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Moving to Italy · Healthcare · Reviewed September 4, 2026

Healthcare in Italy for foreigners

Italy runs a universal public system. This page covers how a newly arrived American gets inside it, how long that takes, what to do about the period before it happens, and what private cover costs here against what you are used to paying at home.

System modelUniversal public system8 of 15 countries here
Typical private cover$200/mo$2,400 a year
US employer plan, for scale$777/moLocal cover is 74% cheaper
Rank on premium14 / 15Cheapest first, across every country we cover

General information, not medical advice. What you are entitled to depends on your permit category, your contribution record and your circumstances, and what you are covered for depends on the policy you actually buy. Confirm your position with Italy's health authority and read the policy documents before you rely on them. For anything clinical, ask a doctor.

The system in brief

SystemServizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN), a tax-funded national health service delivered by the 20 regions through local health authorities (ASL). Registration gives you a tessera sanitaria and a family doctor (medico di base); GP visits and hospital care are free at the point of use, and specialist visits, diagnostics and prescriptions carry a per-item copay called the ticket that varies by region and income.
Access for foreignersNon-EU residents holding a permesso di soggiorno for employment, self-employment, family reasons or asylum are enrolled in the SSN automatically and at no extra cost. Holders of an elective residency permit are not in the compulsory category and must either buy private cover or take voluntary SSN enrolment, which since 1 January 2024 costs a minimum of EUR 2,000 per year (about USD 194 per month) under Law 213/2023, reduced to EUR 700 for students and EUR 1,200 for au pairs. Enrolment runs by calendar year and cannot be pro-rated. Every long-stay visa applicant must show private health insurance for the visa itself; the digital nomad visa requires at least EUR 30,000 of medical and repatriation cover.
ModelUniversal public system
Typical private cover$200/mo
US employer plan, for scale$777/mo total premium

The Servizio Sanitario Nazionale is a tax-funded national health service, not an insurance system. Italy spends about 8.4 percent of GDP on health against 16.7 percent in the US, and gets life expectancy of 84.0 years against 78.9. Once you register you pick a medico di base, whose visits are free, and pay a per-item ticket for specialist appointments, imaging and drugs, usually a few tens of euros and waived on low incomes.

Access depends on your permit. If you hold a permesso for employment, self-employment or family reasons, SSN enrolment is compulsory and free, funded by your contributions. If you hold an elective residency permit you fall outside that group and must either buy private cover or take voluntary enrolment, which since 1 January 2024 costs a minimum of EUR 2,000 a year, roughly USD 194 a month, under Law 213/2023. That figure was EUR 387 before the change, so older guides are badly out of date. Students pay EUR 700 and au pairs EUR 1,200, and the year cannot be pro-rated.

The realistic complaints are waiting lists for non-urgent specialist appointments and a real quality gap between northern and southern regions, which is why many Italians pay out of pocket for a private visit at EUR 80 to EUR 150 to skip the queue while keeping the SSN for hospital care. One hard rule: Medicare does not cover you in Italy, and the totalization agreement does not change that.

Universal does not mean immediate or unlimited. Waiting lists for elective procedures and specialist referrals are the usual trade-off, which is exactly the gap private cover is sold to close.

Getting covered, step by step

The order matters more than the paperwork. In a universal public system, entry is not granted by arriving; it is granted by a registration or a contribution, and everything before that is on you.

Who can actually join in Italy: Non-EU residents holding a permesso di soggiorno for employment, self-employment, family reasons or asylum are enrolled in the SSN automatically and at no extra cost. Holders of an elective residency permit are not in the compulsory category and must either buy private cover or take voluntary SSN enrolment, which since 1 January 2024 costs a minimum of EUR 2,000 per year (about USD 194 per month) under Law 213/2023, reduced to EUR 700 for students and EUR 1,200 for au pairs. Enrolment runs by calendar year and cannot be pro-rated. Every long-stay visa applicant must show private health insurance for the visa itself; the digital nomad visa requires at least EUR 30,000 of medical and repatriation cover. Check the official rule →

