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End of the Brexit transition period: what do Brits in Italy need to do now?

If you’re a British citizen living in Italy, you can continue life in your adopted country after the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December. But that doesn’t mean you can relax entirely just yet.

Published: 18 November 2020 16:44 CET

End of the Brexit transition period: what do Brits in Italy need to do now?

Photo: Getty Images

You'll need to take some action to keep all your rights and access to services. This guide, presented in partnership with the UK Government, tells you what you need to do in four key areas: residency, healthcare, travel and driving.

Get the official UK government advice on living in Italy after the transition ends

1. Registering your residency

If you're a UK national who is legally living in Italy before 31 December 2020, there's a welcome message on residency: no need to say ‘arrivederci'. Your right to live in Italy will be protected.

However, anyone who wants to stay in Italy for more than three months must register as an Italian resident with their local town hall or comune. Once registered, you can apply for an attestazione di regolarità di soggiorno (declaration of legal residence).

If you’ve been living in Italy for more than five years, you should hold an attestazione di soggiorno permanente.

There is a new document – the attestazione di iscrizione anagrafica – that all UK nationals in Italy are now advised to get from their town hall. This applies even if you already have another residency document. That’s because only the new ‘attestazione’ specifically states that you’re covered by the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU. If you have non-EU family members, they should also get it.

“The Italian government has been very clear that it wants British nationals living here to stay and they have advised that UK nationals should try to register their residency by the end of the year if you haven’t done so already,” said Jill Morris, the British Ambassador to Italy. “The new Withdrawal Agreement ‘attestazione’ which has been made available is further proof of your status under the Withdrawal Agreement.”

If you have difficulty registering or getting the new ‘attestazione’, get in touch with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which is working with the UK government to support UK nationals on residency (email [email protected] or freephone: 800684884)

Photo: Getty Images

2. Ensuring you’re registered for healthcare

If you’re living in Italy before the end of 2020, you’ll have a life-long right to access healthcare in Italy, as you do now, for as long as you remain resident. You need to register with the Italian National Health Service (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale – SSN) through your local health authority (Azienda Sanitaria Locale – ASL) after registering your residency. You'll need to meet certain requirements to be able to register.

Once you're registered, emergency care, GP appointments and hospital admissions will be free – but you might still have to make a co-payment (commonly called 'ticket') to use other parts of the healthcare system.

Get the full official UK government advice on your rights to state healthcare in Italy

You can register for free if:

you have a work contract, are self-employed in Italy or are an immediate family member of someone who is
you’re an immediate family member of an Italian citizen
you hold an Attestazione di Soggiorno Permanente
you become unemployed after having worked in Italy, and register on the employment lists (liste di collocamento). This also applies if you register for a professional training course while unemployed
you hold a UK social security form, such as an S1 form for pensioners

Don’t fit into one of these categories? Depending on where in Italy you live, you may be able to register for healthcare by paying an annual fee – contact your ASL for more information or, alternatively, take out private health insurance.

3. Checking you're ready for trouble-free travel

You live abroad – so crossing borders is no big deal, right? But you'll face some new rules on travel within Europe next year – so doing your homework now could save you a lot of trouble later.

From 1 January 2021, you'll need six months left on your passport to travel within Europe (be aware that any extra months you had added to your passport's validity when renewing it early last time won't count towards this).

You can check your passport's validity here to know for sure if you need to renew it before booking a trip. This new rule applies to children's passports, as well as adults, and applies for travel to most European countries.

It doesn't apply for Ireland. Equally, it doesn’t apply if, as a resident of Italy under the Withdrawal Agreement, you want to enter or transit to Italy.

4. Exchanging your driving licence

Italy is a beautiful country to explore by car – whether following the stunning Mediterranean coastline or hopping between hilltop towns.

Photo: Getty Images

But if you still have a UK driving licence, you should exchange it for an Italian licence before 31 December. After that, the rules on driving licence recognition could change – meaning you could end up having to re-sit your test. You can exchange a UK driving licence at an agency of Italy’s Ministry of Transport. So, what are you waiting for? Time to set the wheels in motion!

Staying up-to-date

You can sign for emails with the latest official UK government updates about these topics in Italy. Since 2017, British embassies across Europe have organised 853 Brexit-related outreach events, with more than 510,000 Brits attending in person or online.

The Embassy in Italy regularly engages with British community groups, shares information on their social media pages, and hosts regular Q&A sessions for UK nationals in Italy. Sessions are announced both on Facebook and on this government page.

Get all the latest official guidance for UK nationals in Italy on these topics and more by visiting the UK government's Living in Italy web page

ML Test for millions of Ukraine refugees

The number of refugees to enter Europe from Ukraine could reach around four million, the EU announced at a news conference in Brussels.

After interior ministers gathered for a special meeting of EU member states to discuss the crisis, leaders indicated that the need to intervene was becoming increasingly urgent.

“We are witnessing what could become the largest humanitarian crisis on our European continent in many, many years. The needs are growing as we speak,” said Janez Lenarcic, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

OPINION: This is Russia’s war, but we Europeans need to learn fast from our mistakes

He said the number of Ukrainians affected by the conflict in humanitarian terms could be 18 million within Ukraine itself, while seven million people are at risk of being internally displaced and four million could flee the country as refugees.

That’s a figure also echoed by the UN refugee agency.

More than 368,000 refugees, mainly women and children, have fled Ukraine into neighbouring countries so far based on data from national authorities, the agency said on Sunday.

A large number of those escaping have crossed over into Poland, where the authorities have counted some 156,000 crossing since the invasion started early Thursday.

Romani people fleeing Ukraine arrive at facilities of the local Roma community after Ukrainian refugees crossed the Ukrainian-Hungarian border in Tiszabecs, Hungary, on February 27, 2022. (Photo by Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP)

Border guards counted some 77,300 arrivals from Ukraine on Saturday alone. The refugees have arrived in cars, in packed trains and even on foot.

Germany’s rail operator said it will offer free train rides from Sunday to Ukrainian refugees travelling into the country from Poland.

Up to six trains are running daily from Poland to Germany at the moment, Deutsche Bahn said, but it was preparing to increase that capacity “at short notice”.

Also on Sunday neighbouring Austria announced that its state railway company OeBB would offer free travel to those escaping the conflict.

Austrian Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler said in a tweet that she had agreed with OeBB that “Ukrainians who are fleeing will be able to use OeBB trains without tickets”.

“In these times it is important to help quickly and simply. That it exactly what we are doing,” she said.

Meanwhile, Italy is receiving its first refugees, Italian broadcaster Rainews reports.

Around fifty people made their way by bus, mainly women and children, as their husbands are said to be in Ukraine to fight.

After arriving at the Fernetti border in Trieste, police forces and guards carried out the border controls.

They are reportedly heading to friends’ or acquaintances’ homes, mainly in the north of Italy between Brescia, Vicenza and Milan. Some are also going to Rome.

Some 236,000 Ukrainians have residence in Italy – around 80 percent of those women, according to data from Italy’s national Institute of Statistics (ISTAT).

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