Moving to Ticino: permits and the Italian residence test

Residence permits for Italian nationals

For an Italian national the right to live in Ticino follows from the Agreement of 21 June 1999 between Switzerland and the European Community and its member states on the free movement of persons (AFMP, SR 0.142.112.681). A person who takes up employment or self-employment in Switzerland receives a residence permit (B EU/EFTA). A person who does not work receives the same permit if he or she has sufficient financial means not to depend on social assistance and health insurance covering all risks.¹ A wealthy family meets these requirements easily, although the authorities do enforce them. In a judgment of 11 January 2016 the Federal Supreme Court upheld the revocation of the permit of an Italian national living in Ticino who could not rely on the AFMP as a worker or job-seeker, had depended on social assistance for years and had criminal convictions. The court observed that a return to Italy was reasonable in view of the cultural and linguistic proximity between the two countries.² For the families discussed in this chapter the permit is rarely in doubt. What matters is that the move is genuine, because both the Swiss and the Italian authorities will look at the facts of daily life.

Ticino's migration practice has at times been stricter than that of other cantons. In April 2015 the canton began to require a criminal record extract from Italian applicants for B and G permits, a measure that Italy regarded as discriminatory. The Ticino government made the extract voluntary again in June 2017, with the express aim of removing an obstacle to the conclusion of the new agreement on the taxation of crossborder workers.³ The episode, which is discussed with the cross-border agreement in Chapter H.I, illustrates that permits for Italians are a political question in Ticino in a way they are not in Zurich or Geneva. For wealthy families it has had little practical effect, but advisers should expect the cantonal migration office to examine applications carefully and should prepare complete documentation.

Leaving Italy: registration is not enough

Moving out of Italy for tax purposes is more difficult than moving into Switzerland. An Italian national who transfers his or her residence abroad must cancel the registration in the municipal population register and register in the register of Italians resident abroad (Anagrafe degli italiani residenti all'estero, AIRE).⁴ For decades, however, Italian tax law has treated registration as only one element of residence. Art. 2(2) TUIR was reformulated by Legislative Decree No 209 of 27 December 2023 with effect from the 2024 tax period. A natural person is now resident in Italy if, for the greater part of the tax period, he or she has the residence within the meaning of the Civil Code, the domicile or physical presence in Italy. The greater part means 183 days, or 184 in a leap year, and fractions of days count. The reform defines domicile for tax purposes as the place where the personal and family relationships of the person principally develop ("il luogo in cui si sviluppano, in via principale, le relazioni personali e familiari della persona"). Registration in the population register becomes a presumption that can be rebutted by proof to the contrary.⁵

The new definition of domicile shifts the emphasis from economic to personal ties. The old rule referred to the Civil Code definition of domicile as the main seat of business and interests. Under it the Italian courts had often found that a person who had moved abroad but kept the management of an Italian business remained domiciled in Italy. Under the new rule the family is decisive. An entrepreneur who moves to Lugano with spouse and minor children, while continuing to visit the company in Lombardy, has a better position than before. An entrepreneur who moves to Lugano alone while the family stays in Milan has a weaker one. Physical presence has become an independent criterion: a person who spends more than half of the year in Italy, counting fractions of days, is resident there regardless of domicile or registration. The Agenzia delle Entrate explained the new rules in Circular No 20/E of 4 November 2024.⁶

Notes

1. Agreement of 21 June 1999 between the Swiss Confederation and the European Community and its Member States on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP), SR 0.142.112.681, Annex I, Art. 24(1), Droit-bilingue.ch, https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-it/0.1/0.14/0.142.112.681-annexI-lvlu1-lvlV-24-52.html (consulted 5 October 2026). See Chapter B.II for the conditions for persons without gainful activity. ↩
2. Federal Supreme Court, judgment 2C_1153/2015 of 11 January 2016, https://servat.unibe.ch/dfr/bger/2016/160111_2C_1153-2015.html (consulted 5 October 2026). ↩
3. Tio.ch, "Frontalieri, il casellario non sarà più un obbligo", 7 June 2017, https://www.tio.ch/ticino/attualita/1149239/frontalieri-il-casellario-non-sara-piu-un-obbligo (consulted 5 October 2026). ↩
4. Legge 27 ottobre 1988, n. 470 (Anagrafe e censimento degli italiani all'estero), cited in Wikipedia (Italian), "Anagrafe degli italiani residenti all'estero", https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagrafe_degli_italiani_residenti_all%27estero (consulted 5 October 2026, used as a last resort). ↩
5. Federico Migliorini, "Novità sulla residenza fiscale delle persone fisiche", Fiscomania, 12 May 2026, https://fiscomania.com/novita-residenza-fiscale-persone/ (consulted 5 October 2026), on Decreto legislativo 27 dicembre 2023, n. 209, which rewrote Art. 2(2) TUIR with effect from 1 January 2024. ↩
6. Migliorini (above), referring to Circolare n. 20/E del 4 novembre 2024. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.