Job Discussion Forums

[Joe P]

Hi all,
Can anyone supply contact website details for agencies or schools in Italy that advertise or look for TEFL teachers.. (particularly from Australia..)
Has anyone had luck in locating work prior to departure?
thanks heaps

[SueH]

Try the usual suspects: TEFL.com, online yellow pages, Susan Griffith's book 'Teaching English Abroad' etc. Nothing really stands out I'd say and I think you already realise that being there helps considerably.

Hope you've done your homework over work permits and the like. I won't assume you haven't and apologies if you have but I'm constantly surprised by the number of people who don't.

[Joe P]

Thanks for your help there Sue, yeah, I have looked into permits etc.. the thing I am not sure about, is this process of residency..
I need to understand how you go about setting a permanent address..etc if you dont really have anywhere in mind to live..
I guess there needs to be some setup time allowed and my hopes to have everything sorted before leaving is hard.
Thanks again (is there a website that explains exactly what is required in order to work in Italy..ie.. dot points of documentation required?
Thanks again

[Teacher in Rome]

I think you'll need to do all the paperwork once you're here, since you need to apply in person for all the permits.

When I came here, there was little in the way of help (in English) that set out all the necessary steps. I bought a book "Live and work in Italy" that was already out of date. With all the recent changes in the EU, as well as the individual whims of police officers and so on, it seems that everyone's experience is different.

But here are some steps you could follow (if you're EU, that is.)

Get a codice fiscale from the Ministry of Finance. You need a copy of your passport, the original and a couple of photos, if I remember well. (Always have a stack of passport photos and copies of passport handy. You never know when you'll need them.)

The codice fiscale is your tax number and you must have it to work and get paid. The process of getting a number is automatic. They then send you a plastic card with the number on, so you'll need an address for them to send it to. (Not a hotel or guest house.) I'd arranged a flat in Rome for a month, and they sent it to that address.

Get your "oermesso di soggiorno" from the questura (foreigners' police for want of a better translation.) Again, passport copies, photos, but you do not need anything else as a EU citizen. Fill in the form, hand over your passport, and collect it in a couple of weeks or so. The expiry date on the permesso varies - 5 years, 10 years, or forever.

In theory, as a EU citizen, you don't need a permesso. But you'll need some ID to do anything in Italy - sign a contract on a flat, open a bank account, get an electricity contract (for this you need residency as well) and so on.

Getting residency is pretty easy. Once you have somewhere to live, go along to the local comune and apply for residency, showing them your permesso and so on. If you have rented a flat, your landlord needs to sign something to the effect that you live there - again, rules change, so ask the comune to supply you with the forms. Then they check you live there and you go back to the comune with the piece of paper the "vigili urbani" give you. (The vigili urbani are the police who come round to check you live there.)

With residency you pay less income tax (but you pay garbage collection tax) and you have access to the Health Service. Getting a doctor is also relatively simple. You go to the local Health Authority (ASL) showing them your residency paper (or just the request for residency you get while you are waiting for residency), show them passport, codice fiscale etc, then choose a doctor. With residency, doctor's services are free, and you also get cheap prescriptions.

You also need a large dose of patience, and a fair amount of luck to get everything processed quickly. Often the questura police computers go down, which slows down permesso applications. Or individual questura police don't know what to ask for and ask you to get some sort of "bollo" (an official stamp that you need to pay for at a post office) and so on. If this happens, go away and come back the next day to see a different police officer.

Like in other EU countries, once you have one piece of paper, other things fall into place quite quickly.

Finding work is more difficult to do if you're outside Italy. For work in Rome there's also www.wantedinrome.com (or perhaps .it at the end.) They also have accommodation ads, but the places they advertise are expensive.