Applying for the Elective Residency Visa

Since our intention was to live in Italy, not just visit for a while, we needed to apply for the Elective Residency visa. Some readers may remember the good old days when anyone wanting to stay long-term in a European country simply crossed into a nearby country for a day, returning to home base with a passport stamped to show the new date of arrival. Since the birth of the essentially borderless European Union, that useful gambit no longer works. Now an Elective Residency visa was required for us to reside in Italy beyond three months and up to 365 days. To be granted an ER, applicants must have secured housing for at least a year and document financial resources sufficient to support oneself without working. Working, in fact, is not allowed for those living in Italy with an Elective Residency visa. It is the visa appropriate for retirees, as we were.

Applying for the ER visa is a strenuous exercise at best; many who have gone through it might describe it as horrendous. Applicants must apply through the consulate based in their jurisdiction, in our case the Italian Consulate in Miami, Florida, widely considered to be one of the most difficult consulates to deal with. Add to that the warning that “The Elective Residency visa is the most strictly regulated visa” and you get some idea of the task we were facing. Probably the most common complaint about the consulates and the process is the lack of good communication. It is not possible to call –they simply do not answer phone calls. Writing an email is the best bet, but more often than not the consulate does not reply and if they do, the response tends to be ambiguous and often no help at all.

Another problem is that information posted online by the consulates can be misleading or contradictory–some statements really should be followed by (LOL) or (HaHa). For instance, The Miami consulate asserts in its information for visa applicants, that “Visas will be issued in about 7-15 days.”(LOL) In another place they boast, “…although we take pride in keeping our processing time under 20 days (HaHa),…this consulate recommends that applicants do not purchase airplane tickets until they have received their visas.” No (HaHa) here–the latter part of this sentence is actually good advice. When describing how strictly regulated the ER visa is compared to other visa types, they explain that “The Ministry permits the consular officials to take up to 60 days to review and process an Elective Residency visa application.” Apparently violating the Ministry’s directive, they add that they may hold an applicant’s passport for 90 days even though “You can book an appointment at your convenience but your appointment date must be within 90 days of your departure.” A trick, for sure, if they still have your passports.

The first challenge, though, is to make an appointment to present yourself and your documents to the consulate. As a norm, the only available appointments are three months away. No wonder, given that the consulate sees applicants only four mornings a week–a paltry time allowance considering the demand for multiple kinds of visas in addition to other services. Moreover, just getting onto the appointment calendar page is somewhat confusing. When I experienced difficulty, I emailed the consulate for advice and their response was “people make appointments on our site everyday”–that was it. I did find my way to the calendar but needed a fair amount of imagination and some persistence to do it.

Because I booked the appointment immediately after returning home from Italy, I was able to schedule our appearance at the consulate for April ninth. Now I had to gather the required documents. First on my list, probably because it seemed simple, was to have fingerprints taken and sent to the FBI. Terry and I went to the local police station to have it done and sent prints and paperwork off right away. A week or so later, I received notice that my fingerprints were not clear enough to use and Terry got the same notice shortly after. So back to the police station for a redo, this time by someone who was able to get good prints. We weren’t surprised when the FBI cleared us of having fingerprints associated with any criminal activity.

Much of the other documentation was to verify that we met the financial criteria for an ER. We needed bank statements for the past six months, along with letters from our banks verifying the status of our accounts, tax returns from the last two years, documentation for annuities, social security or other sources that provided a regular income, and proof of housing for a year. In order to facilitate understanding of our financial picture, I added a summary that included all of the above, plus the amount we would net from the sale of our house, along with a copy of our buy-sell agreement.

We also had to supply passports (which would be kept by the consulate), proof of residency in the Miami jurisdiction, a letter explaining why we wanted to live in Italy and a stamped, self-addressed envelope that would be used to return our passports, hopefully with visas stamped inside. Finally, we had to submit a completed application, with our passport sized photos pasted onto the upper right hand corner. In keeping with the Miami consulate’s reluctant communication style, the tiny type set, inadequate spacing and diagonal lines crossing some areas had us squinting as we determined exactly what information we needed to provide.

While not difficult in the main, fulfilling each requirement was a process, sometimes a lengthy one. Banking information, for instance, had to be collected as it became available, and the documentation of our accounts required a couple of trips to each of our three banks to carry out the request. As I worked through the requirements, it began to seem that, as our fingerprinting experience suggested, everything needed to be done at least twice.

While I gathered the materials required for the ER visa, I studied everything I could find online for information and advice posted by those who had gone through the process. Some of these were discouraging, citing bad outcomes or difficulties with their consulate. If the problems were eventually resolved, as some were, I viewed that as a positive. There were also suggestions for ways of presenting your materials on the day of an appointment and even how one should dress. In addition, I reviewed information posted on the websites of other consulates in order to compare their approach and requirements with those of the Miami consulate.

We believed, as I’m sure most applicants do, that we met all the criteria to be approved for an ER. We both had a longstanding familiarity with things Italian, our income was above the required amount and we had purchased a home in Italy. True, we had not yet closed on the house, but we had a registered Preliminary Contract and had made a down payment. From perusing information online, I knew that Preliminary Contracts are accepted as verification of housing in other jurisdictions. But the Miami consulate hadn’t addressed Preliminary Contracts so I emailed them asking whether they would accept our contract as proof we had a place to live in Italy. I did get a response, but it said only that a determination would be made at the time we applied. Though the answer was ambiguous, it seemed as likely as not that our Preliminary Contract was sufficient evidence that we did have housing. Had the answer been a firm “no,” we would have been obligated to cancel our appointment and wait to apply again after we closed on the house.

Although we felt we had made a good case for visa approval, the Miami consulate protects its interests by posting the caveat, “Please be aware that submitting the required documentation does not guarantee the issuance of a visa.”