  1. Weeks before you fly: buy a bridging policyMany residence permits require documented medical cover at the application stage, and every route leaves you outside the local system for a period after you land. A monthly international policy covers both. Buy it before you arrive so the start date is the day you travel, not the day you get around to it.
  2. Before you fly: collect your recordsGet a summary from your current doctor, a list of medications by generic name rather than US brand name, immunisation records, and copies of imaging or specialist reports for anything ongoing. Refill prescriptions to cover the first few months, and check the import rules for anything controlled.
  3. On arrival: register your address firstAddress registration is normally the prerequisite for everything else, health registration included, so it goes first in the queue. Take the lease and your permit paperwork with you.
  4. Then: get into the systemEntry is tied to lawful residence rather than to employment. You register your address, then register with the health service and are issued a patient or health number, usually along with a card. Funding comes from general taxation, so there is no separate premium to choose.
  5. Then: work out when cover actually startsCover typically begins once the registration is processed rather than the day you arrive, and the processing time is the whole of your exposure. Some systems also require a minimum period of residence, or a specific permit type, before non-emergency entitlement starts. Check the access rule above before assuming your permit is enough.
  6. Once registered: choose a doctor and use it onceRegister with a local doctor and book a routine appointment before you need one. It is how you learn the referral chain, the appointment system and the out-of-hours arrangement while the stakes are low.
  7. Finally: overlap, then cancel the bridgeKeep the bridging policy running for two or three weeks past the date your local cover is confirmed active. Cancelling on the same day is how people end up with a gap exactly as long as one administrative delay.

The gap between landing and being covered

There is almost always a period where you are living in Italy and not yet inside its health system. Emergency treatment is generally available to anyone, but a bill can follow if you are not yet registered, and non-urgent care will normally be refused until you are.

How long it lasts depends on how quickly the registration in your case is processed, and that is the one variable you cannot control. Price the exposure rather than guessing at it. At Italy's typical private premium of $200 a month, bridging cover costs:

Cost of holding bridging cover in Italy, at $200 a month
If the gap runsTotal costReasonable when
1 month$200You are joining a local payroll and your employer handles the registration.
3 months$600The realistic default for most permit routes: registration, processing, then a card.
6 months$1,200Self-employed, or on a route where entitlement follows a residence period.
12 months$2,400You are staying on private cover by choice, or the permit requires it throughout.

Premiums vary with age, declared conditions and the excess you choose. Treat the figure above as a mid-market single-adult benchmark for planning, not a quote.

What private cover buys on top

Once you are inside the local system, private cover stops being a necessity and becomes a trade. What it typically adds:

  • Speed. Shorter waits for specialists, scans and elective procedures is the main thing being bought almost everywhere.
  • Choice of doctor and hospital, including consultants who are not taking public referrals.
  • Language. Access to English-speaking clinicians and English-language paperwork, which matters more in an emergency than it does on a good day.
  • The usual exclusions from public tiers: dental, optical, physiotherapy and some outpatient prescriptions.
  • Direct billing, so the hospital invoices the insurer instead of you, and repatriation or evacuation cover if you are far from major hospitals.

Before buying, read three things: the waiting period for pre-existing conditions, the annual limit, and whether the policy pays the provider directly or reimburses you afterwards. Those three decide what the policy is worth in the week you actually use it.

What it costs against a US plan

Employer-sponsored single coverage averaged about $777 a month in total premium, most of it paid by the employer, before deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. A comparable private policy in Italy runs about $200 a month , roughly 74% less, and here it usually sits on top of a public entitlement rather than instead of one.

Typical private cover in Italy against the US employer-plan baseline
MeasureItalyUnited States
Per month$200$777
Per year$2,400$9,324
Over three years$7,200$27,972
Difference per year$6,924 less in Italy
Share of the average local net salary7%18%
What it buys youCover on top of, or ahead of, the universal public systemYour primary route to care

The two figures are not like for like, and the difference is the point. The US number is a total employer-sponsored premium for a single adult, most of it paid by an employer and invisible on a payslip, and it still sits in front of deductibles, copays and out-of-network billing. The Italy figure is what an individual pays out of pocket for private cover in a market where a public tier exists underneath it. The salary-share row is the one to read if you are taking a local job rather than keeping a US one.

