listed country, you can get a work visa.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: US listeners are most often used to the H1B visa. They hear about it on the news. And just like the H1B visa is routinely oversubscribed in the US so the immigration portals in Italy are oversubscribed by a factor of two or three. Basically, there was no wait for you to get in until now. So this is basically a fast track for work permits for people of Italian heritage. Which countries are included in this program, Anna?
[00:04:33] Speaker C: The decree lists seven countries right now. Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Australia, Canada, Venezuela and Uruguay. So if you're a citizen of one of those countries and you can prove your descendant from an Italian citizen, you can apply for this work visa.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: These are all countries that have significant Italian immigrant communities historically. Yeah, Argentina and Brazil. We mentioned the us, Canada and Australia. What about the other countries that are countries like South Africa or Mexico that also have a large amount of Italian descendants?
[00:05:09] Speaker C: So actually when they were drafting these, there were proposals to include South Africa, Mexico, as you said, Peru, Chile, but those didn't make the cut this time. So the government hinted they might add more countries down the road. So it's possible the list could grow. But for now it's just those seven.
Basically, they prioritize the countries with the biggest Italian communities first.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: And I would say that that covers 90% of our listeners between the US, Australia and Canada. The UK is left out, but it is not a country that had a large Italian diaspora until a couple of decades ago.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: To clarify, what does this visa actually like you do? You mentioned it's a work permit outside the quota system, but you can just pack up your bags and intuit without a job, can you?
[00:06:05] Speaker C: No, no, the visa is for.
The visa is for a subordinate work, which means you need an Italian employer who is willing to hire you for a job in Italy. So the employer has to go through the whole standard process of getting a work authorization, the mulaosta for you through the immigration office.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay, so it is not a job seeker visa, it is not a digital nomad visa, and it is not an entrepreneur visa. You just can't arrive and look for work. You have to have a contract.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: Absolutely. So you need that contract lined up already before.
Before coming. It's not that easy.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So it is an incentive. People still have to go through the process and have something to offer to the Italian job market.
The Italian job market is not as used to hiring from abroad as other countries.
So unless you have specialized skills or personal connections, an Italian company might prefer to hire someone who's already here or is a EU citizen. But all that being said, the shortage of workers in several categories is massive. And with the right qualifications, finding work is definitely achievable. In fact, the news came out in yesterday that Italy has hit its lowest unemployment rate ever.
Whether that is good news or not is another catch of fish. We'll discuss that in another episode of the podcast. Because the truth is that the worker population is shrinking very, very fast as people retire. So that is a problem. But people looking for jobs in Italy, the reality is that there are far more jobs than job seekers at the moment.
[00:07:48] Speaker C: Yeah. So the opportunity is definitely there. But people need to be realistic about the job search and maybe lay up any special skills they have. Like the world situation with the callback businesses closing because they can't find workers is honestly really concerning.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Scary.
[00:08:08] Speaker C: Yeah. This week I heard about this big excavation company that stuck because they can't find excavator operators and two restaurants and a pastry shop shutting down because they can't find chefs. So the jobs are out there for people who want them.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: It actually makes me very sad because the pastry shop you're talking about was my first pastry shop when I was a child. So hits me what I heard.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Yeah, what you can't do is to try to gain the system with some part time or fake job. We know from people and all these cases all the time that the Questura won't give you a residency permit if you're applying through some brand new company or got barely any hours.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: So you can't do this on a part time basis. We wrote an article about this last week. So people that want to go to medical and read about the fine details of the new work permit rules, they can do that. Going back to the job requirements, we can probably tell our listeners that speaking Italian will go a long way towards finding job and entity, wouldn't it?
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Absolutely. Language skills and networking will take you really, really far.
So you will need to prove your Italian ancestry as part of application. And the government is still figuring out exactly what documents they will need and how you will submit that proof. You'll still have to go through the entire hiring and work permit process just like any other non yield worker would, just without the quadar restriction.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Let's talk about the really enticing part of this, which is the short term citizenship granting timelines for people that qualify for this scheme. How does this work? Is this like a fast track to Italian citizenship?
[00:10:00] Speaker C: This is probably the biggest straw, honestly. Under Italian law, if you've got an Italian parent or a grandparent, you can apply for citizenship by naturalization after just two years of legal residence in Italy. And that's way shorter than the standard 10 year residency requirement for foreigners without Italian ancestry. So here's how it works. So you come to Italy on this special work visa, you live and work here, and if you qualify after two years you can apply for citizenship.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: That's not bad. Two years is incredibly fast in citizenship terms. Normally non EU citizens have to wait for 10 years to even apply to and then even longer together.
