Italian Government raises Residence permit fee
From May 2016 the fee to obtain the electronic Residence permit will be increased from the current € 27.50 to € 30.46, and this excludes all other permit-related taxes. Trade unions are on the warpath.
The month of May has started with bad news for migrants who intend to apply for an Italian Residence permit. The government, led by Prime Minister Renzi, has decided on a small but concrete increase in the application fee.
The new figures
The new application fee for the electronic Residence permit, which is obtainable in Italy since last autumn, has been increase to € 24.56, to which one should add the VAT and a fixed postal commission of € 0.5, for a total of € 30,46. This is almost € 3 more than the previous € 27,50 fee.
The fees applicable for issue of a new permit or renewal of an expired one stay the same, and vary from € 80 to € 100 depending on the type and the length of the permit. All in all, the cost for a Residence permit is now between a minimum of € 110.46 for a one-year permit, € 130.46 for one to two-years permits and € 230.46 for permits of more than two years, like the business ones.
Additional € 30 can be added for the sending of an application or renewal “kit” through Poste Italiane (the national post service), as well as € 16 for the notary stamp.
The decision of the Court of Justice of the EU was ignored
These amounts will have a heavy impact on the migrants, especially in the light of last autumn’s decision by the EU Court of Justice that such costs were excessive and could damage the rights of migrants applying for Italian residency.
This was the result of the Court accepting an appeal from employer’s organizations, and it should have had the opposite effect on the fees, but the government did not seem to have obliged to such decision – although there seems to be an open discussion at the Parliament.
This is why trade unions and employer’s organizations promised to be in the loop and to insist for a change. They deem it an operation only aimed at making revenue: “This looks like a bad joke at the expenses of foreigners, who have to pay these fees and then waste more time in applying for their refund from the EU Court of Justice”.
In the meantime, they started a campaign to receive the refund applications from the migrants, and they invite the applicants and their families in their offices to apply also for the paid amounts of January 2012, when these regulations entered into force.
Costo del permesso di soggiorno, aumenti
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