See how the rest of the budget compares in Italy →

Private cover across every country we cover

Italy ranks 14 of 15 on typical private premium, cheapest first, at $200 a month. The median across the dataset is $130, which puts Italy 54% above it. The range runs from $58 in Sweden to $465 in Germany.

Typical monthly private cover for a single adult, cheapest first
CountryRankPer monthPer yearSystem model
Sweden1$58$696Universal public system
Norway2$60$720Universal public system
Portugal3$75$900Universal public system
Spain4$90$1,080Universal public system
Canada5$95$1,140Universal public system
New Zealand6$95$1,140Universal public system
United Kingdom7$112$1,344Universal public system
Australia8$130$1,560Mixed public and private
Mexico9$150$1,800Mixed public and private
Japan10$160$1,920Social health insurance
Thailand11$180$2,160Mixed public and private
Netherlands12$182$2,184Social health insurance
Ireland13$184$2,208Mixed public and private
Italy · this page14$200$2,400Universal public system
Germany15$465$5,580Social health insurance
United States (baseline)Not ranked$777$9,324Employer-sponsored premium

A cheap premium and a cheap system are different claims. A low figure in a mainly-private market often means a low ceiling on what the policy pays; a low figure alongside a universal public system usually means the policy is only buying speed.

What each funding model costs to sit on top of

Private premiums are not random across countries; they track what the public tier already does. Grouping every country in the dataset by funding model shows the pattern, and shows which group Italy belongs to.

Typical private premium by healthcare funding model, across the 15 countries covered on this site
Funding modelCountriesMedian premiumRange
Universal public system · Italy8$93/mo$58 to $200
Social health insurance3$182/mo$160 to $465
Mixed public and private4$165/mo$130 to $184

Read the median as what the market charges to top up that model, not as what healthcare costs in it. Where a public tier is broad, private cover is priced as an upgrade. Where there is no public tier to fall back on, the same monthly figure is buying your whole route to care.

The short list, before you fly

  • Check whether your Italy permit requires proof of medical cover at application, and what minimum sum it has to cover.
  • Confirm the date your US plan ends, including whether it covers you at all once you are living abroad. Most employer plans do not.
  • Have the bridging policy active from the day you travel, not the day you land.
  • Carry medication in original labelled packaging with a copy of the prescription, and check the import rules for anything controlled.
  • Save the local emergency number and the nearest hospital to your address in your phone in the first week.
  • Ask your insurer, in writing, how pre-existing conditions are treated on the policy you are buying.

Proof of cover is a document requirement on most residence routes, so the insurance decision and the visa decision are the same decision. The Italy residence routes and what each one asks for →

Health questions about Italy

Can Americans use the Italian public health system?

Yes, but the route depends on your permit. Work, self-employment and family permits bring compulsory SSN enrolment at no extra cost. Elective residency holders must buy private cover or enrol voluntarily, which since January 2024 costs a minimum of EUR 2,000 per calendar year, about USD 194 a month, and cannot be pro-rated. Enrolment gives you a family doctor, hospital care and small copays on specialist visits.

Sources and review

The Italy figures on this page, meaning the system description, foreigner access and typical private premium, come from the sources below and are reviewed alongside the rest of the Italy dataset. The US premium is the KFF employer-survey figure held in our US baseline.

What these numbers are. The headline figures were re-derived from primary sources during review. Some category indices could not be matched to a published statistic and are reasoned estimates, marked as such in the list below. Where a source entry says a value is derived, estimated or crowd-sourced, that is exactly what it is: no international body publishes a like-for-like index for every category, and private insurance premiums are not published at all in most countries. Rent figures are national market averages, so a capital city will run above them. How the dataset is built.

