Italy’s Next Work Visa Window Opens This Autumn — and You Cannot Apply for It Yourself

Every autumn, a small window opens in Rome that decides how many workers from outside Europe will legally enter Italy the following year. For 2027 that number is already fixed at 165,850. Pakistan is on the list of countries whose citizens can be admitted.

And here is the sentence that will save some readers a great deal of money: you cannot submit that application. Not through an agent, not through a website, not by paying a fee in Lahore or Gujrat. Under Italian law the application is filed by the Italian employer, on a government portal, using an Italian digital identity that no worker sitting in Pakistan can hold.

Everything else in this guide follows from that one fact.

What is the Decreto Flussi, and who actually applies?

The Decreto Flussi is the Italian government decree that sets how many non-EU workers may enter Italy for work each year. For 2026–2028 it allows 497,550 entries in total. The worker never files the application. An Italian employer submits a request for a nulla osta on the Ministry of Interior’s ALI portal, on a fixed “click day”, using SPID or CIE digital identity.

The current programme comes from the DPCM of 2 October 2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 15 October 2025. It runs for three years and splits as follows:

Year	Total entries for work
2026	164,850
2027	165,850
2028	166,850

Those are ceilings, not vacancies. A quota place only becomes a job when a real Italian employer wants to hire a specific named person.

How the quota is divided

Within each year the places are split by type of work. The structure for the current three-year decree is:

• Non-seasonal subordinate work — 76,200 per year. This is the main category. It covers a wide spread of sectors: construction, manufacturing, transport and logistics, tourism and hospitality, mechanical and food industries, telecommunications, shipbuilding, health and social care.
• Domestic work and family assistance — 13,600 in 2026. The colf e badanti category, housekeepers and carers, has its own protected sub-quota and its own application model, reflecting Italy’s ageing population.
• Seasonal work. Agriculture and tourism, handled on separate, earlier click days than the rest.
• Multi-year seasonal nulla osta — 5,000 in 2026, rising to 6,000 in 2027 and 7,000 in 2028. Reserved for workers who have already done seasonal work in Italy at least once in the previous five years, so returning workers do not start from zero each season.
• Self-employment — 500 per year.
• A reserved share for countries with migration cooperation agreements. Pakistan is named in the list of countries whose citizens can enter for subordinate work. Published sources differ on the exact count of countries — some say 31, some 38 — because the list can expand during the three-year period as new agreements are signed. Treat the number as fluid; what matters is that Pakistan is on it.

The calendar: what happened in 2026, and what to expect for 2027

The 2026 cycle ran like this:

• 23 October 2025, 9:00 am to 7 December 2025, 8:00 pm — the precompilation window. Employers, employers’ associations and authorised professionals pre-filled application forms on the ALI portal.
• 12 January 2026 — click day for seasonal agricultural work.
• 9 February 2026 — click day for seasonal tourism work.
• 16 February 2026 — click day for non-seasonal subordinate work. The portal opened at 9:00 am and 76,200 places were released in a single morning. Reports at the time described many quotas being taken within roughly the first quarter of an hour.
• 18 February 2026 — click day for domestic workers and carers.
• 31 December 2026 — the outer deadline for submitting applications against the 2026 quota, subject to places still being available.

For 2027, the numbers are already law but the dates are not. The three-year decree fixes the quotas; the operative calendar — precompilation window and click days — is issued each year through an interministerial circular. As of the start of August 2026 that circular has not been published.

Based on the pattern of the current cycle, expect precompilation to open in late October 2026 and click days to fall in January and February 2027. Plan on that timeline, but do not treat it as confirmed, and do not trust anybody who tells you they already know the exact 2027 date.

Why you cannot apply, in plain terms

To file a flussi application, whoever submits it must log in to the Ministry of Interior’s ALI portal with SPID or a CIE — Italy’s national digital identity systems. These are issued to people with Italian residency or an Italian identity document. A worker in Pakistan cannot obtain one, which is precisely why the law puts the filing duty on the employer.

The employer also has to prove things about themselves, not just about you. Broadly, for most sectors the business needs taxable income or turnover of at least €30,000 a year. Most applications require an asseverazione — a certification by a qualified professional or an employers’ association confirming the contract meets legal requirements — although this is waived when the application is filed by an employers’ organisation that has signed the protocol with the Labour Ministry.

What the employer needs from you is short: a copy of your passport data page and your personal details. Housing proof — a dichiarazione di ospitalità, a cessione di fabbricato, or a rental contract — is the employer’s side of the file, not yours. Documents must be digitally signed and each attachment kept under 2 MB.

If you find yourself paying a large sum for a “guaranteed flussi slot”, ask one question: who is the Italian company, and can I see the nulla osta with my name on it? Quota places are not property. They cannot be reserved, resold, or transferred to a different worker.

What happens after the click day

If your employer’s application is transmitted successfully and a quota place is charged to it, the file goes to the local Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione.

1. Nulla osta decision. The Sportello Unico must issue the work authorisation within 60 days for non-seasonal work and 20 days for seasonal work. If those deadlines pass with no obstacles found, the nulla osta can be issued automatically under Italy’s silenzio-assenso principle.
2. Employer confirmation. Once issued, the employer confirms the nulla osta within 7 days through the ALI portal or by certified email.
3. Your visa application. From the date the nulla osta is issued, you have 180 days to apply for the work visa at the Italian embassy or consulate in Pakistan. This is the first step in the whole process that is actually yours.
4. After you land. Within 8 days of entering Italy, you must go to the Sportello Unico to sign the residence contract (contratto di soggiorno) and start your residence permit application.

A rejected nulla osta ends that year’s attempt. You can try again in a following year if you still meet the requirements — but the quota place does not carry over.

Where this fits for a Pakistani applicant

Italy’s flussi route rewards one thing above all: a genuine Italian employer who already wants you. That is why it works well for workers with a family or village network already established in Italy, and badly for someone starting cold from Pakistan with no contact.

If you have no employer connection, be honest with yourself about the odds and look at the routes where the worker holds more of the cards — sponsor-based systems with no annual lottery, or job-search visas that let you enter and look for work.

Whatever route you take, remember the Pakistani side of the paperwork. Any Pakistani proceeding abroad for employment must be registered with the Protectorate of Emigrants before departure, and since July 2026 the protector fee is paid through a QR-based cashless system with the National Bank of Pakistan — which removed one of the easiest places for a worker to be quietly overcharged.

Key Takeaways

• Italy’s Decreto Flussi 2026–2028 allows 497,550 work entries in total: 164,850 in 2026, 165,850 in 2027, 166,850 in 2028.
• Pakistan is on the list of countries whose citizens may enter for subordinate work.
• The worker never files the application. The Italian employer submits it on the ALI portal using SPID or CIE, on a fixed click day.
• For 2026, precompilation ran 23 October to 7 December 2025, with click days on 12 January, 9 February, 16 February and 18 February.
• The 2027 dates are not yet published. Expect precompilation around late October 2026 and click days in January–February 2027 — confirm against the interministerial circular when it appears.
• Non-seasonal quota is 76,200 a year; domestic workers and carers had a protected 13,600 in 2026.
• Nulla osta timelines: 60 days non-seasonal, 20 days seasonal; then 180 days to apply for your visa, and 8 days after arrival to sign the residence contract.
• Quota places cannot be bought, reserved or transferred. Anyone selling you one is selling you nothing.

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