Advice and FAQs on Teaching English in Italy

Unfortunately there are many ‘cowboy’ schools in Italy, especially in the larger cities and where the language training market is dominated by one large corporate client. That said, there are many schools and training companies that offer a supportive, professional working environment and a good, if not excellent, salary.

All reputable English schools require a recognised CELTA or TEFL certificate, with a minimum of 20 hours study and observation, and at least one reference. If you are not an EU citizen, applying for a good job is more difficult as you will also require valid working papers in order to avoid having to work on the black market - any reputable school will explain the work visa application procedure which must be started BEFORE you arrive in Italy (see FAQ below on permits and visas for more details).

You should never be asked to make a deposit to process your application or as security for accommodation.

a). Do you offer a contract?
This question is fundamental. The employment contract will normally be in Italian, and to complicate matters there are 4 main types of contract. As this is a rather complex topic, more is explained in the FAQ below on employment contracts.

b). Do you require an Italian work permit?
If the answer is not a resounding yes, you don’t need to waste time continuing the interview. Many teachers from outside the EU have difficulties with the infamous Italian bureaucracy, but without legal work and residence papers, you are leaving yourself exposed to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous schools in terms of pay and working conditions. Being an illegal immigrant will also make life more difficult, such as renting accommodation, access to health care, opening a bank account, etc.

c). What is the average age of your teachers?
This is possibly the most reliable indicator of how professional a school is. Many less reputable schools rely on au pairs, gap-year students, and enthusiastic new graduates from TEFL course providers that promise guaranteed placement - though more common in China, South Korea and Thailand, these schools rely on a ready supply of naive and usually younger teachers.

d). Are you part of a franchise or a chain of schools?
Although in Italy the majority of schools that are part of a chain or are franchised are well run, this category seems to be the source of the majority of nightmare stories. They seem often to be run by former teachers or native Italians who have opted for the easier route to setting up a school, and so by self-selection have either less business acumen than somebody going it alone or take a sales-dominated approach to running the school, focussing on commercial considerations sometimes to the detriment of teaching quality.

e). What kind of clients do you have?
The purpose of this question is to understand not the size of the clients or how famous they are, but if the school is overly dependent on 1 large client. In Milan for example, the most common reason for the failure of an English school, or volatile working conditions for the teachers, is that the school was founded because of, or became commercially held captive to, one large corporate client. Although this is often convenient for teachers as much of their work is on or around one site, this often means that the salary conditions are lower than average, and due to the inevitably low margins the focus is on commercial considerations and quantity over quality. We do not wish to make sweeping generalisations, but in the spirit of this FAQ list this is only one factor among others to take into consideration.

f). What is your rate of staff turnover?
Often related to question c), this will help you find out if the school hires teachers for 9 or 10 months and then relies on fresh faces for the next academic year after the August holidays, or builds up and develops a long term body of professional, mature and committed teachers.

g). Does the contract cover the August holidays, and what provisions are there if I am sick?
A good salary over the academic or solar year is important, but your rent will also need to be paid in August and September. If the school offers a contract only up to June or July then it often expects the teacher to move on for the next year as most work comes to a complete stop in August, even in large cities, with the exception of children's summer camps.

h). (If you are relocating from abroad) Do you provide accommodation?
Unfortunately some English schools in Italy have learnt from the scandal in Japan and have found that they can charge their teachers much more for accommodation in the school’s apartments, or those of an ‘absent landlord/relative’, than they can charge on the open market. The majority of schools do however have their teachers’ best interests at heart and try to make the task of finding accommodation as easy as possible – just make sure your job is not conditional on you having to stay in ‘their’ accommodation.

Of course! That is if you want to pursue a rewarding professional career as an English teacher in Italy, or in any other country for that matter. The only schools that will consider applicants with no teaching certification, excluding perhaps teachers who have at least two/three years experience with CPD, are either those in the less-than-reputable category or franchises that have a particular ‘method’ - training in which is often only a week at best and covers very little if any pedagogy or educational psychology.

On the other hand, many certificate ‘courses’ are simply covers for placement agencies for schools abroad, so it is important to choose a reputable certification course.

Pure elearning and distance courses are not normally considered an adequate teacher training course, but only if on-site classroom observation is included as well can they be considered a valid option (and also one of the cheaper options). The same goes for the many DVD courses available – some schools have been known to drop a couple of DVDs in the post so their newly ‘qualified’ teacher is ready to start on their first day.

In general terms, if there is at least 80 hours of effective training, preferably 120 hours, with a minimum of 15-20 hours classroom practice, observation and feedback (and preferably also offering a DELTA/Advanced course as an indication of the level of their trainers) it is a valid and worthwhile teacher training course.

