The professional attestation in Italy's flows decree: what it certifies

The asseverazione is the statement in which a labour consultant, a lawyer, a qualified chartered accountant or a comparatively representative employer organisation certifies two facts about the employer: that the applicable national collective agreement is observed, and that the number of entry requests is proportionate to the firm's economic capacity. Without it, the nulla osta application cannot be completed.

The legal basis and who may sign

The instrument comes from article 24-bis of Legislative Decree 286/1998, inserted by Decree Law 145/2024 and explained in interministerial circular no. 9032 of 24 October 2024, issued jointly by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the Ministry of the Interior. It is not a discretionary opinion on the hiring plan. It is a documentary check on the company's accounts, signed by someone who answers personally for what it says.

Four categories may sign. Labour consultants on the professional register, lawyers and qualified chartered accountants may attest for their own clients. Alternatively, a nationally comparatively representative employer organisation signs for its member firms. Circular 9032 of 2024 states that these authorised professionals are not bound by the limit of three applications per year that the flows decree applies to a private employer, because they act as qualified intermediaries rather than as applicants in their own right.

An employer that falls into an exempt category, for example because it has already signed the memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Labour, follows the special rules of that channel. For everyone else the attestation is an ordinary step of pre-filing, not an exception.

On what the professional examines before signing, the circular is explicit: asset position, financial and economic balance, turnover for the last financial year, headcount already employed, and the type of activity carried out. A construction firm with two employees and modest turnover that asks for twenty entries fails the proportionality check, and the attestation is not issued. That is the point of the document in the design of the law: move the test of employer solidity ahead of the application rather than after the click day.

Where it sits in the procedure, with timing and cost

The attestation is uploaded during pre-filing on the Portale Servizi ALI, the Ministry of the Interior platform through which the Sportello Unico per l'immigrazione receives nulla osta applications. Pre-filing opens weeks before the submission date fixed by the annual decree, and that window is the employer's real working calendar. An employer who reaches pre-filing without a signed attestation cannot save the application as complete.

There is no statutory fee. The attestation is professional work, paid under the engagement with the consultant or under the rules of the employer organisation, which for member firms often folds it into the membership service. The duties and stamp charges on the nulla osta application are separate and follow the ordinary Sportello Unico rules. An employer budgeting an entry therefore counts three distinct lines: the attestation fee, the administrative charges on the file, and the cost of the employment itself, which we set out in the cost of hiring a non EU worker in Italy.

The mistake that stops the file

The most common way to lose a round is a mismatch between the collective agreement attested and the one actually applied. The professional attests observance of one specific CCNL, with its grade and its minimum pay. If the draft residence contract uploaded to the portal shows a grade or a wage that does not match that agreement, the inconsistency surfaces during case handling and the file stops. Correcting it after submission means, in practice, waiting for the next round, because flows decree quotas are exhausted within hours. The quota split behind that race is summarised in Italy's decreto flussi quotas from 2026 to 2028, and the full sequence from nulla osta to visa is in the nulla osta route.

The second mistake is the headcount. An employer that requests more positions than the accounts support forces the professional either to reduce the attested number or to decline the signature. Fix the number with the consultant against last year's figures before pre-filing opens, not the day before submission.

For anyone organising hiring from abroad into Italy, the attestation is the point where the file stops being a paperwork problem and becomes an accounting one. Treating it as the last attachment to chase is why so many applications arrive incomplete at a window that lasts a few hours. Our employers page lists the documents we gather before opening an Italian corridor.