  1. OECD, Purchasing Power Parities detailed results: price level indices for Italy with the United States as base (US = 100), 2024, the latest full comparison available. Household final consumption 67.7; food and non-alcoholic beverages 86.7; transport 99.9; restaurants and accommodation services 89.4; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 50.8. The indices published on this page are those figures carried forward to 2026 by a single net factor of 1.05, being the EUR/USD move (1.1623 divided by 1.0824 = 1.074) times relative consumer price inflation from the 2024 annual average to 2026 (Italy +3.3% against the United States +5.6%, a factor of 0.978). That gives col_index 71, groceries 91, transport 105 and dining 94. These four are extrapolations from a 2024 base, not directly observed 2026 figures. — accessed September 4, 2026
  2. Eurostat, Price level indices (prc_ppp_ind), Italy 2024, EU27 = 100: actual individual consumption 98.1; electricity, gas and other fuels 117.9; restaurants and hotels 106.9. Used as a cross-check on the category pattern. — accessed September 4, 2026
  3. Eurostat, Annual net earnings (earn_nt_net), Italy 2025: gross EUR 40,056 and net EUR 27,787.67 for a single person without children at 100% of average earnings. Net figure divided by 12 and converted at USD 1.1622 per euro gives USD 2,691 a month. — accessed September 4, 2026
  4. European Central Bank, euro reference exchange rate: USD 1.1622 per EUR on 4 September 2026, 2026 year-to-date average 1.1623 across the 173 quotation days to 4 September, 2024 annual average 1.0824. All euro amounts on this page are converted at 1.1622. — accessed September 4, 2026
  5. idealista, rental prices in Italy hit a new high in May 2026: national average asking rent EUR 15.0 per square metre per month, Milan 23.2, Florence 21.8, Venice 21.7, Rome 19.8, Caltanissetta 4.6. Aggregated listing data, used because Italy has no official national market-rent series, so treat it as indicative rather than as an official statistic. The one-bedroom figures on this page assume a 55 square metre flat at about EUR 18.7 per square metre in city centres (USD 1,196, rounded to 1,200) and EUR 13 per square metre outside the centre (USD 831, rounded to 830). The square-metre rates and the 55 square metre size are our assumptions, not idealista's. — accessed September 4, 2026
  6. Eurostat, Electricity prices for household consumers (nrg_pc_204), consumption band DC (2,500 to 4,999 kWh a year), all taxes and levies included: Italy EUR 0.2966 per kWh in the second half of 2025. The all-band figure for the same period is EUR 0.3330. — accessed September 4, 2026
  7. Eurostat, Gas prices for household consumers (nrg_pc_202), consumption band D2 (20 to 199 GJ a year), all taxes and levies included: Italy EUR 0.1481 per kWh in the second half of 2025. This is the source for the piped gas price quoted on this page. — accessed September 4, 2026
  8. US Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly Table 5.3: average US residential retail electricity price 18.16 cents per kWh year to date 2026, and 18.34 cents in June 2026. Against the Eurostat figure of EUR 0.2966 per kWh (34.5 US cents at 1.1622) this makes Italian residential electricity about 1.9 times the US price. — accessed September 4, 2026
  9. US Energy Information Administration, natural gas prices, US residential: USD 13.96, 14.95 and 16.16 per thousand cubic feet in January, February and March 2026, an average of USD 15.02 across the heating season, which is about 4.9 US cents per kWh at 304 kWh per thousand cubic feet. Against the Eurostat Italian figure of EUR 0.1481 per kWh (17.2 US cents) this makes Italian piped gas roughly 3.5 times the US price. — accessed September 4, 2026
  10. Basis for utilities_index_vs_us (93): the typical monthly household bill, not a unit price. ISTAT, Indagine sulle spese delle famiglie 2024 (dataflow 31_740, Spese per consumi - COICOP 2018, SPESA_MEDIA, average monthly expenditure per household, all Italian households, national total EUR 2,755.09 a month). The four items in scope are COICOP 045 electricity, gas and other fuels EUR 136.92 (of which electricity 66.72, gas 61.67, liquid fuels 1.39, solid fuels 6.45, district heat 0.69), 0441 water supply EUR 16.37, 0443 sewage collection EUR 0.29 and 0442 refuse collection EUR 20.26, a like-for-like basket of EUR 173.84 a month. Repriced from the 2024 annual average to the latest observed month with the Eurostat HICP