Meet Damien O'Farrell, the Expat Coach Who Helps Foreigners Move to Italy

Issue #87

May 30, 2024

In expat circles, Damien O’Farrell is known as a sort of guru for foreigners looking to move to Italy. Originally from Ireland, he moved to Rome in 1988 and ended up staying. He grew his business from a course called “How to Live and Work Successfully in Italy” to a thriving company—Damien O’Farrell Mobility Services—that helps clients with every step of the process of moving to Italy, from applying for a visa or citizenship to opening a bank account, enrolling in the national health service, and buying a home. He also moderates the Ultimate Italy Facebook group, which acts as a forum for Italophiles to ask questions and share articles and information about Italy.

Since people often ask me about the ins and outs of moving to Italy, I thought I would introduce you to an expert who’s been helping clients do just that for more than 30 years. I’m thrilled to share this interview with Damien as part of my series of interviews with entrepreneurs and creatives in Italy.

Can we start with your background? Where are you from originally and how did you move to Italy?

I'm originally from Ireland. And my Italian story is an unusual one in that when I was growing up, I never had any intention to live in Italy. It was not a country that was drawing me. In 1988 I had a friend who was living in Rome, who was going through some experimental medical treatments and I said, “Listen, I can come for a couple of months to help you out,” and that's what I did. But what happened was—to be very honest, because I'm very direct—I ran out of money, so I had to start to work. And that segwayed into one of my first businesses, which was a teaching business.

And at the same time I found that I was being asked a lot of questions by people because I'm very curious by nature. So I was informing myself about how you could convert a driver's license, how you could do this, how you could do that. And so, I thought to myself, “I think I can monetize this.” So I created a course in 1990 called “How to Live and Work Successfully in Italy.” I did it with four people, but I did it with a lot of enthusiasm, like I was speaking to 10,000 people and I found that it resonated with people.

What sets you apart from other people who do similar things?

I'm not interested in transient people. I'm interested in people that want to come here and live and thrive long term. Now, what separates me a little bit from other people? I'm not really concentrating only on people that come to retire. I'm also concentrating on people that want to start businesses. So a lot of my expat coaching revolves around helping people to get businesses off the ground and to steer them clear of things that may no longer work.

So when exactly did you launch the Global Mobility business?

I started in 1990 when I started the course and then little by little I started getting more into the nitty gritty and I started actually providing the services. Back in the 2000s, I had another business, another relocation company with a business partner, and we were concentrated much more on what I define as high volume, corporate relocation. We worked with the big ones: Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, as it was known at that time.

But then, for personal reasons, because I knew my parents were going to pass, I left that business and I also wanted to concentrate on a much more personalized approach because that was very much like a conveyor belt. We took on the case, we worked it, we sent it to invoicing, but I felt that there was a gap in the market for something much more personalized. And so that's what I'm basically doing now. I don't take on every person that contacts me because I know that some of them are just not going to work out. The expectations aren’t in line with the market.

One of the problems I have at the moment if I have to be honest is this is the country that gave us Armani, Valentino, and that's what I would like to see focused on. I’m not a big fan of all this content on one euro houses, cheap ways to live, bargain properties and all of that. I mean, yeah, you can have some of that too, but I think we need to promote another side of employment. Because I did a webinar recently about moving to Italy and I would say that the average age on my webinar was about 60 years old. I did a webinar with a very good friend of mine who does what I do in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and the average age was 30. And I thought, this is interesting. And this is because Italy is not being promoted as a place to do business now.

Is it difficult? Yes. I'm writing a book on it. It's called “Gladiator Spirit.” And you've got to have it. And if you don't have it, Italy might not be the best place for you. You've got to work ten times as hard in Italy.

That's something I wanted to ask you about because I know you talk about this gladiator spirit. What does that mean for you?

That means that if you're thinking that you can come to Italy, teach a little English, drink wine in the piazza, especially in a city like Rome, you're going to be in for an eye opener. And gladiator spirit means that you've got to forget all of the stuff that we read about the dolce vita and the dolce far niente.

