Italy · Europe
Moving to Naples
Naples quick facts
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Cost of living in Naples
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 why a registered lease is the whole game here
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. What differs in Naples is the documentary base underneath it. A large share of the local rental market operates without a registered contract, and without one you cannot register residence, which cascades into the health card, the licence clock and the evidence you need at renewal. Getting the paperwork right at the lease stage is worth more here than anywhere else in Italy.
Read the full step-by-step guideConverting a licence, and the strong case for not owning a car
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. Naples then combines several separate limited-traffic zones, streets built for handcarts, an open trade in unauthorised parking attendants, and a metro and funicular network that reaches most of the places you would drive to. Car ownership here is a decision that most newcomers reverse.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account, SPID, and getting paid in a documented way
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. The specifically Neapolitan point is that documented, traceable payments are worth more to you than to a local: a bank record of salary and rent is what evidences income and address for a permit renewal, a family reunification or a mortgage application.
Read the full step-by-step guideSSN registration in Campania, a region rebuilding its health service
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. Campania's health service spent years under a national financial recovery plan and still sits below the northern regions on the national performance measures, which shows up as longer waits and more travel for specialist care. The emergency picture also differs: Campania has no unified NUE 112 answering centre yet.
Read the full step-by-step guideSIM cards, the codice fiscale rule, and connectivity in a dense old city
Italian mobile is cheap and every SIM, prepaid included, must be registered against an identity document and a codice fiscale. Fibre coverage in Naples is good across the modern districts and the hill, and considerably less predictable in the centro antico, where the buildings are dense, old and often subdivided. Ask about the specific address, and about who holds the contract if you are taking a room.
Read the full step-by-step guideIRPEF, the 2024 impatriate rewrite, and the southern rate that no longer exists
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 single most important change for anyone considering Naples is that the impatriate regime's southern uplift — which exempted 90% of qualifying income for people moving to the south — was abolished for transfers of residence from 2024. Guidance built around it is still widely circulated and is now simply wrong.
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
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What to know before you go
In Naples the difference between a registered and an unregistered lease decides your legal status
CriticalNaples has a large informal economy — Italy's own statistics show the non-observed share of the economy is substantially higher in the south than the north — and one of its most visible expressions is renting without a registered contract. The cost to you is not abstract. A lease not registered with the Agenzia delle Entrate within 30 days cannot be used to register residence with the comune; without residence you cannot get a tessera sanitaria, cannot start the twelve-month driving-licence conversion clock, cannot be reclassified as a resident by your bank, and for a non-EU national cannot evidence accommodation at a permesso renewal. A landlord offering a lower rent for an unregistered arrangement is offering you a discount on your own legal standing. Ask for the registration receipt before paying anything.
Campania has no unified NUE 112 answering centre yet — know the direct numbers
CriticalItaly's single European emergency number is being rolled out region by region through unified answering centres. As of mid-2026 Campania and the Veneto are the last two regions without one; Campania's service is scheduled to begin from the Sarno centre in October 2026, with the Naples facility at Agnano following. Until then, calling 112 in Naples reaches the Carabinieri rather than a unified dispatcher, and 113 for the Polizia di Stato, 115 for the fire brigade and 118 for an ambulance remain the direct routes to those services. This is one of the few places in western Europe where knowing which number to dial still matters.
The Campi Flegrei bradyseism plan names Neapolitan districts, not just the towns west of the city
CriticalThe ground across the Campi Flegrei caldera has been rising since 2005, with the rate increasing markedly from 2023 and the strongest earthquakes in decades. The Dipartimento della Protezione Civile's bradyseism emergency plan, made under Decree-Law 140/2023, defines a red zone of roughly 85,000 people: about 44,600 in Pozzuoli, about 9,900 in Bacoli, and about 30,400 in the Naples districts of Bagnoli, Fuorigrotta, Soccavo, Pianura and Posillipo. The plan sets out three operational scenarios ranging from logistical assistance to controlled evacuation. None of this makes the western districts unlivable, and a great many people live there very happily — but it should be a known fact before you sign a lease in Fuorigrotta, not a discovery afterwards.
Get the codice fiscale first, then everything 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. Nothing else in the Italian sequence works without it, and it is the single easiest thing on the list.
Naples is the cheapest of Italy's large cities and the salaries are lower in proportion
ImportantA one-bed in a good central district runs €600–900 and outer districts go below that; eating out, transport and daily costs are all noticeably below the north. The honest counterweight is the labour market: Campania's unemployment rate is among the highest in Italy, wages in comparable roles sit well below Milan's, and the English-speaking job market outside tourism, the aerospace cluster and a handful of technology employers is thin. For a remote worker earning elsewhere the arithmetic is excellent. For someone looking for local employment it is considerably harder than the rent suggests.
