The EU long term residence permit issued in Italy, for employers

The EU long term residence permit is governed by Directive 2003/109/EC and, in Italy, by article 9 of D.Lgs. 286/1998. It requires five years of lawful residence, income no lower than the annual social allowance set by INPS, and a pass in the A2 Italian test. The directive sets six months as the deadline for a decision.

For an employer this is the document that closes the administrative phase of a placement. A worker who obtains it no longer depends on a nulla osta, a quota or a specific contract: the company stops managing an entry file and starts managing a person who stays.

The conditions, read from the company's side

Directive 2003/109/EC asks for three substantive conditions: five years of legal and uninterrupted residence, stable and regular resources sufficient for maintenance, and sickness insurance. It also allows member states to add integration conditions, and Italy has used that option through the A2 Italian language test, organised by the prefectures through the provincial adult education centres.

Three lines deserve an operational reading. The income test is measured against total household income, so a worker with a spouse and two dependent children needs a higher figure than a single worker, and a part time contract at the tabular minimum may not reach it. The A2 test is free but scheduled at provincial level: anyone who books it in the last available month arrives at the five year mark without the certificate. The five year count is broken by prolonged absences from the territory, and on Asian corridors prolonged absences are common, because a six month family return is an ordinary event.

What changes for the employment relationship

A long term permit is not tied to an employer. The worker can change company, sector and province without anyone filing a nulla osta application, and the hiring company does not draw on any decreto flussi pool. For an employer who has invested in a cohort this is a risk and an opportunity at the same time: the person becomes freer to leave and, equally, easier to promote, to move to another site and to retain through ordinary personnel management.

The other difference concerns the document chain. Under a subordinate work permit the company tracks expiry dates, renewals and notifications as described in the guide to the Italian work residence permit. Under a long term permit that chain stops, and the burden a company carries during the sponsorship phase, set out in the guide to what sponsorship means for an EU employer, falls away.

Mobility to a second member state

Article 14 of the directive lets a long term resident settle in a second member state to work as an employee or on a self employed basis, on the procedural conditions that state sets. It is not free movement equivalent to that of Union citizens: the second state may apply a labour market examination and require its own residence title. It is nonetheless a real route, and a group with plants in several countries can use it without restarting from an entry application from abroad.

One asymmetry has practical consequences. A permit issued in Italy travels with this option, while a permit issued by another member state opens the same road into Italy for its holder. A company looking for qualified staff with European experience finds, among the long term residents of other member states, a pool that goes through no national quota at all.

Werklist follows corridors past the first permit, because the fifth year is the point where the administrative cost of a cohort drops to zero and the question turns into retention, and the employers page sets out what data is needed to forecast that date. A company that reaches the fifth year without having checked income, absences and the A2 test finds that for half the cohort the long term permit slips by another year.