How to relocate to Europe?

Question

I am an American living in Australia, and I want to relocate to Europe. I have been to europe before as a student, however now I want to emigrate there. I am an IT professional. I have been working for an American company for 2 years now. I want to know if IT is in demand in Europe, and how difficult would it be to find a job there. I also model partime,mainly print modeling. This is something I would love to persue on a fulltime basis. However I think my best bet is to stick with IT. I know this topic has been touched on before but how difficult is it for an american to live in Europe(e.g. jobs, housing, travel, etc)

Answer 1

If you're from outside the EU, you can't legally work here without a visa that allows it. If you're from Canada or Australia, there's a working holiday visa available here in Italy and some other places in Europe, but it's not available to citizens of the US. The normal work visas are a long process. You can check visa requirements at the Italian Ministry website: http://www.esteri.it/visti/home_eng.asp. There will be other sites for each of the countries.

In general in Europe, and in particular here in Italy, you have to have a job lined up in order to get a work visa before you move here from the US, Canada, Australia, or other non-EU country. You can only stay for 90 days without some type of visa (work, student, ...). You cannot apply for the visa while you're here and you'll need the proper paperwork from the company. However, you could come over as a tourist for up to 90 days without a visa and look for work. Then you'd have to go back to the US or where ever and wait for the paperwork for a visa to be processed. There's also a visa available for a working vacation. If you're coming from the US, you'll also have to have skills that can't easily be duplicated here. That will mean a degree in a marketable field. There are lots of different kinds of permessos though - for work as a dependent of a company, self employment, seasonal work, or working vacation. http://www.esteri.it/visti/index_eng.asp

A good strating point for planning this type of move is to do some research on the expat websites for the countries you're interested in. Since you're already an expat in Australia, you may be familiar with this type of site. These are sites for expats in Italy with general info on living and working here:

http://www.us-expatriate-handbook.com/

http://www.expatsinitaly.com/

http://www.expat-blog.com/en/directory/e...

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listing...

There are similar sites for other countries - just search for the name of the country and "expat". a few examples:

http://www.expats.cz/

http://www.expatica.com/nl/main.html

http://www.expats.org.uk/countryinfo/fra...

http://www.expatexchange.com/net.cfm?net...

http://www.spainexpat.com/

http://www.escapeartist.com/embassy33/mo...

http://www.expatica.com/

The trick is finding a job that pays enough that you can support yourself. I was fortunate enough to move here through my existing job. There are not a huge number of available jobs right now, and people from the EU will have preference. Available funds will determine what's available to you in the way of housing. Travel is pretty easy here and still not too expensive although prices have gone up a lot in recent months just like everywhere else.