How to Get a Codice Fiscale Online: Portals, Forms, and Timing

You can get a Codice Fiscale online in one of two ways, depending on your citizenship. Italian citizens registered with AIRE handle the whole request through the Fast It portal without leaving home. Foreign citizens living outside Italy apply online too, but through their local Italian consulate by email rather than a self-service portal. Both routes are free, and both end with a digital certificate from the Agenzia delle Entrate that carries the same legal weight as one issued in person.¹

Which Online Route Applies to You

The Fast It portal is only open to Italian citizens registered with AIRE, the registry of Italians living abroad.² If that describes you, skip to the Fast It section below.

If you are a U.S. citizen, another non-EU national, or an EU citizen without Italian citizenship, Fast It is not available to you. Your online route is an email application to the Italian consulate that covers your area of residence.¹ It’s digital, but not instant, and the consulate acts as the intermediary between you and the Agenzia delle Entrate.

One boundary worth naming: no legitimate online service outside the Italian government can issue you a Codice Fiscale. Third-party “instant” calculators produce a string of characters that looks right but has no legal standing. More on that at the end.

Documents to Have Ready

Before you start either online process, gather the following as clean PDF scans:

A valid passport (photo page). Non-EU nationals need a passport. EU citizens can substitute a national identity card.¹
A completed and signed Form AA4/8, the Agenzia delle Entrate’s request form for individuals. The form and its English instructions are on the Agency’s website.³

Make sure the scans are legible and uncropped. Blurry or partial scans are one of the most common reasons a consulate bounces an application back. There is no fee at any step: Italian consulates issue the Codice Fiscale free of charge, and the Agenzia delle Entrate does not charge for the initial assignment.⁴

Fast It Portal: For Italian Citizens Abroad

Fast It is run by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and lets AIRE-registered citizens request a Codice Fiscale end-to-end online.² The process:

Register an account on Fast It using your personal details exactly as they appear on your Italian passport or Italian birth certificate.⁵
Log in and open “Anagrafe Consolare e AIRE,” then select “Attribuzione Codice fiscale.”⁶
Verify the personal data the system has pre-filled from your consular record and submit the request.
Once the consulate has processed it, download the certificate of tax code assignment directly from the portal.⁷

AIRE-registered parents can request a Codice Fiscale for a minor child through the same account.²

Consulate Email Route: For Foreign Citizens Outside Italy

If Fast It isn’t available to you, apply by emailing your local Italian consulate. Each consulate publishes a dedicated tax-code address on its website. Send a single email with both PDFs attached:

Your completed and signed Form AA4/8
A clear scan of the photo page of your valid passport

The consulate forwards your file to the Agenzia delle Entrate, which assigns the code and returns it. You’ll receive your tax code certificate by email, and in many consular jurisdictions you can also download it through Fast It once processing is complete.⁷

Consulates set their own procedures within the Agency’s framework. Check your consulate’s page for the exact email address, any locally required attachments, and whether they’ll accept a digitally signed form or want a printed-and-signed scan.

Filling Out Form AA4/8

Form AA4/8 is short, but a few fields cause most of the delays.

Request type. Tick the box for “Allocation of a tax code” for a new code. Do not tick the box for a duplicate or replacement card.
Personal data. Use capital letters throughout, and match your passport exactly for name, date of birth, and birthplace. Small inconsistencies between the form and your ID will slow things down.
Place of birth. Spell out the full city and country rather than abbreviating.
Third-party requests. If you’re filing for someone else, such as your child, tick the “Third Party Request” box and enter code “10” in the request type code field.⁸

When in doubt about the signature, print the form, sign by hand, and scan the signed copy. Some consulates accept digital signatures; many still expect a handwritten one. The signature is your declaration that the details you’ve entered are accurate, so treat it as the piece the consulate will actually look at.

Applying Online for a Minor Child

Italian AIRE-registered parents request a child’s Codice Fiscale through Fast It, following the same steps as an adult application.²

Non-Italian parents send the request by email to the consulate with:

Form AA4/8 filled out with the minor’s details, with the “Third Party Request” box ticked and code “10” entered
A scan of the minor’s valid passport⁸

Some consulates additionally require a long-form birth certificate with an Apostille for processes involving minors.⁹ For a U.S. birth certificate, the Apostille is issued by the Secretary of State in the state where the certificate was issued.¹⁰ Confirm the requirement with your consulate before ordering documents you may not need.

Processing Time and What You Actually Get

Consulate processing typically takes up to 15 business days after all your documents have arrived and been accepted.⁷ Fast It turnaround varies by consulate workload, and the portal lets you check status and pull the certificate as soon as it’s ready.

What you receive is a digital certificate of tax code assignment, not a plastic card. That certificate is fully valid and accepted by banks, notaries, and government offices in Italy.⁷ The Tessera Sanitaria, the plastic health-service card that also shows the tax code, is issued to residents enrolled in the Italian national health system; non-residents generally don’t get one.¹¹ Save the PDF to your phone and keep a printed copy with your passport when you travel.

Why Online Code Generators Don’t Count

Search results are full of sites that promise to produce your Codice Fiscale instantly from your name, birth date, and birthplace. They use the same algorithm the Agenzia delle Entrate uses, and the string they return often looks correct. It isn’t legally valid.

The reason has a name: “omocodia.” When two people born the same day in the same place with similar names would end up with the identical code, the Revenue Agency’s system automatically alters one or both codes to keep them distinct.¹² An outside calculator has no way to know whether that adjustment applied to you, so it may hand you a code that either belongs to someone else or differs from the one the Agency has actually assigned.

A Codice Fiscale is only valid once the Agenzia delle Entrate has officially issued it. Banks, notaries, and government offices check codes against the Agency’s database, and an unofficially generated one will fail. Use the calculators to satisfy curiosity if you like, but don’t put the result on any legal or financial document. Get the real one through Fast It or your consulate.

1
Agenzia delle Entrate. Tax Identification Number for Foreign Citizens
2
Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale. Tax Code
3
Agenzia Entrate. Application for a Tax Code – Instructions on How to Fill In This Form
4
Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. Consular Fees
5
Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. How to Register with Fast It – the Online Portal for Consular Services
6
Consolato d’Italia Detroit. Codice Fiscale – Tax Identification Number
7
Consolato d’Italia Detroit. Codice Fiscale – Italian Tax Code
8
Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. Codice Fiscale – Italian Tax Code
9
Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles. Document Checklist and Instructions
10
Ambasciata d’Italia a Washington. Legalization of Documents Between Italy and the USA – the Apostille
11
Agenzia delle Entrate. The Italian Health Insurance Card
12
Agenzia delle Entrate. Glossary of Tax Terminology