How to get an official codice fiscale

First, are you sure you need to apply?

Two situations get confused constantly. If you have never been assigned a code, you need to apply, and this page is for you. If a code was already assigned and you simply do not have it to hand, you do not need a new application: you need to retrieve it. Italian residents can find it on their health insurance card or request a certificate of attribution online; everyone else can work out what it looks like with the calculator and confirm it against the Revenue Agency's verification service. Applying twice for the same person does not produce a second code.

Route 1: you are in Italy

The simplest case. Take form AA4/8 and your identity document to any office of the Agenzia delle Entrate. No appointment is strictly required in many offices, though booking online saves waiting. Issuance is immediate and free: you leave with a printed certificate of attribution showing your code. The plastic card, if you are entitled to one, arrives by post later.

If you are arriving through an immigration procedure, you may not need to do anything at all: people entering for work receive the code through the Sportello Unico per l'Immigrazione, and people applying for a residence permit receive it through the Questura, as part of those processes.

Route 2: you are abroad, and what really changed in 2025

You will read in a lot of places that Italian consulates "stopped issuing" the codice fiscale in March 2025. That is not accurate, and it matters, because believing it can cost you money for nothing.

What happened is that a number of consulates published notices tightening who they serve: they now ask that you actually live in their consular district, that you state a reason for the request, and some of them, Marseille and Edinburgh among others, explicitly stopped accepting applications from people who need the code to buy property, pointing them to the delegate route instead. Several consulates also send students to Universitaly, which issues the code during pre-enrolment.

But plenty of large consulates run an active, free and fully remote service. London states that applicants "are NOT required to come to the Consulate" and send the certificate by email within five working days. Houston handles it remotely and accepts property buyers who attach the preliminary purchase agreement. Washington says the service is "free of charge". New York and Boston take applications by email with the signed AA4/8, a passport copy and an affidavit stating the reason. Buenos Aires and Rosario also operate remotely. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs still lists the consular route first, not as an exception.

So the honest answer is: it depends on your consulate, and you have to check yours. The policies diverged in 2025 and there is no single rule any more. Start there, because it is free and you keep the paperwork in your own language and time zone.

The second route: authorise someone in Italy

If your consulate does not take your case, any person in Italy can file the form for you. This is not a legal representation with a notary: the AA4/8 itself contains a DELEGA box where you name the person and authorise them "to submit the form on your behalf and to collect any certificate issued by the office". The official instructions are explicit that the delegate only needs to show their own identity document and a copy of yours, and that you, the applicant, must sign the form yourself. Nothing else.

One contradiction to be aware of, because no official source resolves it: in March 2025 the Revenue Agency added a notice to its own site saying that EU and non-EU citizens applying for their first tax code must book an in-person appointment so their identity can be verified. Read literally, that would empty out the delegate route in exactly this case, yet the Agency has not withdrawn it and the form still carries the DELEGA box. If you are choosing between the two routes, this is one more argument for trying the consulate first.

Form AA4/8, section by section

The form looks intimidating and is mostly irrelevant to a first application. It is organised in blocks:

• Type of request. For a first code, tick attribution of the tax code. The other options cover changes of data, duplicates and death notifications.
• Personal details. Surname, first name, sex, date and place of birth, exactly as they appear on your passport. This is the block that generates your code, so transcription errors here follow you for years.
• Address in Italy, if you have one, and address abroad, which is the block non-residents complete.
• Previous tax codes, only if one was ever issued to you.
• Signature, plus the details of whoever signs on your behalf (a parent for a minor, a representative acting under your authority).

The Revenue Agency publishes the editable PDF and the instructions in several languages, English included, on its official page.

The application, end to end

What you get, and what comes next

The immediate output is the certificate of attribution: a PDF or printout stating that the code belongs to you. That document is what banks, notaries and foreign institutions accept as proof. Separately, if you register with the Italian national health service you will receive the tessera sanitaria, the plastic card carrying the same code, posted to your registered address. People not entitled to health cover receive a simpler card with the code only.

Once you have the code, keep it: it never expires and never changes, even if you leave Italy, change your name through marriage or move country. The card expires; the code does not.