The visa most American families use to move to Italy forbids them from working there. Settle that before anything else on this page matters.
The route most families take
The route is the elective residence visa, residenza elettiva, a national long stay visa. The Consulate General of Italy in New York states it plainly: the visa “DOES NOT ALLOW ANY WORK ACTIVITIES IN ITALY”, and you cannot finance your residence in Italy through any type of work. Houston and Chicago repeat it. It is not a technicality about employers or payroll. You may keep managing commercial or financial interests held abroad, but you may not earn from work while resident.
The consular fee is EUR 116 per applicant, collected in dollars at USD 135.20 for the quarter running 1 July to 30 September 2026, and it is not refunded if the visa is refused (Consulate General of Italy in New York, consular fee table, checked 2026-08-26). Children pay the same.
The income test counts only passive income. Boston asks for documented stable income of more than EUR 31,000 a year per applicant, from pensions, annuities, property, trusts or investment funds, and states that income from subordinate work will not be considered. Houston publishes the same threshold as EUR 31,000 for one person and EUR 62,000 for a married couple. Boston applies the per applicant test to a dependent spouse, to minor children and to dependent children over 18 living with their parents. Houston’s checklist gives no per child figure, so ask your own consulate before you plan around a smaller number.
Housing comes before the visa, not after. Houston is blunt: the lease or deed must be in the applicant’s name and cover the whole visa period, a third party’s offer of hospitality or a hotel stay will not be accepted, and without such a contract the application will be denied. It must be a Contratto di Locazione ad Uso Abitativo registered with the Agenzia delle Entrate.
Each applicant applies independently: Houston states that a family of four means four appointments and four complete sets of documents. Processing can take up to 90 days.
Schooling
State school is open to your children on the same terms as Italian children. Article 38 of the immigration code makes every foreign minor in Italy subject to compulsory schooling, which runs from age 6 to 16, and Article 45 of DPR 394/1999 lets you request enrolment at any point in the school year. A child goes into the year group matching their age unless the teachers’ board decides otherwise. Compulsory lower education is free under Article 34 of the Constitution.
Instruction is in Italian. English is a compulsory subject in every primary year, with pupils expected to finish primary school at CEFR level A1 (Eurydice, European Commission, checked 2026-08-26). Plan for Italian.
Online enrolment for the first year of primary and of lower and upper secondary state schools is compulsory and time boxed. For the 2026/2027 school year it opened at 08:00 on 13 January 2026 and closed at 20:00 on 21 February 2026, and it requires an Italian digital identity, SPID, CIE, CNS or eIDAS (Unica, Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito, checked 2026-08-26).
International schooling is the main cost line. In Rome, Ambrit International School publishes 2026-2027 tuition from EUR 11,800 for Nursery to EUR 23,000 for Grade 8, plus EUR 4,000 per child once on acceptance and a compulsory lunch programme of EUR 1,480 a year. Marymount International School Rome publishes EUR 13,900 for Early Childhood, EUR 21,000 for Grades 1 to 5 and EUR 28,000 for Grades 9 to 12, plus a Family Registration Fee of EUR 5,000 once per family and EUR 500 per new student.
Healthcare for the family
Elective residence does not carry compulsory health registration. Under Article 34 of the immigration code, registration with the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale is compulsory only for adoption, employed work, self-employed work and family reasons. On elective residence you either hold a private policy covering illness, accident and maternity, or you register with the SSN voluntarily, and voluntary registration also covers dependent family members (Ministero degli Affari Esteri, checked 2026-08-26).
Voluntary registration is charged on the previous year’s total income, in Italy or abroad, at 7.50 percent up to EUR 20,658.28 and 4 percent above that up to EUR 51,645.69, and by law the annual contribution cannot fall below EUR 2,000. That EUR 2,000 minimum also covers dependent family members. It buys a calendar year, cannot be split and cannot be backdated, so it lapses on 31 December whatever date you paid (Azienda Sociosanitaria Ligure 1, checked 2026-08-26).
The consulate also wants proof of cover with the application itself. Chicago asks for overseas health insurance covering 100 percent of medical expenses; Boston asks for a Schengen policy covering emergency evacuation and repatriation of remains.
What the first year costs
Every figure below sits in the data file with its source and check date.
Visas: EUR 116 for each person in the family. Residence permits after arrival: EUR 116.46 for each adult and EUR 76.46 for each child, made up of EUR 16.00 marca da bollo, EUR 30.00 postal charge, EUR 30.46 for the electronic permit and a EUR 40.00 contributo that under 18s never pay (Polizia di Stato, checked 2026-08-26). Health: at least EUR 2,000 for the calendar year if you register voluntarily, or a private premium we cannot publish because no insurer’s own rate page was verified. Schooling: nothing for state school, or EUR 11,800 to EUR 28,000 per child per year plus enrolment charges for international school in Rome.
Rent: EUR 1,104 to EUR 1,584 a month for a two-bedroom in Rome, EUR 1,518 to EUR 2,178 for a three-bedroom, with the method attached. The Agenzia delle Entrate property observatory publishes rent by zone in euros per square metre per month, never by bedroom count: for ordinary flats in normal condition in Monteverde Vecchio and Salario Trieste, second semester 2025, EUR 13.8 to EUR 19.8 per square metre of gross floor area. We converted at an assumed 80 square metres for a two-bedroom, matching the 80.1 square metre average of Rome homes newly let on long-term contracts in 2025, and at an assumed 110 square metres for a three-bedroom, which is our assumption and published by no one. Condominium charges, heating and the lease registration tax sit on top.
No official source publishes what an international move costs, so we publish no mover figure. Use the quote step instead. We get paid if you request quotes through that form.
What surprises families
Signing a lease before you have a visa. You must hold a registered Italian lease or deed in your own name, covering the visa period, before the consulate will consider the file.
The work ban applying to a remote job. A US salary earned from a laptop in Rome is work activity in Italy. The separate digital nomad and remote worker visa exists for that, and is restricted to highly specialised workers under Article 27-quater of the immigration code (Consulate General of Italy in Houston, checked 2026-08-26).
Eight working days. Once you land, you have eight working days to file for the permesso di soggiorno, through the post office kit at a Sportello Amico counter (Polizia di Stato, checked 2026-08-26).
The integration agreement. Anyone over 16 entering Italy for the first time on a permit of a year or more signs an accordo di integrazione, committing to Italian language and civic knowledge on a credit system. That includes your teenagers (Ministero degli Affari Esteri, checked 2026-08-26).
Who should not move here
Do not take this route if either parent needs to keep working. The elective residence visa forbids it, and no amount of structuring changes that.
Do not take it if your income comes from a job rather than pensions, annuities, property or investments. Employment income is excluded from the test.
Do not take it if you need English-language state schooling. Italy’s state system teaches in Italian, and international schooling in Rome runs EUR 11,800 to EUR 28,000 per child per year on top of everything else.
Do not take it if you cannot commit to Italian housing before you have permission to live there.