for Italy (CP045 from 163.3 to 154.6 in December 2025, a factor of 0.947; CP044 from 116.5 to 120.9, a factor of 1.038) gives EUR 167.94 a month, which is USD 195.18 at USD 1.1622 per euro. The consumption assumption is Italy's own national household average as measured by ISTAT rather than a fixed dwelling size or a fixed kWh block, so it already reflects small Italian flats, mild southern winters and the roughly one household in five that does not use piped gas. The denominator is this site's standard US reference basket of about USD 210 a month for the same four items, which gives 195.18 divided by 210, an index of 93. That USD 210 anchor is an editorial constant used across every country page rather than a published statistic, and it is conservative: on the closest official US measure, the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2024 cited below, a US consumer unit spent USD 268 a month on the same four items, which would put the index nearer 73. Two known biases run the other way for Italy: where a building has riscaldamento centralizzato, heating and sometimes water reach the tenant through the spese condominiali, which ISTAT books under COICOP 0444, other services relating to the dwelling, at EUR 55.73 a month and does not split out, so the all-in figure for those households is higher than EUR 168; and the ISTAT average covers owner-occupiers as well as renters. — accessed September 4, 2026
  11. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, average annual expenditure per consumer unit, all consumer units, 2024 (series CXUELECTRICLB1101M): electricity USD 1,833. The companion series give natural gas USD 493 (CXUNATRLGASLB1101M), fuel oil and other fuels USD 62 (CXUFUELOILLB1101M) and water and other public services, which covers water, sewer and trash, USD 826 (CXUWATERLB1101M). Those four sum to USD 3,214 a year, USD 268 a month, the like-for-like US counterpart of the ISTAT Italian basket. Telephone services, USD 1,460 a year, are excluded from both sides. Retrieved through the BLS public data API because bls.gov refuses automated page requests. — accessed September 4, 2026
  12. ARERA, the Italian regulator for energy, networks and the environment, press release Elettricita: Maggior Tutela +4,6% nel III trimestre 2026 per i clienti vulnerabili: annual electricity spend for the regulated typical household (2,700 kWh a year on a 3 kW connection) is EUR 591.86 for 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026, down 0.9% from EUR 597.30 in the previous twelve months, about EUR 49 a month. Used as a regulator cross-check on the ISTAT electricity line of EUR 66.72 a month, which is higher because most Italian households have left the regulated tariff for the free market and many consume more than the reference user. — accessed September 4, 2026
  13. Methodology note for rent_index_vs_us (55). The rent index is anchored on the OECD price level index for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, category A0104 in the dataset linked here, which is 50.8 for Italy against the United States in 2024, or 53 after the same 1.05 carry-forward applied to the other indices. It is nudged up to 55 because that OECD aggregate includes the expensive Italian utilities counted separately on this page and leans heavily on imputed rents rather than market rents. The 55 is our estimate rather than a published index; no official series compares Italian and US market rents directly. — accessed September 4, 2026
  14. Basis for typical_private_insurance_usd_month (200): an estimate anchored on the statutory minimum voluntary SSN contribution of EUR 2,000 per year (USD 194 per month at 1.1622), which is the realistic floor an elective residency holder pays for comprehensive cover. Commercial expatriate policies meeting the EUR 30,000 visa requirement span roughly USD 120 to USD 400 a month depending on age and deductible. The EUR 2,000 floor is statutory and verified in the Gazzetta Ufficiale text of Legge 213/2023 linked here, art. 1 comma 240 at page 46; the USD 200 figure itself is our estimate, not a published statistic. — accessed September 4, 2026
  15. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (series CUUR0000SA0): 2024 annual average 313.689; January to July 2026 average 331.18, the latest seven months published, a rise of 5.6%. Used for the US side of the price-level carry-forward. Values read through the BLS public data API, since bls.gov refuses automated page requests. — accessed September 4, 2026