Driving in Naples is a choice, and mostly the wrong one
ImportantThe city runs several separate limited-traffic zones over the historic centre and Chiaia, a low-emission scheme, and streets that were laid out for handcarts. Unauthorised parking attendants operate openly in most central areas; paying them is not legally required and reporting them is what the comune asks for. Metro line 1 loops most of the central and hill districts, the funiculars climb to Vomero, and the Cumana and Circumflegrea lines run west. Almost everyone who moves here and buys a car sells it within two years.
Top industries & employers
Aerospace & defence
Leonardo Aerostructures at Pomigliano and Nola, Avio Aero, Magnaghi, the DAC aerospace district
Campania has one of Italy's oldest aerospace clusters, building fuselage sections and aerostructures for international programmes. It is the region's most reliable high-skill engineering employer and the one most likely to hire internationally.
Automotive & manufacturing
Stellantis Pomigliano d'Arco, Adler Group, Getrag nearby
The Pomigliano d'Arco plant east of the city has built Fiat models since 1968 and remains one of the largest single industrial employers in the south.
Port, shipping & logistics
Autorità Portuale del Mar Tirreno Centrale, Grimaldi Lines, Fincantieri Castellammare
Naples is one of the Mediterranean's larger passenger ports and a significant container and shipbuilding centre, with the Fincantieri yard at Castellammare di Stabia across the bay.
Higher education & research
Università Federico II, Università L'Orientale, CNR Napoli, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Federico II was founded in 1224 and is the oldest state-chartered university in the world. Its San Giovanni a Teduccio campus in the eastern industrial belt hosts Europe's first Apple Developer Academy alongside other corporate academies.
Tourism, film & television
Hotel groups, the Naples film commission, streaming and series production
Naples has become one of Italy's most heavily filmed cities and a major production base, alongside a tourism sector that has grown very fast and now shapes the centre's economy and its rents.
Food, tailoring & craft
Kiton, Isaia, Cesare Attolini, Kimbo, pasta producers at Gragnano
Neapolitan tailoring is a genuine export industry with a global luxury market, and Gragnano pasta and the city's coffee roasters are protected and substantial businesses rather than souvenirs.
Where to go in Naples
Spaccanapoli & the centro antico
Neighborhood · Historic centre
The dead-straight Greek street that splits the old city, with the Roman grid and the layered churches either side of it.
Local tip: The Cappella Sansevero, with Sanmartino's Veiled Christ, is a few metres off it and needs a timed ticket booked ahead. Via San Gregorio Armeno is the nativity-figure street and is genuinely worth seeing in October, before December makes it impassable.
Napoli Sotterranea & the aqueduct
Culture · Below the centro antico
Greek quarries turned Roman aqueduct turned wartime shelters, forty metres under the old city.
Local tip: Several separate operators run different sections and they are not the same tour. The narrow candle-lit passage in the Napoli Sotterranea route is genuinely tight; the Galleria Borbonica under Chiaia, with wartime vehicles left in place, is the better one for anyone claustrophobic.
Vomero — Castel Sant'Elmo & the Certosa
Landmark · The hill above the centre
A star-shaped fortress and a Carthusian monastery on the ridge, with the whole bay and Vesuvius laid out below.
Local tip: Take one of the three funiculars up rather than walking. The Certosa di San Martino's cloister and its collection of nativity scenes are far better than the reputation suggests, and the fortress terrace is the best view in the city for the price of a museum ticket.
Lungomare & Chiaia
Nightlife · The seafront, west of the centre
The pedestrianised waterfront from Santa Lucia to Mergellina, with the city's smartest district behind it.
Local tip: The Lungomare has been closed to traffic for over a decade and is where Naples walks, runs and eats ice cream in the evening. The bars in the Chiaia lanes behind — around Via Ferrigni and Vico Belledonne — are where people actually drink.
Rione Sanità & the Catacombe di San Gennaro
Hidden gemCulture · North of the centre, below Capodimonte
A dense working district built over Greek and early Christian burial grounds, with the largest catacombs in southern Italy beneath it.
Local tip: The catacombs are run by La Paranza, a cooperative of young people from the neighbourhood, and the entrance fee funds the district's own regeneration. It is the single best-value cultural visit in Naples and the guides are from the streets outside.
Capodimonte
Nature · North of the centre
A Bourbon palace holding one of Italy's great picture collections, in a 130-hectare wooded park above the city.
Local tip: The park is free, open daily and is where Neapolitans run and picnic — most visitors only see the gallery. The Farnese collection inside includes Caravaggio, Titian and Bruegel, and the top floor's view back over the city is worth the climb.
Emergency numbers in Naples
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