Learning from Other Expat Wannabes

The best information about moving to Italy rarely comes from a guidebook. It comes from people who did it a year or two before you and wrote down what went wrong. I’ve always kept a ridiculously long list of Italy blogs, and one of the first I found useful for would-be expats was Moving2Italy2.

Its author, Ben, started posting in November 2005 while he and his wife planned a move to Italy “in the next 3-4 years.” The blog stopped posting in December 2016, but it’s still online, and its topic index still works: leases and rental agreements, schools, disabled access, gluten-free eating, electricity, flea markets, taxes and much more. Read it for the lived experience of settling in. Don’t read it for rules, fees or phone numbers, which are a decade out of date.

That’s the pattern with most expat resources: the blogs that were brilliant in 2010 have gone quiet, and the paperwork has changed under them. Here’s what’s actually useful in 2026, and how to find more.

Start with the Official Sources

Every expat forum eventually tells you the same thing: check with the Italian authorities, because the rules change and they vary by consulate. Do that first and you’ll know which forum advice to ignore.

• Your Italian consulate’s website. Visas for stays over 90 days are issued by the consulate that covers where you live, and each one posts its own document checklist. Find yours through the Foreign Ministry’s Visto per l’Italia portal, which also has a questionnaire that tells you which visa type fits your situation.
• The visa types most would-be expats look at: the elective residence visa, for people living on pensions or other passive income who won’t work in Italy (the guide figure is about 31,000 euros a year, but consulates treat that as one factor among several), and the digital nomad or remote worker visa, in force since April 2024, for highly skilled people working remotely for non-Italian employers or their own clients, with an income threshold of about 28,000 euros a year in 2026. Anyone who arrives on a national visa must apply for a permesso di soggiorno (residence permit) within 8 days.
• If you’re just visiting for up to 90 days, you don’t need any of that. Americans, Canadians, Britons and Australians can stay 90 days in any 180 across the whole Schengen area. ETIAS, the EU’s pre-travel authorization, is not in operation yet and has no start date; check before you travel.
• Your own country’s embassy in Italy for notarizing documents, lost passports and voting from abroad. We list them for the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa.

News in English

Italian rules change often, and the English-language press is where you’ll hear about it first.

• If you read only one, make it The Local Italy. Its explainers on residency, taxes, driving licenses, health care and short-term rental rules are written for foreigners and updated when the law changes.
• Wanted in Rome and Wanted in Milan cover city news, events and classified ads (apartments, jobs, language exchanges) for the international crowd in those cities.

Blogs by People Who Live There

Blogs come and go, so judge any blog by the date of its last post. A few that are still posting in 2026 and useful for the everyday side of expat life:

• Girl in Florence, written by a longtime Florence resident, is good on neighborhoods, the city’s calendar and the realities of Florentine life.
• An American in Rome covers Rome from a resident’s point of view, with practical posts on things like luggage storage and getting around.

Our own archive has plenty on everyday life in Italy: the keys to an Italian apartment, grocery shopping in Italy, getting an Italian driver’s license, the challenges of finding a job in Italy, culture shock and moving furniture without an elevator. The feelings in those posts hold up well; for rules and fees, check a current source.

Forums and Communities

• InterNations has expat groups in the bigger Italian cities, with forums and in-person events. Basic membership is free.
• Facebook groups are where most day-to-day expat questions get answered now. Search “expats in” plus your city or region (Bologna, Puglia, Le Marche and so on). The best groups have a pinned file of answers to the common questions; read it before you post.
• Reddit has active Italy and expat communities. They’re good for blunt answers about costs and bureaucracy, less good for anything region-specific.

How to Find Your Own Expat Resources

The resources above will get you started, but the most useful ones are local to the town you’re moving to. Here’s how to find them:

1. Search in Italian too. “Permesso di soggiorno” plus your city, “affitto” (rent) plus your neighborhood, “codice fiscale stranieri.” Italian forums and news sites cover local detail that English sites never will.
2. Check the date on everything. Anything about visas, taxes, rental contracts or car registration older than two years is suspect.
3. Use your comune’s website. Every town hall publishes how to register residency (iscrizione anagrafica), how trash collection works, and local rules on things like parking permits.
4. Ask for a patronato or a CAF. These are free or low-cost advice centers, often run by unions, that help residents with permits, pensions and tax returns. Expats use them all the time, and they’re far cheaper than a lawyer.
5. Find the other foreigners. Language schools, international churches, English-language bookshops and the conversation-exchange nights advertised on city expat pages are where you’ll meet people who’ve already solved your problem.
6. Read the books. Our reading list for Italophiles has a section for would-be expats.