My boyfriend and I are contemplating a one-year move to Italy. Probably Lucca or another smaller town outside of Florence. He's an architect and I'm a publicist but we fully realize securing a working visa is next to impossible unless we transfer with a company. So, I'm going to look into working for a family - American or otherwise - and wondered if anyone had any insight on such matters. Thank you!

As a matter of facts it may be far easier for you (at least for your boyfriend) to work for an Italian architect firm, thus getting a working visa (permesso di soggiorno) than to find an illegal job of some kind. Once one of you has a working visa, the other can join him on apermanent basis with "ricongiungimento familiare" or just get temprary touristic visas and go back and forth from the Us a few times.

I think finding work in an architectural firm may be very difficult as he will have to be certified here which means sitting the test in Italian. Not so easy. The rules of building are different here than they are in the US for example so he would have to study a bit first. I think the easiest way would be to come over as a student with a student visa for 1 year. They can both attend a language school which will suffice. Then while attending school they can legally work 20 hours per week. They could of course also offer private tutoring in English for extra cash. Since they are not married they could not apply for the "ricongiungimento familiare" and also, as a tourist they would have to be out of the entire EU not just Italy for at least 90 days out of every 180. No more just hoping over to Switzerland for lunch like in the old days.

Yet, being trained as an architect he could still work at some archtectural firm even not being allowed to sign the projects. He may draw stuff for the other architects or team with them. It would be a less paid job than actual architecture, but it woudl still be an interesting job,. ANd this kind of stuff is often done even by architecture students!!!

One word of caution, Jennifer. If you get caught working illegally in Italy and are deported, it's possible that you may never be allowed back into the country.