The times to obtain an appointment at the police station for the issue or renewal of the passport are generally acceptable, except for two large cities – Genoa and Bari — where the wait exceeds two months. This is what emerges from the Altroconsumo survey conducted in 17 Italian cities (Ancona, Bari, Bologna, Bolzano, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Pescara, Pordenone, Potenza, Reggio Calabria, Rome and Turin), carried out on 12 November by simulating a booking request via the State Police platform. Always on the same day, Altroconsumo verified the waiting times on Post Office website in cities where passport service is available (8 out of 17). It has proven to be a valid alternative to the police station: appointments at post offices are even available on the same day (Cagliari) or the next day and at most after 5-6 days in large cities (Milan, Rome and Naples).
Altroconsumo’s survey on waiting times in 17 cities
Finally more reasonable times in almost all cities monitored. The comparison with the times recorded a year ago shows a clear improvement: in the majority of cities (13 out of 17) the appointment at the police station is available after 1 or 2 days or at most a week (Milan, Rome and Naples). Longest wait in Padua, 15 days and in Turin, 21 days, the latter a clear improvement if we consider that a year ago the people of Turin waited more than two months. These are times that can be improved, but acceptable. Those of are not Genoa and Bari with over two months of waiting.
Those who go to the post office almost always get an appointment via the app the next day (Bologna, Pescara and Potenza) or even on the same day (Cagliari) or after 5-6 days (Milan, Naples and Rome). The only exception was Padua where on 12 November there were no available appointments on the Post Office website. Unfortunately, in 9 out of 17 cities (Ancona, Bari, Bolzano, Catania, Genoa, Palermo, Pordenone, Reggio Calabria and Turin) citizens still do not have a passport service in post offices.
For three years now Altroconsumo has been monitoring the booking platform of the State Police to verify the waiting times to have an appointment at the police station for the issue or renewal of the passport. They started in 2022 when the impossibility of making an appointment in many cities and the endless waits filled the newspapers.
To defend the citizen’s right to free movement even outside the European Union where an identity card is sufficient, Altroconsumo has launched a petition to ask the institutions to reorganize the system with more access points to the precious document and to reduce its costs given that it is among the most expensive in Europe.
Genoa and Bari: citizens wait over 2 months
The Altroconsumo photograph taken on November 12 shows that waiting times of over two months still remain in two large cities: Genoa (70 days) and Bari (69 days). In the Apulian capital we went from a more than reasonable wait of 6 days recorded a year ago to over two months on 12 November last. In one year the already overcrowded passport agenda has worsened in Genoa where police stations and police stations are increasingly clogged given that the wait has gone from 59 days to 70 days. Note that in Genoa and Bari citizens have no alternatives to the police station, because the passport service in post offices has not been activated. It is clear how the lack of other access points to this precious document increases waiting times.
Milan and Naples, faster passports: from months of waiting to just a week
In Milan and Naples, where the pressure on police stations and police stations has been eased by giving citizens the opportunity to obtain a passport even at post offices, waiting times have been drastically reduced. Under the Madonnina on the platform of the State Police we went from 103 days a year ago to 7 on 12 November last. For Neapolitans, the appointment at the police station is available after 6 days, while a year ago they had to wait more than a month.
TO Turin a year ago they waited more than two months to set foot in the police station, but it seems that the situation is normalizing given that last November 12th on the platform of the State Police the first available appointment was after 21 days. We can do better, but considering that the service in the post offices has not been activated in Turin, we can see the glass as half full.
No more postal slip, but costs rise
No more postal slip to pay the contribution to the Ministry of Economy and Finance: since December 1st the payment can be made on banking platforms or with payment apps. Obviously, payments made before December 1st with the postal payment slip remain valid. The digitalisation of payment, one of the requests of the Altroconsumo petition, is good news, It’s a shame, however, that there was also a change in the amount to be paid. It went from 42.50 to 42.70 euros, twenty cents more. Was it necessary? No, considering that the Italian passport is among the most expensive in Europe and that the State does not even give discounts to that for minors even if it lasts less (3 years up to 3 years of age, 5 years from 3 to 17 years).
