FLUSSI DECREE: Entry of workers into Italy

Of the total 69,700 units, 27,700 are reserved for non-seasonal and self-employed workers. 

Of these 27,700, 20,000 units are reserved for entry for non-seasonal employment in the construction and tourism-hotel sectors for third-country nationals who have signed or are in the process of signing migration cooperation agreements. 

The above-mentioned 20,000 units are in turn distributed as follows: 

• No. 17,000 non-seasonal salaried workers who are nationals of Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Korea (Republic of Korea), Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Philippines, Gambia, Ghana, Japan, Guatemala, India, Kosovo, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of North Macedonia, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine; 
• No. 3,000 non-seasonal employees who are citizens of countries with which migration cooperation agreements enter into force during the year 2022.

The remaining 7,700 units are divided as follows: 

• 100 non-EU foreign nationals residing abroad who have completed training and education programs in their countries of origin pursuant to Article 23 of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 are admitted to Italy. 
• No. 100 workers of Italian origin on the part of at least one of the parents up to the third degree in direct line of descent, residing in Venezuela, are eligible. 
• The conversion into residence permits for employment of: 

1. 1. No. 4,400 residence permits for seasonal work; 
   2. No. 2,000 residence permits for study, internship and/or vocational training; 
   3. No. 200 EU long-term resident residence permits issued to third-country nationals by other EU member state. 

• It is also authorized, the conversion into residence permits for self-employment of: 

1. 1. No. 370 residence permits for study, internship and/or vocational training; 
   2. No. 30 EU long-term resident residence permits issued to third-country nationals by other EU member state.

• No. 500 non-EU citizens residing abroad from the following categories are allowed to enter Italy for self-employment: 

1. 1. entrepreneurs who intend to implement an investment plan of interest to the Italian economy, involving the use of own resources of not less than 500,000 euros, as well as the creation of at least three new jobs; 
   2. freelancers who intend to practice regulated or supervised professions, or unregulated but represented nationally by associations registered in lists maintained by public administrations; 
   3. holders of corporate offices of administration and control expressly provided for in Interministerial Decree No. 850 of May 11, 2011; 
   4. artists of clear reputation or high and well-known professional qualification, hired by public or private entities, in the presence of the requirements expressly stipulated in Interministerial Decree No. 850 of May 11, 2011; 
   5. foreign nationals who intend to establish "innovative start-up" enterprises under Law No. 221 of December 17, 2012, if they meet the requirements of the same law and hold an employment relationship of a self-employed nature with the enterprise.

Non-EU nationals residing abroad are admitted to Italy for seasonal employment in the agricultural and tourism/hotel sectors, within the 42,000 quota. This quota refers to non-EU seasonal employed workers who are nationals of the countries indicated in Article 3(1)(a), i.e., nationals of citizens of Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Korea (Republic of Korea), Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Philippines, Gambia, Ghana, Japan, Guatemala, India, Kosovo, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of North Macedonia, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine. 

Of these, a quota of 1,000 units is reserved for non-EU workers, citizens of the countries indicated in Article 3, paragraph 1 (a), who have entered Italy to perform seasonal subordinate work at least once in the previous five years and for whom the employer applies for a multi-year nulla osta for seasonal subordinate work. 

It is also reserved for the agricultural sector, a quota of 14,000 units for non-EU workers, citizens of the countries indicated in Article 3, paragraph 1, letter a), whose applications for authorization to enter Italy for seasonal work, including multi-year work, are submitted by the professional organizations of employers of Cia, Coldiretti, Confagricoltura, Copagri, and Alleanza delle cooperative (Lega cooperative and Confcooperative). These organizations undertake the commitment to oversee the conclusion of the process of hiring workers until the actual signing of the respective labor contracts, including the communication requirements under current regulations.

In this note, the ministry provided the numbers of quotas for employment (seasonal and non-seasonal) and self-employment, ex Articles 3, 4 and 6, to the Territorial Labor Inspectorates.