Smaller towns often have more open positions for English teachers than qualified applicants to fill them, and even in larger towns and cities a qualified, reasonably experienced teacher with all papers in order will have no problem finding a job. Larger cities normally have a very large potential pool of ‘teachers’, but many of these are occasional teachers cum housewives, foreign students, babysitters, or bilingual Italian students. A common, and normally successful, route to finding a job is to move to Italy and then start looking.

If you prefer to look for a job from your home country, you should probably be prepared to make at least one visit to Italy, at least to verify that everything is as you would expect, but only relatively few schools in Italy recruit directly from abroad. In any case, besides in Rome, Venice and Florence, a qualified teacher will find a job teaching English reasonably easily – choosing a good professional English school is the difficult part, and best done during a visit.

As we mentioned earlier, bureaucracy in Italy is designed to make life difficult. There are 4 main things you need to do – apply for a work visa (permesso di soggiorno), register your address with the local commune, apply for your tax number (codice fiscale), and get your national health card. EU citizens will have to spend at least a couple of mornings visiting the various offices, queuing, photocopying passports, and filling out forms.

Non-EU citizens must start the process in their home country – as this topic is constantly changing and has so many ifs and buts and exceptions we cannot even hope to give much detailed advice on this topic. Please check at your local Italian Consulate or Embassy for details of the application process, and as a first step you can consult the Immigration section of the Italian Ministry of Home Affairs .

As a non-EU citizen, getting a work permit after you have arrived in Italy is almost impossible unless you marry an Italian. Very few companies are willing or able to sponsor teachers coming from outside the EU due to the cost, time and uncertainty involved. There are a limited number of visas available if your company sponsors you and offers you a ‘contratto a tempo indeterminato’ (see the FAQ below on employment contracts in Italy) and even fewer available for ‘lavoro autonomo’ (the second, third and fourth options in the FAQ below).

There are 3 categories of teacher employed by English schools and training companies in Italy - freelance, independent and full-time. The type of employment contract offered will depend on the teacher's situation and whether the school is an agency (and so effectively taking a commission on hours taught) or a company.

A freelancer is paid exclusively for the number of hours taught each month and has an Italian VAT number (‘partita Iva’ - see the FAQ below), and so for legal and financial purposes is effectively a small company.

An independent teacher (or ‘associate’) does not have a VAT number but is also paid exclusively for the number of hours taught each month, and often works for more than one company or school simultaneously (this is also true for a freelancer of course). An independent teacher can be employed under either the second or third type of contract as explained in the FAQ below, and is also often compensated for time spent travelling and/or paid a bonus upon completion of their contract.

A full-time teacher is paid a fixed monthly salary which is reasonably independent of the actual number of hours spent in the classroom (though with a certain number of hours expected) and the contract often includes provisions for overtime. A full time teacher can be employed under the first or second type of contract as explained in the FAQ below.

A freelancer needs excellent business acumen and planning as their position is often quite precarious. Independent teachers are by far the largest category of teachers working in Italy, whether for a private language school, an agency or a state school. Freelancers are often employed by schools that require a lot of flexibility or by direct corporate clients.

The pros and cons of each type of teaching position should be considered and clarified with any potential employer based on your personal requirements and preferences. The practice of hiring freelancers has recently become much more prevalent in Italy due to frequent, confusing and sometimes ‘difficult’ changes in Italian employment law, and offer the employer advantages in terms of a lower tax burden, increased flexibility and weaker commitments, though often to the detriment of the teacher.

This is a very complex topic, but here is a brief summary. Please remember that this is not legal or financial advice, nor are we legal experts, and that you should always consult an accountant or lawyer with anything you are unsure of.

i) Only a handful of schools offer a long-term employee contract (‘contratto a tempo indeterminato’ or ‘lavoro subordinato’) - there is also a fixed-term version of this contract (contratto a tempo determinato). This contract is essentially an old-fashioned lifetime employment contract and is now becoming rare due to its cost and inflexibility - it is said to be more difficult to fire an employee than to get a divorce in Italy.

ii) The ‘contratto a progetto’ is more common, but the devil is in the detail and conditions, and many employers misuse it - underplaying the benefits it gives the teacher and overplaying the amount of control the school can exert. It is especially important to double-check the conditions such as agreed holidays, advance notice, how the salary is paid (a fixed amount regularly each month, or based on the number of hours taught that month), and what happens during the Christmas period and the long August holiday (when most of Italy, and probably also the school, shuts down for 2-4 weeks).

iii) The third type of contract (collaborazione occasionale) is essentially a short-term temporary contract which can be used for a maximum of only three payments totaling 5,000 Euros over the entire year, after which the school must employ the teacher with one of the above contracts or fire him/her – hardly the basis for a long-term and stable teaching career. This type of ‘working arrangement’ is often not actually drawn up as a contract but can also be in the form of a purchase order, a brief letter, or an invoice. The salary of a teacher with this type of contract has 20% withheld as an advance tax payment – make sure you receive from the school at around February-March of the next year the official declaration that this 20% has actually been paid to the tax authorities, and remember that you will need to submit a tax declaration and possibly also pay more tax depending on your total salary that year.

iv) The fourth and final type of contract is actually just a consultancy contract for independent freelance teachers who have become what Brits would know as a ‘sole trader’. This involves applying for a VAT number (‘partita Iva’ in Italian – not to be confused with ‘codice fiscale’ above), keeping your accounts, issuing invoices, preparing and submitting a yearly tax return, and making regular VAT payments and income tax advance payments. This type of contract is not to be taken lightly and will probably require you to hire, and pay, an accountant.

