Work With a Study Residence Permit: Requirements and Limitations

The Residence Permit for the study is a title that allows a non-EU foreign national to have access to the national territory, for a long-term stay, in order to attend a course of study or training that lasts more than ninety days and it is regulated by the Consolidated Immigration Act.

This kind of Residence Permit is issued for a fixed term, from a minimum of ninety days to a maximum of one year, renewable upon expiration until the end of the training activity for which he or she is present in Italy: in any case, it cannot be renewed for a period of more than three years beyond the threshold duration of the course of study. This type of Residence Permit also allows for work activity, which, however, must always be subordinate to the study activity.

Rules and Limits of Work Activity

The rules sanctioned to regulate work activity with the Study Residence Permit are dictated by Presidential Decree 394/1999, which states that non-EU students may work for the period of validity of the Permit-with the following requirements:

– Maximum twenty hours per week, also cumulative for 52 weeks.

– Annual limit of 1040 working hours.

These rules were enunciated by the National Labor Inspectorate’s Note No. 1074 of May 2022, which took care to emphasize the concept that the aforementioned limits must be considered concurrently and not alternatively: this means that the foreign student cannot, for example, exceed the twenty hours per week limit while still complying with the other limit of 1040 annual hours ( and this, especially during the summer with university courses, stopped).

The discipline of the Labor Inspectorate aims, therefore, to grant full freedom to the holder of the Residence Permit for Study in order to carry out a work activity, but always with the prevailing objective of educational activity. Therefore, if the student wishes to work for several hours more than the legally sanctioned limits, should apply for conversion of the Residence Permit from study to work before it expires.

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