The Italian government is to give out new “digital nomad” visas to tempt non-EU foreigners to spend a year working remotely as it renovates and links hundreds of hill-top villages to high-speed internet networks. The scheme aims to cut through residency red tape and attract anyone who needs only a laptop to make a living and wants a slice of la dolce vita.
“We are targeting people who might work somewhere like the UK now but can actually work from anywhere — a number that has increased due to Covid,” Luca Carabetta, a Five Star MP who helped to write the law, said. “Things like the weather, the cheaper cost of living and the food might be an incentive.”
The new law applies to “highly qualified” remote workers from outside the European Union who are freelance or work for a company based outside Italy. The visa could prove attractive to remote workers in Britain who, after Brexit, now need a contract from an Italian company or a firm with a base in Italy to work in the country. EU workers can freely move to Italy.
Carabetta said that further decrees would be added to make the one-year visas renewable, allowing people to bring their families and to establish the minimum income that visa-holders must have. “I hope we will be ready by the summer,” he said.
Clare Speak, editor in Italy for the expatriate news site The Local, said: “There’s a lot of interest, since the current visa options for non-EU freelances and remote workers moving to Italy are extremely limited.” She warned that the need to prove specialisation, the minimum income threshold and a requirement for private health insurance could rule out some candidates.
MEANWHILE, the Belgium government has extended a number of agreements with other European countries covering workers based in Belgium who want to work remotely from those countries. Details can be found here.
BNP PARIBAS has told workers across Europe they can stay at home for two and a half days a week until 2024. The move is understood to exclude BNP Paribas's UK unit, with the agreement jointly signed between the bank and two European trade unions.
A German labour court has ruled that an employer is entitled to refuse a request from an employee to “work from home” abroad. It is the employer who determines the place of work, not the employee. Dr Sebastian Verstege from Kliemt.HR Lawyers, part of the Ius Laboris network, outlines the facts of the case here.
