Once income enters the picture
Everything you need for work: ISEE, 730, payslips & contracts
Four documents cluster together here because they all hinge on the same thing — your income situation, whether that's the household figure that sets your university fees or the first payslip from an actual job. Once you're earning anything in Italy, this is the full trail: what proves your situation, what it refunds, and what the rules actually let you do.
ISEE: the number that unlocks reduced fees
ISEE — Indicatore della Situazione Economica Equivalente — is Italy's standard measure of your (and your household's, where relevant) economic situation. It isn't a tax you pay; it's the number Italian universities and public bodies use to work out what you pay, or whether you qualify for support at all.
- Two ways to file it
- Directly, online, through the pre-filled DSU (Dichiarazione Sostitutiva Unica) on INPS's own portal, logging in with SPID or CIE and confirming what the system already has on file — or through a CAF (Centro di Assistenza Fiscale), which helps you fill in the same DSU for a small fee or for free, and is usually the easier route the first time, or whenever foreign income or assets are involved.
- Renewed every year
- An ISEE is only valid for the year it's issued for — university-related uses often extend into part of the following year, but it is never a set-and-forget document. Expect to resubmit it annually for as long as you want the reduced rates it unlocks.
- What it unlocks
- Reduced university tuition bands, subsidised canteen and housing rates, DSU scholarships (borsa di studio), and other means-tested student benefits — the ISEE is the single number Italian institutions use to decide what you pay.
What to bring
- · Codice fiscale
- · Valid ID or passport
- · Permesso di soggiorno (or the receipt confirming it's been applied for)
- · Italian bank statements
- · Any Italian income documents you already have (Certificazione Unica)
- · A certified declaration of foreign income and assets, where you have any — the step most likely to need extra time, since Italian authorities can't verify foreign records the way they can Italian ones
Modello 730: the annual tax return, once you're earning
The 730 only becomes relevant once you have Italian income with tax withheld at source — a part-time job, a paid internship. It's the simplified annual return for employees: it reconciles what's been withheld against what you actually owe, and pays out (or occasionally claims back) the difference directly through your pay, rather than you settling up separately.
What it typically refunds or adjusts: excess income tax (IRPEF) withheld across the year, deductible expenses — university tuition fees you've paid, and in some cases rent if you qualify for the away-from-home student deduction (detrazione affitto studenti fuori sede), medical expenses, and family-related credits if they apply to you.
What to bring
- · Certificazione Unica (CU) from every employer you had that year
- · Codice fiscale and ID
- · IBAN for the refund
- · Receipts for anything you want deducted — tuition payment receipts, a rent contract and payments if you qualify for the away-from-home student rent deduction, medical receipts
Cost through a CAF varies by office and by how your employer handles fiscal assistance: many process it at no extra cost when it runs through your employer's own arrangement with the CAF; go directly outside that arrangement and there's usually a modest flat fee, which is worth asking about upfront since it differs office to office.
Your payslip, your CU, and what you're allowed to work
Your busta paga (payslip) shows a gross figure (lordo) and a take-home figure (netto) side by side, with lines for INPS contributions (pension and social security), IRPEF withheld at source, any regional or municipal surtax, and a small ongoing accrual toward your TFR (a severance fund every employee builds up, even on a fixed-term contract). Most of the time, the two things worth actually checking are that the net figure and the pay date match what was agreed.
The CU (Certificazione Unica — still sometimes called by its older name, CUD) is the annual summary every employer issues, typically by the end of March for the previous year, showing total income paid and everything withheld from it. It's the document your 730 (or your CAF) needs to reconcile your year — keep one from every employer you had.
If you're on a study permit, there's a hard cap on how much you can legally work — commonly cited as up to 20 hours a week or 1,040 hours a year in total — and it's worth confirming the current figure with your questura or your employer's HR rather than assuming, since going over it puts the permit itself at risk, not just the extra hours. Student jobs usually take the shape of a part-time contract, an on-call (lavoro a chiamata) arrangement, or a paid internship (tirocinio) — each is taxed and documented slightly differently.