If a school asks, or sometimes even requires, you to apply for a VAT number, be very cautious. The only good reason to ask a teacher to obtain a VAT number is if the teacher is truly an independent freelancer, with more than one significant client, is aware of the substantial cost and time involved, and has good business acumen. Unfortunately most teachers who have been in Italy for more than a couple of years know at least one teacher who has been caught out by surprise VAT or tax payments, client late payment problems, or has been persuaded to register as a sole trader for the sole reason that the school can continue to pay the same rate while shifting the tax burden onto the teacher instead .

Some schools have been known to employ teachers under an English contract, especially if they already have a British National Insurance number. This has the advantage of lower tax payments, and so normally also a higher net salary, but it's total duration in any 1 year is limited to a maximum of 183 days, after which the teacher becomes resident for tax purposes in Italy and so must pay Italian tax out of their salary (and reclaim any tax paid in the UK, which has a double taxation treaty with Italy). However, some teachers and employers are ‘forgetful’ about bringing their British employment contracts to the attention of the Italian tax authorities, and this type of arrangement is certainly not in the spirit of the law.

Codice fiscale - tax number, similar to the British National Insurance number or American Social Security Number. It is your universal reference number when dealing with the state and is very simple to obtain, just by submitting the application form at your nearest tax office. It is needed to buy a mobile phone, open a bank account, etc.

Collaboratore - the name of a type of ‘employee’ who collaborates with but is not subordinate to the employer, working under any of the last three employment options in the FAQ above.

Collaborazione occasionale - literally, occasional collaboration, a type of employment with various limits in terms of annual compensation and frequency of payment, details are covered in the FAQ above on employment contracts in part (iii).

Contratto a progetto - also called a ‘co.co.pro.’ or referred to by the name of a previous version, the ‘co.co.co.’. A type of employment contract with limited control used for independent but non-freelance teachers, and sometimes misused; details are covered in the FAQ above on employment contracts in part (ii).

Contratto a tempo determinato - an employment contract similar to its ‘indeterminato’ cousin, but with a fixed end date. There are various restrictions on its use and is more often used as an initial contract; see FAQ above on employment contracts in part (i).

Contratto a tempo indeterminato - an employment contract with no end date, covering your entire lifetime until pension if the employee so chooses. This is normally considered by Italians as the ‘standard’ contract but is now becoming rare, at least for new employees; details are covered in the FAQ above on employment contracts in part (i).

Dipendente - an employee who has a ‘contratto a tempo indeterminato’ or a ‘contratto a tempo determinato’.

INPS - the Italian pension fund. The level of contribution varies according to the type of contract, but if you have a ‘contratto a tempo indeterminato’, a ‘contratto a tempo determinato’ or a ‘contratto a progetto’ the employee pays one third of the contribution out of their gross salary, and the other two thirds is paid by the employer. Freelancers working with a VAT number pay almost all of the contribution out of their own pocket, with the client paying 4% of the teacher's gross compensation, or approximately one fifth to one sixth of the total, which is added on to every invoice issued by the teacher. Those working with a ‘collaborazione occasionale’ pay the entire contribution themselves.

Lavoro autonomo - the type of work carried out without strict control by the employer - autonomously - referring to work carried out under a ‘contratto a progetto’, a ‘collaborazione occasionale’ or as a freelancer with a VAT number.

Lavoro subordinato - the type of work carried out with strict control, direction and working hours imposed by the employer, referring to work carried out under a ‘contratto a tempo indeterminato’ or ‘contratto a tempo determinato’.

Partita Iva - the Italian version of a VAT number. Registering for a VAT number means you can only be employed under the fourth category of ‘employment’ contract in the FAQ above, and requires you to keep and submit accounts and VAT records, make income tax and VAT pre-payments, etc.

Permesso di soggiorno - work visa, now only necessary for non-EU citizens, and must be applied for and obtained before being able to work legally in Italy.

Ritenuto d'acconto - literally, a deduction from the gross compensation to make an advance payment on taxes due. Usually 20%, this is deducted from your invoices if working under a ‘collaborazione occasionale’ or with a VAT number and is paid by the employer to the government on your behalf. Make sure you receive a payment certificate around March or April of the next year proving that the payments have actually been made on your behalf, otherwise you become liable to settle the full tax bill.