I did an interview recently and someone was saying to me, “Do you take naps?” I said, “I live in Rome. I work.” If you're taking naps in Rome, you're either unemployed or you're retired, or possibly work for the public administration and you finish early.

So the gladiator spirit is you're dealing with a system that doesn't necessarily work with you. When I would go to my accountant, and when I had a labor consultant with some business ideas that I had—and I don't get discouraged easily—I would come out of those meetings, you know, with my head kind of down.

As a foreigner, things are going to be more challenging, because you're going to be seen as a foreigner. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to make peace with that. I mean, when I had my other relocation company, I hired various people of different ages, different nationalities, genders, and what I noticed was that when an Italian colleague would call to set up a utility, they had a much different experience than a colleague who was a foreigner calling.

So for those people who want to relocate to Italy, how exactly do you help them do that? Are you working with them on their application process for visas and such? What's the process like?

I have a very small team that works with me and as I said, we don't take on everybody. We work with people that we feel we can get over the finish line. It starts out with an initial consultation where if we're talking about non EU citizens, the first thing we have to look at is how can they come here legally. And that's where you got to have some gladiator spirit.

I worked with an American lady, she's still in Italy. It took her five years to get here because she didn't have passive income. There was no digital nomad visa. And so I advised her to get a job at a company in the U.S. that could eventually lead to an intracompany transfer. And for all of that to happen, five years went by, but she had focus. She studied the language. She really wanted to be here. I mean, it was almost karmic. It was almost like she had had previous lives in Italy and she was coming home in a way. And not everybody has that.

Italy may not be for you permanently. Italy might just be a place where you come twice a year for 30 days each time, and you really enjoy the country. But if you want to be here, and we can get you over the finish line, then once we establish there's a visa that you can apply for, then we get a little bit more granular and we look at where do you want to live? And are your expectations in line with the situation?

I live in Rome. I also have another home in Gaeta, but I would never live outside of Rome because when I get off a ten hour flight, I don't want to schlep three hours to get home. I like convenience. If I want to see a movie in English, I want to be able to go to Piazza Barberini. So I'm very clear about what's important to me. And that's what I take people through. What are you looking for?

I worked with a couple from New York City. They had spent some time in a small town in Calabria and they were convinced this is where they wanted to live. They moved lock stock and barrel to Calabria. And after about one year, they were pulling their hair out. I then took over the relocation and I relocated them to Milan. They are loving life. They've got the restaurants, they've got the theater. They're close to Switzerland. They're close to the south of France. They're close to Austria, but living another life.

Making a relocation to another country—in this case, Italy—is a major life decision. So I try to take out the dreamer part. You need that obviously, but you also need to be pragmatic. There's a lot of one euro houses, cheap houses, but a lot of those houses are in remote areas, small towns. Now, you have to self sustain yourself economically. How are you going to do it? Do you have a borderless business that you can manage online? Do you have an internet connection? You might have to get a satellite.

Probably that won’t get you a lot of job opportunities. So how are you going to survive? So, what I try to do is say “Yes, move to Italy, but let's look at a few things.” Because I'm not interested in a smash and grab approach. My clients are here long term. So I will never tell somebody, “Oh listen, you can move to the middle of nowhere with no budget and everything is gonna be fantastic.”

Are you seeing a difference now that the new digital nomad visa has been announced? Have you gotten inquiries about that?

The digital nomad visa is a nice addition. I would like to have seen it crafted a little bit better. I think it was implemented with very little impact assessment. It's been viewed as a kind of a universal visa, which it's not. It's a very specific group of people which are remote workers, and freelancers.

Somebody wrote to me and said “I'm a nurse,” and I'm wondering how can a nurse work remotely? I mean, possibly if you're just examining medical tests or something, okay. But the digital nomad visa is essentially for remote workers, freelancers that can carry out their work through technology.

What exactly is the difference between the digital nomad visa versus lavoro autonomo?

