The first weeks in Italy: the order the counter expects from you

The first weeks in Italy are not a waiting time but an order. As an EU citizen you apply for nothing at the immigration police: for a stay longer than three months your only duty is to register with the anagrafe of your municipality. That registration is done within two working days, with legal effect from the day of your declaration — but every step before and after it has its own counter, and whoever takes them in the wrong order starts again. The hardest clock runs meanwhile at the car: three months after your residenza it has to be on Italian plates, on pain of € 400 to € 1,600.

Which clocks are running?

What	Deadline	From when
Duty to register with the municipality	stay longer than three months	arrival
Residenza declaration processed	two working days	the day of your declaration
Residence check by the municipality	within 45 days	the declaration; after that the registration is final
Dog in the anagrafe canina (Rome)	ten days	the moment you have the dog in your possession, so arrival
Car on Italian plates	three months	obtaining your residenza
Delivery of the CIE	six working days	the application at the town hall

Week one: the codice fiscale and the address

Everything starts with the codice fiscale, the sixteen-character number every Italian authority uses to recognise you. If you already have it from the Netherlands, that saves a week; if not, it is a free counter visit at the Agenzia delle Entrate. Then the address: a rental contract the landlord registers, or a deed of sale. Without a valid title to the home there is no residenza, and without residenza none of what follows. If you have a dog, this is also the week of the ASL: in Rome the dog has to be in the register within ten days, and the ASL asks only for your identity document and your codice fiscale.

Week two: the residenza

With contract and codice fiscale you make the dichiarazione di residenza at the anagrafe. The municipality registers you within two working days and then, within 45 days, has the police check that you live at the address. Put your name on the bell and the letterbox. If your application is rejected, you can appeal to the prefect within thirty days; if you hear nothing, the registration is final after 45 days. Workers show their contract at the declaration; whoever does not work shows means and comprehensive health cover — how that works is in residenza and codice fiscale.

The residenza is the pivot, not the end. From the declaration date the three-month clock for your car runs. Whoever arranges the residenza in week two and only tackles the car "once the boxes are unpacked" discovers that the Motorizzazione needs weeks — so start the conversion in the same month.

Week three: health card and identity card

With the residenza you enrol with the ASL of your district. Employees and the self-employed are enrolled compulsorily and free of charge, on a par with Italians, for the duration of their contract; whoever comes with a Dutch pension hands in the S1 form from the CAK; whoever does not work and has no S1 chooses between a private policy and voluntary enrolment, which costs at least € 2,000 a year. At enrolment you choose your medico di base. The tessera sanitaria that follows also carries your codice fiscale — it is the card you show everywhere from then on; the co-payments and the waiting-time classes are in healthcare in Italy.

In the same week you apply at the town hall for the CIE, the electronic identity card: € 16.79 in issue costs plus municipal fees, in Rome € 22.21 in total, delivered within six working days. The CIE is at once your digital key: with it you log in to the government and activate SPID.

Week four: bank, car and the rest

The bank account you can in fact open earlier — the conto di base only asks for passport and codice fiscale — but with residenza and CIE in hand every conversation at the bank goes faster; see banking and paying in Italy. Then the car: the conversion via an STA counter, within the three months of article 93-bis, with the Dutch bpm refund watching along — your car to Italy. Your driving licence needs nothing: it stays valid until its expiry date, see your driving licence in Italy. And the children: the school takes them in as soon as you have an address, the enrolment window for the next school year lies in January and February — school in Italy.

What deliberately isn't here

The interdependencies — which counter waits on which paper, and what happens if the residence check takes longer than your car's three months — are exactly what Vertrekklaar's step-by-step plan works out per situation. This article gives the order; the guarding of the deadlines you find at /italie.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.3: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Italy or go straight to step 4.3 in the open plan.