There are those who wait for months for an answer, those who lose a job opportunity, those who give up. In Italy, obtaining a visa to work is an obstacle course that only a few manage to complete. The numbers tell the story new report on the Flows Decree 2026 by Ero Stranierothe campaign born in 2017 to impose a reform on regular immigration in Italy into the public debate. According to the association only 8 people out of 100 by December 2025 they managed to complete the entire procedure to be able to work regularly within our borders. A fact that tells the story bureaucratic and regulatory difficulties which have been dragging on since the early 2000s, since that system regularized by the Consolidated Immigration Act of 1998 and then by the Bossi Fini of 2002.
Only 8 out of 100 get a work visa: the immigration system in Italy
The objective of these two laws was to link the arrival in Italy of a foreign person – and consequently grant a visa – to an employment contract. But in our country, dotted with small and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs have need for skills and to know the person who they are hiring. An alternative system was therefore created whereby people enter Italy with a tourist visa and then they remain irregular for a long time until the entrepreneur manages – if he has the intention to do so – to participate in the click day which lasts a few days and regularize the worker through a long procedure.
Until 80s Italy was a country of emigration, therefore, there was no law that regularized the opposite phenomenon. The first was there Foschi Law (1986)which mainly intervened on the work of foreigners already present, introducing protections against exploitation and an initial regularisation.
In 1990 the Martelli Law (L. 39/1990)the first real attempt at systematisation: it introduces entry quotas, regulates the right to asylum (going beyond the “geographical reserve”, the right to asylum was extended to anyone), regulates expulsions and residence permits and provides for major regularisation. However, the management remains fragmented and poorly coordinated.
From the Turco-Napolitano model to the Bossi-Fini squeeze: how regular entry changes
In the 1990s, the increase in migratory flows, including from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, made clear the need for a more complete law. Thus we arrive at Consolidated Law on Immigration of 1998 (Turkish-Napolitan)which reorganizes all the matter into a single regulatory body, introduces the annual programming of flows and structures the system of permits, controls and integration more clearly. The 1998 plant was looking for a balance between entry control and inclusion policiesalso providing temporary detention centers for those in an irregular position and administrative expulsion procedures.
With the Law 189/2002 (Bossi-Fini) the setting has become more restrictive. Entry for work has been more strictly regulated to the prior existence of a contract (residence contract) and to the nominative call of the employer. The link between residence permit and employment contract has been strengthened, the margins for subsequent regularization have been reduced and tighten the rules on expulsion and detention. In essence, a model has been consolidated in which regular entry is possible almost exclusively through scheduled quotas and with a work already guaranteed from abroad. This law was also the result of those times, of an immigration that was mainly economic and different from the emergency immigration of the last 15 years, linked to climate change and wars.
Click Day and flow decree 2026: how regular entry for work in Italy works today
Today, non-EU citizens enter for work mainly through the annual flows decreewhich establishes a maximum number of workers admitted (employed, seasonal, self-employed) in specific sectors. The applications are submitted online by employers on established days and times: the so-called “click day”. The requests are examined in chronological order within the limits of the quotas established by the decree. If the demand is within the scheduled numbers, it One stop shop for immigration issues the authorization at work and transmits it to the Italian diplomatic representation in the country of origin, which in turn consider issuing the visa. Once the visa has been obtained, the worker can enter Italy and, within 15 days, must sign the residence contract at the prefecture; only at that point can apply for a residence permit for work, a title that allows you to live and work regularly in the country.
In recent years, quotas have been increased to respond to labor shortages in sectors such as construction, agriculture, tourism and family care, but the click day mechanism remains criticized because it favors those who are quicker in the IT procedure rather than a real selection based on actual needs. In fact, the current system continues to move within the Bossi-Fini plant.
Because seasonal work works more than subordinate work in the flow system
As we have already said this system intensifies irregular arrivals and participation in the click day for individuals who have already been in Italy for some time: in the Ero Straniero 2026 report, the residence contracts actually signed are compared with the quotas available in the three envisaged channels – seasonal work, non-seasonal work and domestic and social-healthcare work – and a now structural fact emerges: the Seasonal works best of the “classical” subordinate.
Over time, seasonal work has become the most effective channel because yes builds on existing relationships: the employer knows the person, often calls them back year after year, and the administrative procedure becomes the formalization of a relationship that is in fact already well-established. The dynamic changes radically when it comes to hiring someone you’ve never met before from abroad. In that case the flow mechanism does not facilitate a meetingbut try to organize it ex ante, and the uncertainty results in a lower success rate.
The link between direct knowledge and success of the procedure is even more evident in personal care sector. Here the completion rate is significantly higher than in other types of work, because entrusting the care of a family member is not a choice based only on formal requirements, but on a personal relationship. Not by chance many families use flows to stabilize an already existing situation: regularize workers with whom they had started an informal relationship, often made such by the absence of a residence permit or the impossibility of regularizing those who are already in the territory in an irregular condition or with a temporary permit.
Flows Decree 2025: strengthened controls on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Morocco
This year compared to previous years there has been an important innovation in the flow decree, namely the monitoring for the issuing of authorizations by the Police Headquarters and Labor Inspectorate for some countries considered at risk – Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and, later, Morocco. According to the legislator, these countries are “characterized by a high risk of submitting applications accompanied by counterfeit documentation or without the requirements established by law”. This had two consequences, one related to the other: many applications expired due to delays and as a result thousands of jobs were cut.
Recall that these nationalities are the protagonists of immigration flows in our country. In 2024, together, these four countries accounted for nearly 73% of incoming applications, and nearly one in two applications was submitted for labor from Bangladesh.
The proposals to overcome click day and reform regular immigration
The Ero Straniero report proposes to overcome the rigidity of the flow system through a organic reform founded on more flexible channels and adherents to reality of the labor marketwith the aim of promoting an effective meeting between supply and demand and reducing the risk of irregularities. The main solutions indicated are:
- Direct hiring “on call” extra quotas: possibility for the employer to hire from abroad without limits on annual quotas and without time windows, based on the concrete needs of the company or family.
- Permission to search for work with sponsors: entry for one year of selected workers in their countries of origin through guarantor entities (agencies, associations, universities, unions), to facilitate entry into the market.
- Permission to search for work on individual initiative: direct request for a visa to look for work in Italy for a limited period, with economic guarantees and the possibility of conversion into a work permit.
- Regularization on an individual basis: permanent channel for those who are already in Italy without documents but have an employment contract.
- Permission for social rooting: two-year renewable qualification for permanently integrated people, on the model of the Spanish “arraigo social”.
The basic idea is overcome the emergency logic and bureaucratic to a stable, programmable immigration structure that is more consistent with the real dynamics of work and the needs of companies.