The big difference is the self employment visa is aimed more at people that plan on being here long term. And the major difference is that the self employment visa is covered by the quota system, which means that there are only about 500 issued per year. And that 500 is spread out among all the categories, all the nationalities, so it kind of makes it a little bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

The digital nomad visa, on the other hand, is not done within the quota system, so there's no limit on how many can be issued each year. The part that I would like to have seen done a little bit differently because I also work in Malta, and Malta doesn't expect you to be tax compliant there for the first year. After one year, if you decide you want to stay there, then that's another story. But basically with the Italian digital nomad visa, you've got to be tax compliant from day one. And this is particularly important for the freelancers to look into. So before applying for the visa, they should talk to an Italian tax expert about the ramifications of being an Italian tax resident. Now if you're an American, Canadian, Australian, there is a bilateral agreement. So you may not end up paying any tax to Italy. But at the same time, it would behoove you to have this consultation.

The problem with all the visas for Italy is that each consulate interprets things in their own way and they have enormous discretionary powers with regards to if they issue a visa or they don't. So two cases, in the same consulate for the same visa could be handled differently depending on who's processing the application. So far, the information about the digital nomad visa hasn't really percolated down towards the consulates. So some of the consulates don't really know how to handle the applications.

I think there's a lot of confusion right now about who's actually eligible and how and where to apply. What have you noticed? Have been other changes under Meloni’s government with the immigration policies?

I'm happy to say that I was one of the first people to announce that the digital nomad visa would happen because I have been dealing with the immigration authorities for years and information gets passed to me. I've heard—and it's not official, but it wouldn't surprise me—the elective residency visa may become part of the quota system. They may start to limit the number of people. And I think the reason why they may do that is Italy has the oldest population in Europe. This year as taxpayers, we have to put another 3 billion into the health care system to keep it afloat. Because there's a misconception that it's free. It's not free, it's paid through taxes. And that is why as of January 1 this year, they introduced a minimum of €2,000 per year for people on the elective residency visa to pay into the system.

The other day when I was at the immigration office, I was surprised because they started referring to people that are coming to Italy for cheaper health care as economic migrants, which I found interesting and thought, okay, there's a shift happening here. It's a little too early to see what's going to happen yet, but I think that might become a restricted visa.

And I think the reason why it might go in that direction—and this is not official, this is just my interpretation—is I think they're looking at countries like Portugal that has really pulled back on encouraging retirees and they're beginning to put the focus more on investors, digital nomads and they might start to want to attract more investors, business people, digital nomads, so I think we're going to see some changes. I don't think it's necessarily connected to Meloni’s government, but it's her party that is now putting forward proposals to limit Italian ancestry.

I've heard that also, that it's becoming more difficult for people to apply for citizenship that would be through the jure sanguinis, wouldn't it?

Exactly. And I never thought I would hear them say it, but one of her own party members basically was saying that the children of immigrants in Italy are more Italian than some people that are getting Italian citizenship through ancestry, who don't speak the language. They don't understand the culture. They've never really lived in the country. So I don't know how easy it's going to be for them to do that, but they might start doing this.

I mean, that's kind of true in a way isn’t it? If you think about the very famous example of that rapper Ghali, who was, I believe, born in Tunisia or somewhere in North Africa and was not able to get Italian citizenship until he was 18 or something, despite having lived there basically his whole life and speaking Italian and being at this point of very high profile musician in Italy. For someone like that to not be able to get Italian citizenship, but then for someone who has Sicilian ancestors but can't speak the language and whatnot… It does seem a little problematic, doesn't it?

Italy has one of the most generous citizenship laws in the world. Because most countries limit it to the parents or the grandparents. And in some cases—I think it's in Scandinavia—the parents have to be living in the country. You can't be living in Argentina and apply for Swedish citizenship. They want to see that there's a connection to the country before they issue the citizenship.

In Italy, basically, you can go back hundreds and hundreds of years and as long as the bloodline isn’t broken in an irreparable manner, you can apply for citizenship because there are a lot of loopholes. You can come here and you can reclaim the citizenship. I mean, there are simple ways that you can get it even if it looks like it's broken. I think another thing that they're looking at is Italy desperately needs young people. I just saw on the news this morning, they've lost 3 million people.

Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, doesn't it?

Oh, yeah. Basically by 2050 there will be only about 30 million Italians. I think even the people that might be sensitive about immigration are understanding that, even if all of the Italians suddenly start having children—and that's not going to happen for various reasons, because it's very expensive—it's not going to be enough. And so I think we might see a loosening of giving Italian citizenship to children that are born here. At 18, you can apply, they might reduce it to 12. I'm not saying they're going to have it like in the States where basically if you're born there, you can claim American citizenship. Also the same in Argentina. But we might see that loosening up a little bit.

Germany has had to do it. Germany needs 100,000 new workers this year, and so they are going to make it easier to become a German citizen. And you've got to make it attractive. The Netherlands to Ireland, all these countries need people and the skilled people are going to the countries that make it a lot easier to go there and to become a citizen. And Italy is going to be left behind.

And while you can have people coming here to retire, you also need to bring young dynamic people that want to start businesses and if they choose to procreate... Because you know, no one who's 70 years old is normally having children. So you would want to bring in digital nomads, have them go to smaller towns, and at the risk of sounding cliché, they fall in love with the place. Maybe they fall in love with someone local, they decided to start a family and you start repopulating. I mean, it's not rocket science, right?

They may also have to make it a little bit easier to open a business, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the opening is not necessarily that difficult. The problem is when you open the partita IVA, you have to manage it properly. The problem is people don't manage it. So if you are in the regime forfettario and they pay you IVA, you've got to take that IVA, put it in a separate bank account. So when the time comes to pay the IVA, you've got the money.

The problem is people don't do that. So they're all terrified of having a partita IVA, but this partita IVA means you can grow. The trajectory is you go from a self employed person to an entrepreneur to an enterprise, but you can't follow that trajectory if you don't even have a partita IVA. You could even get started with the regime forfettario, which Salvini—to give him credit—raised it to 85,000 per year. And that's not bad. If you make €85,000 a year, for the first five years, it's only 5%. Then it's 27%. It's not bad, but it's based on what you earn.

Just wrapping this up, for those that do have the gladiator spirit, that are able to work it out like your client that you mentioned who spent five years, what are the rewards of living in Italy?

As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm not about telling you everything is going to be okay. What I'm about is: I'm going to get you to Italy and I'm going to keep you here for a long time. If you want me to tell you that your taxes are going to work out, you can live in the middle of nowhere, everything is going to be a breeze, I'm not the person for that. I pride myself on walking you through everything so you are well prepared. You can make educated decisions and if you end up living here full time, your life will be a lot easier than if you didn't take certain things into consideration.

I think if you have the gladiator spirit, which you need in all circumstances—it doesn't matter if you're a retiree or a worker—I think the positive side is you get to live in one of the world's most beautiful countries. You can avail yourself of all the beauty that Italy has to offer. You can have an amazing, enriching experience from the point of view of self growth. You can make your mark. I think there are a lot of business opportunities.

My clients are lifers. That's how I call them. And I work a lot with people from Southeast Asia. I work with people from South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia. And they love Italy, but they tend to listen a little bit more to my guidance than other nationalities. And it all makes for an interesting experience, but I will not be the kind of person that just says, “Oh, come on over. Everything is going to be fine,” because it wasn't fine for me. I've had the ups and downs. I've dealt with the tax office. I've dealt with having to fire employees. I had to pay a payroll of 30,000 euros a month. There’s an expression, “everything is okay until it's not okay.” And that's what I base my guidance on.

Where do you want to be? What is your endgame? This is what I always ask people. Where do you want to be in five years? Okay. If you want to be a freelancer, what are your goals? That's what I'm about. I know I'm very direct. I know my approach is not like that of other people. But as I said, I've been doing this for 30 plus years. My clients end up staying long term. They might find me a little bit eye opening at the beginning, but they always come back and they thank me.

Meet Damien O'Farrell, the Expat Coach Who Helps Foreigners Move to Italy

Issue #87

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