Specifically, the main steps are given below. 

With reference to the provisions of Article 3, paragraph 1, lett. a) earmarked for entry for non-seasonal subordinate work in the road haulage for third parties, construction and tourism-hotel sectors, the Directorate General assigns, through the SILEN computerized system, 14,000 quotas (of the 17,000 provided for in the Prime Minister's Decree) indistinctly to the Territorial Labor Inspectorates by production sector, based on reported needs, after consulting the social partners. 

With reference to the quotas stipulated in Article 4: 

- With respect to the quotas reserved for entries of foreign workers who have participated in training and education programs in their countries of origin (ex art. 23 of the T.U.I.), the Directorate General announces that it will allocate the relevant quota at the request of the competent territorial labor inspectorates, upon positive verification of the name of the worker included in the list published in SILEN; 

- with reference to entries reserved for workers of Italian origin residing in Venezuela, the relevant quotas are not distributed at the territorial level, remaining at the disposal of the General Directorate, which will assign them on the basis of the specific requests that will be received by the Single Immigration Desks and reported to it by the Territorial Labor Inspectorates; 

- With respect to conversions to residence permits for employment and self-employment, the Directorate provides a provisional territorial allocation of 3,200 quotas (of the 7,000 provided for in the Prime Minister's Decree), based on the conversion applications received on the SPI system and communicated by the Ministry of the Interior as of Feb. 8.

With reference to the quotas for entry for seasonal labor in the agricultural and hospitality tourism sectors, provided for in Article 6: 

- the Directorate reports an initial territorial allocation, of 13,700 quotas (out of the 28,000 provided for in the Prime Minister's Decree), of which 595 are for multi-year seasonal labor clearance requests, based on the non-EU seasonal labor needs reported by the Territorial Labor Inspectorates and resulting from consultations carried out at the local level; 

- all 14,000 quotas reserved for applications for seasonal work (including multi-year) in the agricultural sector from the six professional employer organizations Cia, Coldiretti, Confagricoltura, Copagri, and the Alliance of Cooperatives (Cooperative League and Confcooperative), were allocated at the territorial level based on the applications received on the SPI system, and communicated by the Ministry of the Interior as of Feb. 4. As indicated by the Decree of the Minister of Labor and Social Policy No. 16 of February 1, 2022, the Territorial Labor Inspectorates will proceed to prioritize the processing of the aforementioned dossiers, notwithstanding the chronological principle of arrival of all applications submitted by employers, for the purpose of issuing the competent opinion. Once the quota of 14,000 units reserved for professional organizations has been exhausted, the Inspectorates will be able to instruct all the files according to the chronological order of arrival on the SPI system and commit the total quota allocated to seasonal/multi-year work allocated to the relevant province.

Should local needs arise in excess of the quotas allocated at the provincial level, it is permissible for the Territorial Offices to request additional quotas in order to respond to requests submitted to the Single Immigration Desks.

The application for pre-filling application forms is available at. https://nullaostalavoro.dlci.interno.it (by logging in as usual via SPID credentials) starting 12.01.2022. 

The timelines for submitting clearance requests are:

• from 9:00 a.m. on January 27, 2022 for hiring non-seasonal workers, self-employed workers and conversions.

These applications also include those for non-seasonal workers in the trucking, construction and tourism sectors related to citizens of countries that have signed migration cooperation agreements with Italy. On the other hand, for citizens, of those countries whose cooperation agreement on migration matters is not yet in force, applications can be submitted only from the fifteenth day after the publication of the cooperation agreement in the Official Gazette.

• from 9:00 a.m. on February 1, 2022 for hiring seasonal workers.

As in the past year, a prerequisite for completing and submitting applications electronically is possession of a SPID identity, as illustrated with Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 3738 of December 4, 2018.

All applications can be submitted until the March 17, 2022 and will be processed on the basis of their respective chronological order of submission.