So this is a huge incentive.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: Yeah, but I need to clarify something really important. That two year fast track only works if your Italian ancestor was a parent or grandparent. So a lot of people in communities like Italian Americans might be third or fourth generation descendants. And for those folks, the law doesn't give you that special reduction.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Yet we are hearing noises that the government may relax this requirement in the future so that even people that have a great grandparent or great great grandparent died to Italy might qualify for reduce the pathway to citizenship. We still have to see that getting donkey paper. So just to make a concrete example, if my grandfather was born in Italy, but I can't claim citizenship by the saint because he had renounced Italian citizenship or some other technical reason, I can move to Italy on the new work visa and after two years I can apply to become an Italian citizen. But if my connection is through a great grandparent, right now I can still use the visa to live and work in Italy outside the quota system. But I might have to stay in Italy for as long as 10 years before I can apply for citizenship. As for the standard law, I should add to this that anyone living legally in Italy for five years can apply for a permanent residence status. Imagine the equivalent of a green card status which allows you to live in Italy and effectively have the right to live there and in the EU indefinitely. It's just one little step below being a citizen. But not quite being a citizen. So five years, become a permanent resident. Ten years, you become a citizen. If you fall within the remit of this reform, you can also become a citizen as early as two years after you land.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Yeah. This visa is basically saying, if you really want to reconnect with Italy enough that you will actually move here and contribute for a couple years, we'll give you a shot.
And in the best case, you're only waiting two years to be eligible for citizenship.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: That is a very good development. We shall see how it goes.
How have people reacted so far in the Italian descendant communities? Do we know?
[00:13:14] Speaker C: People are obviously happy about that, but of course, immigration lawyers and relocation experts like us are telling people to approach it with a solid plan, because, like we talked about, you still need that job lined up and you've got to be ready to move pretty quickly once you get the work permit. But overall, I'd say the reaction has been really positive.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: And talking about timelines, do we know how soon this new visa is going to be operational?
[00:13:45] Speaker C: So the decree is published, so the framework is officially in effect, but they are still working out the practical details. This is pretty typical in Italy. They make the laws and then the circulari come out months later to explain how everything actually works.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Months later or years later, sometimes it happens. So what's the procedure going to be like?
[00:14:07] Speaker C: So they will say when the online portal will start accepting application, the documents you will need, but my guess is by early 2026, if not sooner, people will be able to apply. Now it's the time to get your documents together, both your family documents to show your Italian lineage, and obviously to start or keep going with your job hunt in Italy.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Lovely. So go get your Italian birth certificates, get your marriage certificates in order, and perhaps you can start reaching out to potential employers or use your networks in Italy to secure a job offer. Keep in mind that if you're bringing in any foreign documents, in terms of birth certificates or marriage certificates, if they come outside the eu, you're going to have to officially translate them and get them apostilled. So that's an extra step. You might as well do it now.
Anything else we should talk about one.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: More thing about the citizenship timeline. So applying after two years of residency doesn't mean you instantly become a citizen, like at two years, it means you're eligible to apply. The application itself can take a couple years and you will need to meet requirements like passing an Italian language test, showing integration, income and stuff like that. But compared to waiting 10 years, this is way Faster.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. So don't imagine showing up and becoming Italian in 2027. It might be 2028 or 2029 by the time the paperwork goes through, but still, it's better than 2035 as it would have been under the old timeline.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Exactly. Maybe by then Italy might tweak these policies even more or expand the eligible countries. I mean, it's still evolving, and I.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: Think it's quite likely because we're going to talk about it in our next podcast about our 2026 predictions. The demographic bomb is about to become very apparent and potentially blow up in everyone's face. So the cocoon may actually wake up and make it much easier for people to move into it today.
So, to summarize for our listeners, good news. If you're habitat in ancestry, you come from us, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay or Venezuela. You now have a special pathway to move to Italy and work. You need a job offer, by the way. You can come as a tourist, find a job, and then go through the system. Nothing prevents you from going to a few interviews, but you're not going to be limited by the quota numbers. Once you're in Italy, if your Italian ancestor is a parent or a grandparent, you can apply for citizenship after just two years instead of 10. So that's a brilliant development for you guys.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: Exactly. A lot of people now have another chance. And beyond citizenship, it's the experience, you know, of actually living in Italy, working here, becoming part of a local community for at least a couple years.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: We enjoy living in Italy financially, and that's what many of our listeners want to do and get the passport eventually.
As a final recognition of your efforts.
[00:17:18] Speaker C: You might say, I'm really looking forward to seeing the first success stories come out of these in the next year or two.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: So this adds to the new arsenal of options for people moving to Italy. So we have the elective residency visa for retirees.
We have the digital nomad visa, which is actually working better than we expected.
Quick approval times.
It's been a very positive surprise. We're going to talk more about digital nomads in the very near future.
And now we have this work visa. So things are looking up.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: For anyone listening who thinks that it might apply to them or interested in legal relocation pathways to Italy, go to Mazitan's Italy, we call them all visa and legal migration Routes news. And you can find the most recent updates on our site. Thank you so much, Anna, for spending the time to break this down for us.
[00:18:17] Speaker C: Thank you, Luca. It was my pleasure I really hope this helps some of you out there.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: I'm sure it will.
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