Two days ago, on October 23, Italy opened the pre-filling window for its 2027 Decreto Flussi, the annual decree that sets how many non-EU workers the country will let employers bring in over the coming year. The number behind it is substantial: 165,850 authorized entries, split across seasonal and non-seasonal work, family care, and self-employment. For hotels and restaurants, in Italy and abroad, that rely on trained Italian hospitality talent, that headline number is less interesting than the calendar sitting underneath it.
Of the total, roughly 89,000 slots are reserved for seasonal work in agriculture and tourism combined, with the rest split between non-seasonal subordinate employment, 76,200 of it, including 14,000 reserved for family care, and a small quota for self-employment. The seasonal tourism share has not been published as a separate figure this year, and that is itself worth noting. Rome increasingly treats hospitality staffing as part of one large seasonal pool rather than a small carve-out, which says a lot about how central the sector has become to the decree's design.
The Calendar That Actually Matters
The real work happens in two stages. From October 23 through December 7, employers and candidates use the Portale ALI to prepare and save applications, matching a specific worker to a specific job before anything is formally submitted. A short reopening window, December 9 through 13, lets anyone finish or correct what they saved. Then the calendar goes quiet for a month, until click day itself: January 12 for seasonal agricultural work, February 9 for seasonal tourism, February 16 for non-seasonal hiring, and February 18 for family care roles.
Click day is unglamorous but decisive. At nine in the morning on a sector's assigned date, the platform opens and accepts submissions until that sector's quota is used up, sometimes within minutes. There is no waiting list and no second chance once a quota closes, which is exactly why the paperwork prepared during the fall window matters more than anything that happens on the day itself.
What Smart Employers Are Doing Right Now
For an employer who waits until January to start thinking about this, February 9 arrives fast. The hotels and restaurants that treat the autumn precompilazione window as the real deadline, lining up signed job offers, verified candidate documents, and a nulla osta application that is complete rather than rushed, are the ones who actually get through on click day instead of watching a quota close around them.
This is precisely the stretch of the calendar where we spend most of our time at ItalianExperience, matching hotel and restaurant employers abroad with vetted Italian chefs and hospitality staff well before the window opens, so that by the time click day arrives in February, the paperwork is already the easy part.
Data referenced from QuiFinanza and coverage of the Ministry of Labour's Decreto Flussi 2027 operational circular.
A quota only ever works for the employer who was ready weeks before the clock started.