Family reunion in Italy (How to Apply — A Short Guide)

Italy is famous for its lawyers. Locals say that sometimes it feels that there are more lawyers than other citizens, trials often last for years, and the system is not effective.

In order to integrate better into the culture and share my experiences with others, I decided to go through all the processes of immigration without official advisors and lawyers.

Oh, Gosh! How many hours I could have saved!

Herewith, I will tell you the procedure of reuniting with your family.

First of all, in order to reunite with your family, you should prove that you have suitable living conditions and enough income to sustain a basic life quality in Italy. Sounds obvious and pretty logical, right? But there are some caveats along the way. I would have nothing to write about if there weren’t!

Income

You should prove that your family has a legal annual income at least 5.824,91 EUROs. That number needs to be increased by half if you have dependents within a family. ( 5.824,91 + half of that per each dependent family member.)

Example: If you have a wife and child, then you need to have 11649,82 EUROs in proved income. That means that the sooner you get the money (legally!) the sooner you could apply for a family reunion.

This financial document would be either an annual tax declaration or in the form of an intermediate financial report signed by an accountant (commercialista)

Living conditions

This is probably the hardest part of the family reunion story. You need to get a document called Idoneità abitativa from the commune where you live. The best advice I have is to go to the commune Municipio and seek for help there. Most of the municipalities have dedicated managers who help to deal with family reunion requests.

First of all, you would need to get, Carta d’Identita, which is a kind of residency proof. Having a long-term rental agreement on hand that would be an easy task in the Anagrafe department of Municipio.

As of the Idoneità abitativa, the list of documents required usually published on the commune website. The documents are related to the living conditions, energy efficiency, and a property plan — pretty much standard documentation on a house. In most cases, the landlord or the real estate agent that rents the house is well aware of the documents required, so, just ask for them as early as possible.

For small children, you would be asked for a confirmation letter signed by the landlord.

Communes don’t accept document requests until you have your Permesso di Soggiorno. So, the only advice is to have all papers prepared beforehand, and rush the next day you got your stay permit.

Family documents

You need to provide a marriage certificate for your spouse and birth certificates for every child. All documents should be translated into Italian and legalized by a competent Italian Embassy/General Consulate. (You need to do this in your own country.) There are usually dozens of translation agencies with consulate legalization options available.

Obviously, you would need to submit your own documents as well, the Permesso di Soggiorno and the rental agreement.

Applying for family reunion

There are two ways of family reunion: the primary one, and the working one. The first one is called Ricongiungimento familiare, and the second one is Coesione familiare.

I’ve never heard of someone going through the Ricongiungimento process because it is way longer: first, having all the above-mentioned documents you apply for an entrance permit for your family (Nulla Osta) online, wait a lot, after that you apply for their visas in your home country, wait a lot, after that you apply for their Permesso di Soggiorno.

In the Coesione case, your family enters Italy with you under tourist visas and later they convert tourist visas into Permesso di Soggiorno’s. Sounds easy? Well, it really is!

If your family didn’t arrive directly into Italy under tourist visas not directly (no Italian stamp in the passport, a.e. through another Schengen country) then you should get Dichiarazione di presenza from Questura. Later you would attach it to the application documents.

When you have all the documents ready, and hopefully before their tourist visas are over, (in fact within a year, but then you would need to sit tight within Italy) you send the application for their Permesso di Soggiorno, using the standard yellow kit from a Postal Office (Posta Italiana — Sportello Unico). They would tell the date you need to appear at Questura (with children if any) where they would help you to complete all the documents if something was missed.

Foreword

Please let me know if I missed something, or if you need any clarification. Finally, please try our Routes.Tips website and the app which helps to find offbeat places and interesting activities around you. This is the startup I’m working on in Italy.