As you will know after reading my earlier post, Documents Required for an American to Marry an Italian in Italy – Part 1: The Atto Notorio, getting married to an Italian citizen as an American citizen in Italy is no easy task. The atto notorio was just the first step, although for me it was perhaps the hardest one.
Once you have that document in hand, you can move on to the next steps in the process, which I will outline for you below.
The Nulla Osta
First of all, I have to point out that the nulla osta is also known as a dichiarazione giurata, which was very confusing to me, since some websites/governmental offices use the first term and others use the second. But I can assure you that they are the same thing. Whatever you want to call it, it is a sworn statement that, in this case, states that there are no impediments to you getting married. It proves in writing that you are allowed to get married in Italy, so it is one of the main documents you need.
If this sounds similar to the purpose of the atto notorio… it is. But the government needs both, so I didn’t ask questions (although I did complain to my then-fiance about it a bit).
This document is a bit simpler to get, though… if you are not trying to get it during a Covid-19 lockdown like I was. Here’s the breakdown:
- Make an appointment – The first step to getting the nulla osta is to make an appointment with the American Embassy in Italy that is closest to where you are living. You can find a list of their locations, complete with contact information, on the official U.S. Embassy website.
- Print and fill out the form – Before your appointment, you need to print out the nulla osta form (you can find the one for the Milan embassy here, but others can easily be found via an internet search or a look around on the embassy’s website). Don’t sign it though!! Leave the signature space blank so that you can sign it in front of the official at the embassy. This is what makes it legal.
- Have $50 ready – This part is a bit frustrating, and you will understand why when I tell you what the appointment consists of in the next step. You should check your local embassy to be sure, but at the U.S. Embassy in Milan, the cost of getting a nulla osta stamped and approved was $50 or “the equivalent in euros.” You can pay with either cash or a credit card.
- Go to the appointment – Show up for your appointment with your money, completed form, and passport in hand. They will ask you questions about where you plan to get married and may or may not look at the other documents I listed in the atto notorio article, depending on the embassy (I just brought every document I had, just in case. I always prefer to be over-prepared than under-prepared).
Then you will most likely have to sit down and wait a bit to see the official who approves these forms (even if you are the only person there, like I was). After a few minutes I was then called to a window (the U.S. Embassy was a lot like the U.S. DMV), exchanged some small talk, and the official watched me sign the form and put a stamp on it. Then he charged me $50 for the pleasure. The whole thing took mere minutes once I finally got the appointment and got through all the metal detectors and security checks!
The Prefettura
So now you have the nulla osta. Great! But don’t celebrate yet: as is the case with almost all Italian bureaucratic things… that isn’t the end of it. A nulla osta isn’t actually valid until it is legalized at the prefettura – a completely different place that you will probably have to go to on a completely different day. Luckily, aside from the lost time (and money), the process there is fairly straightforward as well.
- Make an appointment – You can usually do this online, and you may not even need an appointment if things ever get back to normal after the pandemic is over. One possible issue is that the people working at the prefettura have a tendency to not answer the phone… so you may have to call or email multiple times in order to get your questions answered and get an appointment set. If you aren’t fluent in Italian yet, you may want to get your future spouse to make these arrangements, since, unlike the U.S. Embassy, the prefettura‘s default language is Italian, not English (and rightly so).
- Buy a marca da bollo – You can get these stamps, which are used to legalize almost every legal document you will ever sign in Italy, for 16 euros at any tabaccheria.
- Don’t forget your nulla osta! – When you go to the prefettura, bring your nulla osta and the marca da bollo. Once there, the officials will approve it and stamp it, making it an official legal document. Note: If for some reason you can’t go to the prefettura on your own to do this, your future spouse can do it for you, or you can even have a third party do it, as long as you have them bring the email confirming your appointment and the documents as proof.
Publication of the Banns
Still with me? Still wanting to get married to your Italian fiance? Good! We’re in the home stretch now. Once you have the atto notorio and the legalized nulla osta, you are ready to take everything you have gathered to the Comune, or city hall, in your town. Once there, you will meet with a Civil Registrar, who will check all of your paperwork and, if it is all there and all correct, will publish the marriage banns.