  16. Eurostat, HICP monthly index for Italy (prc_hicp_midx, CP00, 2015 = 100): 2024 annual average 122.26, 2025 annual average 124.28, December 2025 124.9. Extended at the prevailing rate this gives cumulative Italian inflation of about 3.3% from the 2024 average to 2026, the Italian side of the price-level carry-forward. — accessed September 4, 2026
  17. Agenzia delle Entrate, IRPEF rates and calculation: 23% to EUR 28,000, 33% from EUR 28,000 to EUR 50,000, 43% above EUR 50,000, after the 2026 Budget Law cut the second bracket from 35%. — accessed September 4, 2026
  18. Agenzia delle Entrate (English), VAT in Italy: standard rate 22%, reduced rates of 10% and 4%. — accessed September 4, 2026
  19. Agenzia delle Entrate, optional regime for foreign pensioners (art. 24-ter TUIR): 7% substitute tax on all foreign income, valid for nine tax periods, for municipalities of up to 30,000 inhabitants in Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia, Campania, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise and Puglia. The 30,000 threshold applies from 7 April 2026, up from 20,000. — accessed September 4, 2026
  20. US Department of the Treasury, Convention between the United States and Italy for the avoidance of double taxation, signed 25 August 1999. Article 1(2) saving clause and its exceptions; Article 18(2) on social security payments; Article 19(2) on government pensions. — accessed September 4, 2026
  21. IRS, Italy tax treaty documents (1984 and 1999 conventions and technical explanations). — accessed September 4, 2026
  22. IRS, tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026: foreign earned income exclusion USD 132,900, up from USD 130,000 for 2025. — accessed September 4, 2026
  23. Social Security Administration, Totalization Agreement with Italy (SSA Publication 05-10171), effective 1 November 1978; covers Social Security taxes including the Medicare portion but not Medicare benefits. Copy hosted by the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia, as ssa.gov blocks automated retrieval. — accessed September 4, 2026
  24. Ministero della Salute, Assistenza ai cittadini dei Paesi extra UE in Italia (page updated 23 December 2024). This is Italy's national health authority's own guidance for foreign residents and is the official_url shown in the healthcare block on this page. What the page itself states, verbatim in substance: access to the SSN varies with the reason for the stay; a stay of no more than 90 days, such as a tourist's, brings no SSN enrolment and urgent or elective care is paid at regional tariffs, except for students and au pairs; a holder of a valid permesso di soggiorno enrols at the ASL of the comune of anagrafe residence, or of the comune of effective domicilio shown on the permit; enrolment brings the choice of a medico di base and extends to lawfully resident dependants; and enrolment is either obbligatoria or volontaria. The page is a hub and links the two enrolment routes as separate sub-pages; it does not itself print the euro amounts, so the EUR 2,000, EUR 700 and EUR 1,200 minimums, the F24 payment channel and the calendar-year rule are cited to the statute in the Gazzetta Ufficiale entry below rather than to this page. Verified by rendering the page with a browser user agent; the Ministry portal returns a cookie-check wall to plain retrieval and serves a 200 shell for URLs that do not exist, so sub-page slugs on this site should not be trusted without rendering them. — accessed September 4, 2026
  25. Gazzetta Ufficiale, Legge 30 dicembre 2023, n. 213 (2024 Budget Law), full text in Supplemento ordinario n. 40/L to Serie generale n. 303 of 30 December 2023, art. 1 commi 240 and 241 at pages 46 and 47 of the PDF. Comma 240 amends art. 34 of the immigration consolidated act (D.Lgs. 286/1998): in comma 3 the words 'al contributo minimo previsto dalle norme vigenti' are replaced by 'a euro 2.000 annui', and a new sentence in comma 5 sets floors of 'euro 700 annui' for the cases in comma 4 letter a) and 'euro 1.200' for letter b). A new comma 6-bis lets a joint Health and Economy ministerial decree adjust those minimums annually. Comma 241 requires payment to the region where enrolment is sought 'utilizzando esclusivamente il modello F24'. This is the legal source for the EUR 2,000 minimum quoted on this page. Cited to the Gazzetta Ufficiale rather than to Normattiva because the Normattiva view of this act paginates art. 1 and does not render commi 240 and 241. — accessed September 4, 2026