It’s not a good sign, the direction is certainly not that of cost reduction the citizen who sees his bill rise to 116.20 euros (42.70 go to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and 73.50 euros for administrative stamp) if you do it at the police station.
At the post office the bill is even higher: to the 116.20 euros you must add 14.20 euros as an undefined “cost for the request” and the outlay rises to 130.40 euros. The comparison with other European countries, with the same validity (10 years), is significant: in Spain it costs 30 euros and in Germany 60 euros. Finally, too We haven’t gone all the way with digitalisation because the trip to the tobacconist remains to recover the administrative fee of 73.50 euros.
To normalize waiting times we also activate the Municipalities
The photograph taken by the Altroconsumo investigation shows that times have improved and we can say that the turning point occurred a year ago, in March, when two important measures were adopted which seem to have accelerated the system for issuing and renewing passports:
- the emergency procedure (schedule of priority appointments on the State Police platform);
- the possibility of obtaining a passport in post offices, although not yet throughout Italy.
Having multiple access points to this precious document is proving to be the winning strategy. So why not also activate the Municipalities to make the passport? Altroconsumo asks for it with its petition.
The emergency procedure
For over a year now, a priority agenda (“priority appointments”) has been activated on the State Police platform where you book an appointment for issuing or renewing your passport. allows citizens who urgently need to leave within 30 days for documented health, study, work and tourism reasons to book and obtain a passport in time for the trip to be undertaken. This way appointment management should be more efficient. The emergency procedure was already foreseen, but the citizen had to show up at the police station without an appointment and queue up hoping to find an available slot, clogging up police stations and police stations even more. Find out how it works and who can ask for it.
Passport at post offices? It costs more
To ease the pressure on the Police Headquarters and speed up the procedures for issuing passports, thanks to the agreement between Poste Italiane and the Ministry of the Interior, the passport request and renewal service was activated at post offices in March 2024. To date, according to what was reported by Poste, there are 3,215 post offices where you can get a passport: 2,800 offices in small municipalities with less than 15 thousand inhabitants (thanks to the Polis Project financed with Pnrr funds) and 415 in large cities (Rome, Bologna, Verona, Cagliari, Milan, Naples and Padua) and in the province of Florence. Many large cities are still missing.
How does it work? First of all you must check that the service is available in your city on the (http://%20www.poste.it/polis-passaporto-elettronicaco) Poste website. If there is, to access the service you must have or activate a Poste account or the PosteID Spid. It is important to know that once the passport issuance process has been completed, the account can be deleted by following the instructions in the section I want to unsubscribe from the website www.poste.it, what should I do.
After accessing the service, you can check the available appointments in the post offices of the city where you can request your passport. By clicking on the chosen post office the calendar with availability opens, you choose the day and time and book.
Altroconsumo requests
Certainly, progress is being made in the direction of normalizing the times for issuing and renewing passports thanks to the new emergency procedure and above all the possibility of contacting the post offices spread throughout the area. Even if this last possibility is not yet available throughout Italy and is often missing precisely where police stations and police stations are most clogged. In the meantime, however, the Altroconsumo investigation shows that there are still unacceptable waiting times in several cities, such as Genoa and Bari, therefore It would also be useful to activate the Municipalities to make the passport.
A step forward in the digitalisation of payment was made with the elimination of the postal payment slip to pay the contribution to the Ministry of Economy and Finance from 1st December last. Today, the payment can be made on banking platforms or with payment apps, but unfortunately there has also been a change in the amount to be paid. It went from 42.50 to 42.70 euros, twenty cents more. A negative signal, considering that the Italian passport is among the most expensive in Europe and that the State does not even give discounts to that for minors even if it lasts less.
On the digitization then we didn’t go all the way because the trip to the tobacconist remains to recover the administrative stamp of 73.50 euros. The passport costs more and more whether it is done at the police station (116.20 euros) or at the post office where the citizen has to shell out 14.20 euros more, so we are at 130.40 euros. Altroconsumo asks the institutions to carry out a series of interventions that allow for faster times for issuing the passport, both for booking the appointment and for issuing it after completing the paperwork and above all lower costs, given that compared to our European cousins it costs more than three times as much.
