You may have heard a thing or two about the bureaucracy in Italy – it is world-famous after all. When I first heard about it, I didn’t realllllllly pay much attention because whatareyougonnado ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  I was still moving to Italy!

But I’ve come to realise (and personally experience) that daily life in Italy is made unnecessarily complicated, and emotionally draining, all thanks to the bureaucracy.

There is no doubt that citizens bear the brunt of the 235,000 regulations in place in Italy; even simple, everyday tasks such as paying taxes and rates, renting, etc. are ridiculously complex and time-consuming. I can only imagine the nightmarish reality of getting through life’s bigger tasks, such as marriage, adoption, divorce or dealing with property.

As an expat, however, you have to deal with immigration. And that is another beast altogether. Immigrants need to apply for a visa, a permit of stay, a permit to work, a tax code, a declaration of hospitality, to register in the general population, to apply for residency, and fill out an infinite list of forms; not to mention that most of these processes involve dealing with the Italian postal service, which is hell on earth.

To add to the misery, public offices are usually open from 9am until 4pm, except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they close at 12.30pm, or the first Monday of the month when it’s closed all day (you get the picture). They have only a few hours per week dedicated to telephone customer service, and even in the 21st century, literally nothing can be done online.

And of course, when you actually arrive at the offices during their limited opening hours, the system is ‘bloccato‘ (frozen/down), or everyone is out for lunch.

So, to give you an even better idea, here is a ‘best of’ list of my own personal experiences with the Italian bureaucracy.

NB – all of the following happened in Milan, which is known to be the most well-functioning city in the whole of Italy.

The Questura (Immigration Office)

I spent two days in this hell-hole, and I never want to return. It is absolutely packed full of people, it’s smelly, everything is slow and uncomfortable, and there’s a general air of despondency.

Alas, as a non-EU citizen, I needed to apply for my permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) within 8 days of arriving in Italy (yes, specifically 8 days).

On my first visit to the Questura, I arrived bright and early at 8am – ready to take on the world. I thought I was prepared for the bureaucracy, having read the official information online and a number of blogs.

To my surprise, there was a huge line outside the Questura – just to reach the entrance. I waited here for 45 minutes. Once inside, you meet a person in a booth, tell them what you want to do, and show them your documents. After showing her mine, she ushered me through… to yet another booth.

The man in the second booth looked confused by my visa (working-holiday, not all that common), but eventually found the right form for me. I had to:

• fill out the form (in Italian, of course);
• buy a ‘Marca di Bollo” (payment stamp) for €16 from a tobacco shop;
• obtain a money order from the post office.

Simple enough, right? 

Wrong. See under heading “Post Office“.

But I’ll continue. After obtaining this stuff, and spending another 20 minutes in line at the Questura, I was sure that I was nearly done – very wrong.

The man in the second booth gave me a ticket numbered 280. The number currently on the screen was 150.

No worries though – ever positive and ever prepared, I had my phone and a book with me, and a whole day to waste.

After one hour of waiting, I was starving and really needed a coffee. The number was at 180-something, so I had plenty of time. I ducked out, found a nearby coffee shop, took an espresso standing at a bar, stuffed my face with a croissant (or a briochè, as the Milanese say) and made my way back to the Questura (hell-hole) less than 30 minutes later.

The line to the entrance wasn’t moving. To this day, I don’t understand why, but I assume that the system was ‘bloccato’. It took another hour to merely re-enter the building, and I was beginning to stress that I’d miss my number. Thankfully (I think this is the right sentiment?), it was only at 210.

Another 2 hours of waiting, my number was finally called.

The immigration officer was super chill – I was clearly past the 8 days in which to apply, and he didn’t blink an eye. I gave him my documents, and it was otherwise uneventful.

In return, he gave me another ticket (joy). 

After *only* 20 more minutes, I was called into a small side-room. Here, a man took my fingerprints, palm prints (all of the prints), took a mugshot of me, and told me to come back in one month.

Hurrah! I was done for today. All in all, this visit took 7 hours.

I’ll spare you the boring details of my second visit, but please know that it only took 3 hours instead of 7. 

And I was one of the lucky ones – my permit had my correct details, and a fully functioning electronic chip.

So many other expats have a horror story involving a permit gone-wrong; having to verify their name or date of birth via their consulate, and waiting for up to 3 additional months.

But of course, the immigration officers say “boh“, shrug their shoulders and tell them not to worry – it happens all the time.

Poste italiane (the postal service)

The Italian postal service is a joke. Deliveries are frequently lost (personal experience with this one); successful deliveries can take up to two months to arrive; and the staff are rude, slow and clearly disgruntled with their working conditions.

A friend of mine made a great observation – it’s a vicious cycle. The system is well-known to be shocking, so the Italian government has cut funding. But because of the budget cuts, the system is becoming worse, and staff are completely disenchanted with their jobs – so in turn, they become worse employees.

I’ll be honest – I’m actively avoiding going to the post office, despite having a growing list of things I need to do there.

My first, and so far, only encounter with the Italian postal service was to obtain a money order for immigration, and it was awful. It was only my second day in Italy, and understandably, my Italian was… a little rusty.

But, I knew the amount I needed to pay, I knew the word for money order (“la vaglia”), and I knew I could at least read any form they threw my way.

As expected, there was a form. I filled it out as best I could, and returned to the counter.

The server said something extremely fast in Italian. I asked her if she spoke English (of course she didn’t), then to please repeat, but slower. Again, she spoke super fast, and was clearly losing patience. She was telling me to change how I inserted the numbers. I understood that I needed to write the full euro amount in words, but the cents needed to be numerical (?)

I went away, corrected the form (insofar as I understood), and returned to the counter. 

This time, the server had completely lost her (limited) patience. She essentially yelled at me in Italian. I think she was saying that I needed to put a slash in-between the dollars and cents, and I’d used a dash (?????)

But instead of explaining this to me, she had yelled at me, and then muttered under her breath (in Italian, which I understood thankyouverymuch):

“… all these fucking immigrants come to Italy, and they can’t even speak a word of Italian”. 

I had no words – not only because of my lack of Italian language skills, but I was so shocked that she would speak to a customer like that. I could clearly understand some Italian, so she must have known I’d understand the gist of that statement! In any event, we were surrounded by Italians!

And that is why I’m avoiding the Italian postal service – at least until I can speak Italian fluently.

“La sistema è bloccato”

You might not realise it, but it is a glorious day when a public office/shop/company’s operating system functions. But we all have a reasonable expectation that that day is in fact, every day.

I’ve had at least 7 run-ins with the phrase “la sistema è bloccato” – “the system is down” – at the immigration office, the tax office, Milan’s public transport office, the vodaphone shop, and a number of tobacco shops.

Insanity. It is absolutely insane that a public office or a business can have such a temperamental operating system. It’s clearly frustrating for customers/clients, but – to have a system down for hours on end – how to they maintain their patience? 

They leave. When the public transport office system was down, employees packed up and left.

Or, they stand around and chat. This happened at the immigration office. The employees spent one hour waiting for the system to work again, and there they were – in their booth, chatting away, without even making an announcement of some sort to those waiting in line.

Or, they say with complete apathy, “the system is down. It’s not my fault“. This is the case at most tobacco shops. Why haven’t they gotten it fixed? It’s their business ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Boh”.

Like I said, it is a glorious day when the system works.