The marriage banns are published on the website for your community, and are basically the equivalent of the “if anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace” part of a wedding ceremony. They declare to the entire community that you and your fiance are going to get married, and that if anyone objects to it, they have to do it within a certain amount of time. The banns are posted for eight to fifteen consecutive days (it depends on your town, so be sure to check), and two of those days must be Sundays. Then, once that time has passed and no one has objected, you have 180 days to get married.
FINALLY!!!!
So, the last step in this arduous process is to make an appointment at your Comune and bring with you the following things:
- atto notorio
- signed, legalized nulla osta
- legalized birth certificate
- your passport (and a copy of the signature page)
- your fiance’s passport/ID (and a copy of the signature page)
- Form requesting the marriage banns (check your Comune‘s website for this, as it varies, and you may even just have to fill one out at the Comune)
- Form stating when and where you plan to get married
- Any other documents you have completed along the way
- Patience (In my experience, the actual visit to the Comune was a bit aggravating due to wait times and the general air of annoyance in the building. This is a busy place, so not everyone will be smiley and happy to help you! But this may not be the case everywhere.)
Then, after your meeting with the registrar, at long (long, long…) last, you will be legally allowed to get married in either a civil ceremony or a church. I won’t lie and say that this is the end of the paperwork you will have to do if you want to live in Italy… but for now this is all you need to have a wedding and start your happily ever after in Italy with the Italian you love. Auguri!
Are you an American getting married in Italy to an Italian? Or have you done so already? What are your thoughts on this process? Let us know in the comments!
Hi Jessica! Thank you so much for this blog posts. It is so incredibly helpful to have an actual person who has gone through the experience talking about it, rather than some robotic description on a government website.
My fiancèe and I will get married in Rome in May 20, 2024, I’m the Italian, he’s the American. I think I understood most of the documents that are needed (atto notorio + nulla osta), but I have one main doubt. My fiancèe is a Nurse Practitioner, so he was planning to take time off from possibly May 10 until after our honeymoon. If he gets to Rome on May 10 and, say, we have an appt with the US embassy in Rome on May 13, we get hopefully the Nulla Osta and its legalization at the Prefettura by that day or perhaps May 14. Then, imagine we show up at the Comune on May 15 and have our wedding bans posted so that we’re allowed to marry on May 20. Now, my main concern is, will we be able to book our wedding spot at the comune with that little time in advance (4 days?), or is it a situation where you have to book weeks or months in advance? That would not be possible as we need the Nulla Osta to book it, and we cannot have the Nulla Osta until my fiancèe gets to Italy. I’m sending my mom over to the comune to ask, but I was wondering whether I could get your opinion on it in the mean time. Thank you so much!
Hi Costanza!
I’m glad you are finding the blog helpful! 🙂
Honestly, I’m not sure if that timeline will work. In the comune where I got married, the banns had to be posted 8 – 15 days before the wedding (with two of those days being Sundays), so if you posted them on May 15, you couldn’t then have the wedding on May 20. This might depend on the region/comune, though, so it may be best to contact the comune to ask about it.
I don’t think we had to book our wedding at the comune very far in advance, but again, this will change depending on where you live in Italy. Sorry I couldn’t be more help! Did your mom find out anything from the comune?
Hi Jessica! Thanks for your reply.
Nothing yet from mom, she’s currently traveling in Sicily and will go to the Comune di Roma to ask some of those questions next week. We’re considering flying my fiancèe to Italy with me on Christmas, so that he can get the Nulla Osta asap.
As a question that came to mind, does the US Embassy ask for the Atto Notorio as required to obtained the Nulla Osta? Or is the Atto Notorio required by the Comune by the time you marry? I’m asking this thinking of the expiration date of such document, is it true that it has a validity of 6 months? I emailed the Italian Consulate in Miami about it, but no response yet..
