Legalities of living in Rome for non-EU???

Question

I will be living in Rome for a while, longer than my visa will allow. How are the authorities in Rome or in Italy in general? Are they pretty strict about Americans overstaying their visa? Any advice will be GREATLY appreciated!!

Answer 1

I'm italian and I think that you won't have troubles overstaying your visa. Immigration officers usually close an eye if you are a US, a canadian or a japanese citizen.

Answer 2

In general? In general the rules are those of a civil country and he does not regard only for Americans. To the expiry of your licence will have to turn to the competent authorities or to your reference consulate. In negative case you will have to leave the country. Good travel.

Ciao

Excuse me for the mistakes

Answer 3

I have a few american friends living in Rome for  years (like 5, 8 years) without any paper.

They never had problem.

But if want you can take a quick trip to London with ryanair for 30euro, get your pass. stamp and you are fine for other 6 month

ciao

Alessandro

Answer 4

Legally, you could be in a hot spot. But realistically everybody does this. Most Americans I know living in Italy (including myself) originally were here  "without papers" (which by the way is the term that spawned the American slur about Italians w*p for the illegal immigrants in the U.S.)

Depending on how mlong you plan on staying, it's not even worth going through the hassel of waiting in the horrendous lines to try and get the official permits to stay in Italy. As an American nobody is likely to check on you anyway as long as you stay out of trouble.

One tip though -- while it could be a good idea to leave Italy every three months to get a stamp in your passport, England generally won't do. You'll have to leave the European Union for the stamp to be valid. And you better be able to show that you have a ticket back home or you may be denied entry. Some of the bigger problems I have had, have been at other EU airports, like Paris or Amsterdam where their police actually check up on things.

Answer 5

I lived in Italy for almost 7 years without papers. And I was working "under the table". If you don't need to work, there is no problem at all. If, when you finally do leave the country, anyone notices you overstayed, just say you spent part of the time in France; there's no way they can prove you didn't.