Italy · Europe
Moving to Turin
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Cost of living in Turin
Can you move to Italy?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter Italy — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in Italy
The permesso chain, and the routes that skip the quota
The chain is national — nulla osta, type-D visa, entry, then a permesso di soggiorno application filed on paper within eight working days at a post office. Turin's caseload is smaller than Milan's or Rome's and its timelines are correspondingly better. The more important question for most people arriving here is which route their employer files under: Turin's automotive, aerospace and engineering employers hire non-EU specialists regularly, and the Blue Card and intra-company routes sit outside the decreto flussi quota that rations the ordinary work permit.
Read the full step-by-step guideConverting a licence in Italy's car city, and the winter smog restrictions
EU licences work indefinitely. Licences from countries with a reciprocity agreement convert administratively; the rest means the Italian theory and practical exams, in Italian, within twelve months of registering residence. Turin then adds a central ZTL enforced on weekday mornings and — the thing nobody warns you about — a regional anti-smog scheme that restricts which vehicles may circulate on a day-by-day basis through the winter, tightening as pollution thresholds are exceeded.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account in the city where Italy's largest bank lives
You need a codice fiscale for any account, and banks distinguish between resident and non-resident accounts with the latter costing more. A digital bank is the fastest route to a working Italian IBAN while a branch appointment is pending. The piece of setup that matters most is SPID, the national digital identity, without which the tax portal, the Piedmontese health booking system and the comune's services all mean queueing.
Read the full step-by-step guideSSN registration in Piedmont, and the winter air you will be breathing
SSN registration is compulsory and free for employees, the self-employed and their families, and voluntary for students, elective residents and some permit holders — who since 1 January 2024 pay an income-based contribution with minimums of €700 for students, €1,200 for au pairs and €2,000 for most other adults. Registration assigns a medico di base who gatekeeps every referral. The specifically Turinese health consideration is respiratory: the western Po basin has among the worst winter air quality in western Europe.
Read the full step-by-step guideSIM cards, the codice fiscale rule, and fibre in a nineteenth-century grid
Italian mobile is cheap and every SIM, prepaid included, must be registered against an identity document and a codice fiscale. Turin's fibre coverage is among the better of the large Italian cities — the housing stock is later and more regular than Florence's or Venice's, which makes installation more predictable — but the last hundred metres still depends on your condominium.
Read the full step-by-step guideIRPEF, the 2024 impatriate rewrite, and what a cheap flat actually costs
Residence for tax follows anagrafe registration or having your habitual abode or centre of interests in Italy for more than 183 days in the calendar year, and residents are taxed on worldwide income. The impatriate regime was substantially rewritten for anyone moving from 2024. Turin's low property prices make buying genuinely accessible on an engineering salary, which brings IMU, TARI and the renovation credits into view earlier here than in Milan or Rome.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
Essential Italian phrases
Reading a list isn’t learning it. Globe Quest turns these into a trainer — hear each phrase spoken, drill them with spaced repetition, and get scored as you say them out loud.
What to know before you go
Turin costs roughly half what Milan does for the same flat, and the trains take under an hour
CriticalTurin is the cheapest of Italy's large northern cities by a wide margin — a central one-bed that would cost €1,400 in Milan runs €650–950 here, and outer districts go lower still. High-speed trains put Milan under an hour from Porta Susa, which is why a meaningful number of people work in Milan and live in Turin. If you are weighing the two, the honest trade is a much better standard of living against a much thinner international job market: outside the automotive, aerospace and engineering clusters, English-speaking roles are far rarer here.
Get the codice fiscale before anything else
CriticalThe tax code is free, issued the same day at an Agenzia delle Entrate office with a passport, and required before a lease, a bank account, a SIM contract or SSN registration. Non-EU nationals arriving on a sponsored work or family visa are usually assigned one at the Sportello Unico. Everything else in the Italian sequence sits behind it, and treating it as a later errand is the most common reason a first month stalls.
File the permesso kit within eight working days of entering Italy
CriticalNon-EU arrivals on a long-stay visa collect the yellow kit at a Poste Italiane counter marked 'Sportello Amico', complete it, attach a €16 revenue stamp from a tobacconist and hand it back with roughly €30 in postal and permit fees. The postal receipt is your proof of lawful stay while the Questura di Torino processes it. The clock runs from entry, not from finding a flat — you can file using a hospitality declaration from whoever is putting you up.
Turin's air quality in winter is a genuine health consideration, not a grumble
ImportantThe city sits in the western Po basin, ringed by the Alps on three sides, where cold air stagnates for weeks at a time under winter inversions. Turin regularly records some of the highest particulate and nitrogen dioxide levels in western Europe, and Piedmont operates a graduated emergency scheme that tightens vehicle restrictions when thresholds are exceeded — announced day by day and applying to residents and visitors alike. If you have asthma or young children, this belongs in the decision alongside the rent. Check the regional air-quality alert level the way you would check the weather.
