Avv. Fabio Loscerbo: September 27, 2026 at 12:00AM Episodio 2 – My residence permit has expired: am I now irregular in Italy? Episodio 2 – My residence permit has expired: am I now irregular in Italy? Welcome to a new episode of the Immigration Law Podcast. I am lawyer Fabio Loscerbo. Today we are discussing a situation that causes considerable concern among foreign citizens living in Italy. Your residence permit has expired, you have applied for renewal, and the Immigration Office has given you an appointment several months later. Have you become irregular? The answer is: not necessarily. The expiry date printed on your residence permit and the legality of your stay in Italy are not always the same thing. If you have correctly submitted an application for renewal and you have the receipt proving that the procedure has started, the expiry of your old permit does not automatically make your stay irregular. Article 5 of Legislative Decree number 286 of 1998 specifically regulates this situation. When the conditions established by law are met, while a person is waiting for the issue or renewal of a residence permit, their stay in Italy is considered lawful and they may temporarily continue to exercise the rights connected with the permit they have requested. This has very practical consequences. For example, the fact that the date printed on an old residence permit has passed does not automatically mean that an employee must stop working. The receipt therefore becomes an extremely important document because it proves that the administrative procedure is still pending. But there is an important distinction. A receipt and a residence permit are not equivalent in every situation. Different rules may apply, for example, when travelling abroad or passing through another European country. We will discuss this in a future episode. For today, remember this rule: if your residence permit expires while you are regularly waiting for its renewal, you do not become irregular simply because the date printed on the old document has passed. Your application and the status of the procedure must be considered. I am lawyer Fabio Loscerbo, and this is the Immigration Law Podcast. See you in the next episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2c5MFzYhtk https://www.youtube.com/watch/k2c5MFzYhtk