Converting a Seasonal Residence Permit When Three Months of Work Do Not Correspond to Calendar Mont

Converting a Seasonal Residence Permit: When Three Months of Work Do Not Correspond to Calendar Months Welcome to a new episode of the podcast “Immigration Law”. My name is Attorney Fabio Loscerbo. Today we discuss an interesting decision issued by the Regional Administrative Court for Puglia on 10 March 2026 concerning an important issue in Italian immigration law: the conversion of a seasonal residence permit into a subordinate work permit. The case began after the Prefecture rejected a worker’s request to convert his seasonal permit. The administration argued that the worker had not met the required threshold of work in the agricultural sector: at least 39 working days within three months, with an average of 13 days per month, as indicated in ministerial circulars. The key legal question concerned how those three months should be calculated. According to the Labour Inspectorate, the working days had to fall within calendar months, meaning from the first to the last day of each month. However, the Administrative Court adopted a different and more reasonable interpretation. It held that the reference to three months should be understood as a period of approximately ninety days, starting from the moment the worker actually began working. This means that working days carried out across the boundary between two calendar months cannot be excluded, because doing so would unfairly penalize the worker. For this reason, the court upheld the appeal and annulled the refusal issued by the administration, ordering it to reconsider the case. This decision is important because it clarifies a practical principle: for the conversion of a seasonal residence permit, what matters is the actual work performed during the three-month period, not a rigid calendar-based calculation of months. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast “Immigration Law.” See you soon for another legal insight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1gHx0SHdZs