Italy · Work authorisation

EU Blue Card (Carta blu UE)

Issued by The Sportello Unico per l'Immigrazione at the prefecture, on an application filed by the employer; then the Italian consulate for the visa and the Questura for the permit. It is checked against conditions rather than scored, so the question is whether you meet each one, not how many points you gather.

Basis
Checklist
Steps
8
Possible outcomes
3
Last checked
2026-10-07

Conditions

What this permit
asks of you.

Which desk decides

The authority, exactly

The one route into Italy that runs outside the annual quotas without being tied to a named occupation: no click day and no queue. Your employer applies for the nulla osta, and the law gives the Sportello Unico thirty days to issue it or reject the application.

Qualification

What it wants from your degree

One of four alternatives: a higher-education qualification of at least three years, or a post-secondary professional qualification of at least three years or at level 6 of the national qualifications framework; the requirements of D.Lgs. 206/2007, for a profession regulated in Italy; five years of professional experience at a level comparable to a tertiary qualification; or, for the specific occupational groups the article names, three years of relevant experience in the seven before the application. A contract or binding offer of at least six months is required on every one of them.

Not a licence

Academic comparability

Statement of comparability and authenticity of a foreign degree, or a dichiarazione di valore from the consulate, issued by CIMEA (Centro di Informazione sulla Mobilità e le Equivalenze Accademiche), Italy's ENIC-NARIC centre — or the Italian consulate, through a dichiarazione di valore.

This compares your degree to a local one. It is an academic statement and it does not authorise you to practise any profession.

ARDI statement, Lisbon Convention countries: Free, downloaded from CIMEA's ARDI database. 60 working days, or 30 for a comparability request through the paid urgent procedure

The procedure

8 steps,
in the order they happen.

Prepare your documents

  1. Check which of the qualification tests you meet, because the paperwork follows from it. On a degree, or on the requirements of a regulated profession, the file needs the consulate's dichiarazione di valore or CIMEA's statement of comparability and authenticity. On experience, the evidence is a statement from your employer backed by employment contracts or payslips.
  2. Get the pay right in the contract. It may not be lower than the national collective agreement for the job, and in any case not lower than the average gross annual pay as measured by ISTAT.No figure in euros is published here. The statute and the 2024 circular both point to the ISTAT indicator and neither prints an amount, and the Interior Ministry pages where one would be set out could not be read. Ask the Sportello Unico or the employer's adviser for the amount in force on the date of the application.
  3. Have every document issued outside the EU legalised or apostilled, and translated into Italian.

Get your qualification assessed

  1. Your employer files the nulla osta application with the Sportello Unico per l'Immigrazione online, through the Interior Ministry's portal, with a SPID digital identity or an electronic identity card. The Blue Card article runs the application through article 22, which has the employer first check with the Centro per l'impiego that no worker already in Italy is available.The Blue Card article waives that check in one case only: where you already hold a permit issued for highly qualified work.
  2. The Sportello Unico issues the nulla osta, or communicates the rejection, within thirty days of the application.Employers that have signed a protocol with the Interior Ministry replace the nulla osta with a communication, after which the Questore issues the permit within thirty days.

Close any gaps

  1. Apply for the entry visa at the Italian consulate with the nulla osta. The visa is valid for as long as the nulla osta authorises, and no more than 365 days.

Register and start working

  1. Within fifteen days of entering Italy, go to the Sportello Unico to sign the contratto di soggiorno and collect the permit application form, which you send from an authorised post office. The permit is requested within eight working days of entry.
  2. For the first twelve months you may work only in jobs that meet the conditions you were admitted on, and changing employer in that period needs prior authorisation. If no opinion arrives within fifteen days, it is deemed given.

Cost and time

What it costs,
and how long the authority says it takes.

Fees

Long-stay visa (type D)
€116 in the consular fee table, collected in local currency where the consulate charges it
Permit contribution
€40 for a permit of more than three months up to one year, €50 for more than one year up to two
Filing the permit at the post office
€16 revenue stamp, €30 to the post office and €30.46 for producing the card, on top of the contribution

Timeframes

Nulla osta
Within thirty days of the employer's application
Contratto di soggiorno
Within fifteen days of entering Italy
Card validity
Two years on an open-ended contract; otherwise the length of the contract plus three months
Permit issue
60 days on average, in the Polizia di Stato's own figure

Published processing times, not a prediction about your case.

Both halves together

Guides that use this permit.

Each one takes a profession into Italy and runs the recognition branch and the authorisation branch side by side, including what your country of qualification adds.

Evidence

Every claim on this page, and where it came from.

8 official pages, each with the jurisdiction it speaks for and the date a human last opened it. The oldest is 2026-10-07, and that is the date this page is only as fresh as.

Is this the right permit for you?

That depends on where you qualified.

The planner compares every route Italy opens to your country of qualification, and adds the recognition branch when your profession has one.

Check my path →All Italy permits