Thank you!! Costanza
Hi Costanza!
What a coincidence, I just got back from Sicily myself!
That’s a good question. I don’t think a U.S. citizen has to have the Atto Notorio in order to get the Nulla Osta, because the Nulla Osta has a separate form to fill out. You then present them both together at the comune when you meet with the registrar/publish the banns. The Nulla Osta is valid for three months, unless you get it in Rome, in which case it is valid for six months. I think the Atto Notorio has a similar 90-day time limit, so you’d have to get married within that time frame.
You also have to get the Nulla Osta legalized at the Prefettura too, so make sure to factor in time for that as well!
Hey Jessica! Hope you enjoyed Sicily!! I love that region so much.
Thanks for your response! This is very helpful. I had not found anywhere the info about the Nulla Osta’s 6-months validity before. Always in the topic of the documents expiration, is that referring to the wedding date or to the publishing of the bans? I.e. once you get the Nulla Osta, you have 6 months to get married OR to publish the bans? Asking this because I know that once the bans are published, you still have 180 days to get married.
Also, how long did it take you overall to do the whole Atto Notorio – Nulla Osta – Prefettura – Bans publication – Wedding ? I’m still trying to figure out when I need to fly my fiancèe out.
Thank you again so much for helping!!
Hey Costanza! Sorry for the late response, I overlooked the notification email!
I am actually not 100% sure, but I think that you have to have to get married before the documents’ expiration dates, but you may want to ask that at your Comune to confirm.
Overall it took me several months to get all the necessary documents, but it was also COVID times and appointments were even harder to get than usual. I got the Atto Notorio in the US in early March, then came straight to Italy and spent the next few months getting the other documents. I had all of the documents completed, including the banns, in late June or early July. But it all depends on when you can get appointments, and you have to allow around two weeks for the banns to be in effect.
Hey Jessica!
I can’t thank you enough for all the help you’ve given me!! I have a very simple and quick question about a doubt that somehow just came in my mind. To obtain the Nulla Osta/Dichiarazione Giurata, do I NEED the Atto Notorio? Because I am thinking of having him get the Dichiarazione Giurata in December, and then the Atto Notorio in February. Would that work? Or do these two documents need to be obtained in a precise order?
Thank you!! Costanza
Hi Costanza!
That is a tricky question. I don’t THINK that the Atto Notorio is required to get the Nulla Osta, but every article/government website I have read puts the Atto Notorio at the top of the to-do list. This could also be because sometimes you need some of the documents you got for the Atto Notorio to get the Nulla Osta but, as always, it depends on the comune. I might give the comune a call and double check, because I’m actually not sure about this one!
Best of luck!
Jessica
Disregard my question from your other post… I just read this post about the Nulla Osta! I got mine at the American embassy in Rome, not the Italian embassy. 🤷🏼♀️
Hi Andrea,
Yes, you can get the Atto Notorio from the Italian consulate in the US and the Nulla Osta from the American embassy in Italy. 🙂
Hello Jessica !!
Thank you very much for your post which is extremely helpful . I saw you blog when I needed the most . I have few questions for you please, 1. How many days take to make nulla osta ? 2. Can I make nulla osta from USA insist from American embassy in Italy ?
Thank you once again for your great help .
Hi Monica!
I’m glad I could help! For the Nulla Osta, the longest part is waiting for the appointment. You have to make an appointment via email or phone call, then on the day of the appointment, you go to the American Embassy in Italy and sign the document in front of an official, pay the fee, and that’s all there is to it. I believe that you can only get it from the American Embassy in Italy.
Thank you so much for your reply . You are such a kind hearted person . Have a good luck in your life .
Monica.
Hello Jessica !!
I have one last request for you , could please share which email I’d or phone number did you contact them to take nulla osta appointment. I have been trying with and not working any of them .
Thank you so much .
Monica
Hi Monica! This page is a good starting point: https://it.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/marriage/. (The “Dichiarazione Giurata” is the same as the Nulla Osta.)