Codice Fiscale & Italian Phone Numbers

The last two days we decided to set out and try to accomplish two tasks that would eventually be required for making Italy a home. Our goals were to get an Italian phone number for our iPhones and to get a Codice Fiscale. We were surprised by which task was difficult and which one was easy.

Getting an Italian phone number turned out to be the complicated and time consuming task. Since most phones today use eSIMs, I thought it would be easy to do this online. Unfortunately, both of the two main cellular providers in Italy require providing an existing Italian cellular number so they can send a verification SMS to it. So our next step was to visit the store in person. Not having a “codice fiscale” was a minor hiccup that was easy to overcome. Not having an existing phone was still an issue in person. This required the employee to call the company on the phone and ask for a verification to be done by email instead of an SMS text message. This was done, but by the time the verification email would be received (about 20 minutes later), the verification portal would time-out. We went through two rounds of this, on two separate visits, and finally gave up.

We then went to a store of the other major cellular company in Italy. They didn’t require an SMS or email verification if a customer signed up for a plan and eSIM in person. So in about 20 minutes, we left the store with our iPhones converted to an Italian number. So easy and convenient as changing the activate eSIM between our U.S. cellular provider and Italian cellular provider could simply be done in the Settings.

One surprising thing was how inexpensive a cellular plan in Italy is. We are paying EUR 8.99 a month (about $10 in USD) per phone which allows for 150 GB of data and unlimited calls. This is a fraction of the cost of our U.S. cellular plan and the speed is blazing fast using 5G, even in a smaller town that we are based in (Spoleto, population of about 20,000).

A Codice Fiscale is analogous to what a Social Security number is in the U.S. It is not required to be a citizen to obtain one if you have a valid reason for requesting one. It is necessary for doing many things like opening a bank account, making a major financial transaction, etc.

I had read many stories about the famous Italian bureaucracy, so I prepared myself for this being a multi-step process that would not be simple and straightforward. It would be analogous to visiting my local social security office in the U.S. where I normally have had to plan to spend at least two or three hours on each visit.

First, I tried to do some homework. By talking with new friends here, I found out the the government office which would be able to do this was called the “Agenzia delle Entrate” and this ufficio would likely require scheduling an appointment.

I went to the website to see if scheduling an appointment was possible online. I managed to navigate through the site to get to the scheduling page, but one of the required fields was the “codice fiscale”. This created the chicken and egg problem! Since we didn’t have one yet, scheduling an appointment online was not going to be possible.

We then decided that it would probably be easier to visit the office in person to schedule the appointment. Prior to leaving, we spend some time brushing up on relevant Italian vocabulary for this particular task. It seems to always be appreciated to make an effort to communicate in Italian.

We had a little hiccup in that the address on Apple Maps was actually outdated and the office had moved to a new location. Switching to Google Maps resolved this (Google seems to be more accurate in Italy, perhaps due to the popularity of android cellular phone over the iPhone) and we soon arrived at this office.

We walked in and explained that we would like to apply for a codice fiscale and had tried to make an appointment online, but were not able to do so. We asked if we could schedule an appointment to do this. Surprisingly, the person at the desk said that he would be able to do this now if we would like. So less than 15 minutes later, we walked out with this two official documents.

So, our first initial step with the Italian bureaucracy was really a breeze. Perhaps this has something to do with Spoleto being a smaller town, so the government offices were not overwhelmed. Maybe it helped to have a respectful and appreciative attitude, as well as doing a little homework beforehand to facilitate what was needed and how to do it.

Next major item is the decision on if we do the Schengen Shuffle or make this move a permanent one. Moving here full-time would be a really serious step and would require applying to the Italian consulate in the U.S. for an “Elective Residency VISA.” There a long list of tasks and documents required prior to making the ERV application.