The Alps really are an hour away, and that changes what the city is for
ImportantBardonecchia is a little over an hour by direct train from Porta Susa; Sestriere and the rest of the Via Lattea, which hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics, are a similar drive. Nowhere else in Italy of Turin's size puts serious skiing, hiking and climbing this close to a working week. The regional trains carry ski gear, the resorts are within a day trip, and a Sunday in the Susa valley is a normal thing to do rather than an expedition. It is the strongest single argument for choosing Turin over any other northern Italian city.
The impatriate tax regime was rewritten from 2024, and Piedmont never had the southern rate
Good to knowUnder D.Lgs. 209/2023, 50% of qualifying employment or professional income is exempt up to €600,000 a year for five tax periods, conditional on a high qualification or specialisation, three prior years of non-residence and a commitment to remain tax resident for four years. The old regime exempted 70%, and 90% in the southern regions — Piedmont never qualified for the southern uplift, but the 70% figure still fills search results and is wrong for anyone moving now.
Top industries & employers
Automotive & mobility
Stellantis (Mirafiori), Iveco, Italdesign, Pininfarina, Marelli, Brembo nearby
Turin has been Italy's car city since 1899 and Mirafiori remains one of the country's largest industrial sites, now producing electric models. The design houses that shaped twentieth-century car styling — Pininfarina, Bertone, Italdesign — are all Turinese.
Aerospace & space systems
Thales Alenia Space, Leonardo Aerostructures, Avio Aero, Argotec
Several pressurised modules of the International Space Station — including Node 2, Node 3 and the Cupola — were built in Turin by Thales Alenia Space, which remains one of Europe's principal prime contractors for orbital infrastructure.
Banking & insurance
Intesa Sanpaolo, Reale Mutua, Banca Sella nearby, Fondazione CRT
Intesa Sanpaolo — Italy's largest bank by domestic assets — is headquartered in Turin, in the Renzo Piano tower beside Porta Susa. The city's banking foundations are also major funders of its cultural institutions.
Food, drink & confectionery
Lavazza, Martini & Rossi, Cinzano, Caffarel, Ferrero at Alba
Vermouth was invented in Turin in 1786 and gianduia chocolate here in the 1860s. Lavazza's headquarters and museum sit in the Aurora district, and Ferrero's plant at Alba is an hour south.
Higher education & research
Politecnico di Torino, Università di Torino, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Fondazione LINKS
The Politecnico is one of Italy's two leading engineering schools and the main reason the automotive and aerospace clusters retain their talent. Its international masters programmes teach substantially in English.
Technology & digital
Reply, TIM's Turin R&D, Iren, the OGR Tech hub, Talent Garden
The Officine Grandi Riparazioni — a vast nineteenth-century railway workshop — has been converted into a technology and innovation campus, and is the visible centre of a startup scene that is small but has more industrial depth than most.
Where to go in Turin
Mole Antonelliana & the Museo Nazionale del Cinema
Landmark · Centro
The 167-metre brick spire that is the city's symbol, housing Italy's national cinema museum in a spiralling ramp around its void.
Local tip: The panoramic lift runs up the inside of the dome in a glass car with no visible support, which is worth the ticket by itself. Buy the combined museum and lift ticket; the lift-only queue is usually longer.
Museo Egizio
Culture · Centro, Via Accademia delle Scienze
The oldest museum of Egyptian antiquities in the world and, after Cairo, the most important collection anywhere.
Local tip: It is far larger than it looks from the street and needs three hours, not one. Book a timed slot online — walk-up waits are long at weekends — and go on a weekday morning if you can.
Porta Palazzo & the Quadrilatero Romano
Food · North of Piazza Castello
Reputedly the largest open-air market in Europe, backing onto the Roman street grid that has become the city's best eating quarter.
Local tip: The market runs mornings and is at its best and cheapest in the last hour before it closes. The Balon flea market on Saturdays and the Gran Balon on the second Sunday of each month are separate events in the same streets.
Parco del Valentino & the Murazzi
Nature · Along the Po, south of the centre
The city's riverside park with a mock-medieval village, and the stone embankments below the bridges that are Turin's summer nightlife.
Local tip: The Borgo Medievale is a nineteenth-century reconstruction rather than a real village, and free to walk through. The Murazzi arches under the river wall come alive from May and are where the city drinks outdoors.
Lingotto
Landmark · South, Via Nizza
Fiat's 1923 factory with a test track on the roof, converted by Renzo Piano into a mall, a conference centre and a gallery.
Local tip: The rooftop track is open and free to walk, and the Pinacoteca Agnelli in the glass 'scrigno' above it holds a small, superb collection. Getting up there is the single most Turinese thing you can do in an afternoon.
Basilica di Superga & the rack tramway
Hidden gemNature · Hill above the Po, east of the city
An eighteenth-century Savoy basilica on a 670-metre hill, reached by a rack railway running since 1884.
Local tip: Take tram 15 to Sassi, then the rack tramway up through the woods. On a clear winter day after rain the whole Alpine arc from Monviso to Monte Rosa is visible from the terrace — the best view of the Alps from anywhere in Italy that you can reach on a transit ticket.
Emergency numbers in Turin
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