  26. Consulate General of Italy in New York, Elective Residency visa requirements: roughly EUR 31,000 per year, passive income only, employment income excluded, registered lease or deed in the applicant's name required. — accessed September 4, 2026
  27. Consulate General of Italy in New York, Digital Nomad and Remote Worker visa: minimum income EUR 24,789 per year, health insurance of at least EUR 30,000 or USD 50,000, degree or five years of experience (three for ICT), one-year renewable residence permit. — accessed September 4, 2026
  28. Gazzetta Ufficiale Serie Generale n. 79 of 4 April 2024 (full issue PDF, decree begins at page 5): interministerial decree of 29 February 2024 on entry and residence of non-EU digital nomads and remote workers. Article 3(1) requires income from lawful sources of 'non inferiore al triplo del livello minimo previsto per l'esenzione dalla partecipazione alla spesa sanitaria', health insurance valid in Italy for the stay, documented accommodation, at least six months of prior experience in the activity to be carried on, and a work or collaboration contract or binding offer. The decree states only that formula; the euro figure of EUR 24,789 comes from applying it to the exemption threshold of EUR 8,263.31 and is the number the Consulate General in New York publishes, cited separately above. Article 1(2) places these entries outside the decreto flussi quotas, and article 3(2) and (3) remove the nulla osta requirement, which is why this route needs no Italian employer. — accessed September 4, 2026
  29. Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali, decreto flussi 2026-2028: 497,550 entries in total, 164,850 for 2026, 165,850 for 2027 and 166,850 for 2028. — accessed September 4, 2026
  30. Investor Visa for Italy, Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy: EUR 250,000 innovative startup, EUR 500,000 limited company, EUR 1,000,000 philanthropic initiative, EUR 2,000,000 government bonds; two-year visa. — accessed September 4, 2026
  31. Gazzetta Ufficiale, Legge 23 maggio 2025, n. 74 converting Decreto-legge 28 marzo 2025, n. 36 on citizenship, in force from 24 May 2025. — accessed September 4, 2026
  32. Consulate General of Italy in New York, citizenship: application fee EUR 600 per adult applicant, non-refundable, and summary of the Law 74/2025 restrictions on citizenship by descent. — accessed September 4, 2026
  33. Ministero degli Affari Esteri, official Italian visa portal listing all visa types and requirements by nationality and purpose of stay. — accessed September 4, 2026
  34. World Bank, population total for Italy: 58,915,656 in 2025. — accessed September 4, 2026
  35. World Bank / WHO Global Health Expenditure Database, current health expenditure as a share of GDP: Italy 8.44% (2024, latest available) and United States 16.69% (2023, latest available). The two countries' latest data points fall in different years. — accessed September 4, 2026
  36. World Bank, life expectancy at birth, 2024: Italy 84.0 years, United States 78.9 years. — accessed September 4, 2026

Nathan Brooks · Editor, Your New Country

Nathan builds and maintains the Your New Country dataset, reconciling figures from the OECD, Eurostat, the World Bank and national statistics offices, and reading each country’s immigration and tax guidance at the source before it is published.

  • Reads each country’s immigration, tax and health guidance in the original official source rather than in secondary coverage
  • Reconciles every published figure against OECD, Eurostat, World Bank and national statistics releases on a quarterly cycle
  • Publishes the derivation and the access date beside each number, and marks estimates as estimates

Data reviewed September 4, 2026 · source confidence: medium ·methodology

Your New Country publishes reference information, not medical advice and not a statement of your entitlement. Eligibility and cover are decided by Italy's health authority and by your insurer, not by this page. Confirm both before you travel. Italy health authority →

Keep going on Italy

Cost of livingCategory-by-category price levels, rent and a worked monthly budget.Visas & residencyEvery route a US citizen can actually use, with costs and official links.TaxesResidency triggers, the US filing obligation, treaties and FEIE.US vs ItalyEvery figure on this site, side by side against the US baseline.

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