If the foreigner needs to work indefinitely in Italy, and remains in Italy for more than the 90 days period, Italian Immigration Law distinguishes between three kinds of foreign workers: subordinated workers, autonomous workers, and assigned workers.

1.         SUBORDINATE WORKERS

Subordinate workers, employees are those whose services are hired by a company in Italy. In order to hire the applicant, the Italian company will need to obtain a work permit.

2.         AUTONOMOUS WORKERS

Autonomous workers are those who work independently and set up their own company or business or practice for some profession.

Under Italian Immigration Law, The Italian Authorities Must Ascertain That:

• Foreign citizen is qualified to practice his activity in Italy and has adequate resources;

• Authority in Italy has no objection to a work authorization being granted to the foreign citizen.

3.         ASSIGNED WORKERS

The Italian Immigration law provides different kinds of assignment procedures depending on the relationship between the immigrant and Italian company and the job to be carried out. There are different kinds of assignments are discuss below:

(I)          Intra-company transfer

The immigrant worker can be transferred from the foreign Parent Company to an Italian affiliate. This kind of assignment procedure is applicable to highly specialized personnel or managers with at least 1 year of experience.

 (II)       Service agreement assignment

This procedure requires collaboration between the worker’s foreign company and the Italian company

(III)       Highly qualified workers

In order to carry out a specific task or activity, this procedure allows companies or entities operating in Italy to transfer highly qualified workers in Italy for a determined period.

 (IV)     Special categories of workers

In addition to the categories listed above, there are a number of special categories of workers who can work in Italy on assignment for short term periods, e.g. journalists, sportsmen, artists, nurses, etc.