From today, Italians and foreign residents can apply for a new passport at almost any post office in the country. Poste Italiane has finished equipping 7,500 branches—6,932 ‘Progetto Polis’ rural outlets plus 431 offices in major cities—with biometric-capture hardware linked directly to the Interior Ministry’s document-issuance platform. Launched as a pilot in Bologna in March 2024, the service has already delivered 206,000 passports, 80 % of them to residents of small municipalities previously underserved by police-station passport desks. The completion brings passport services within 20-minutes’ drive for 97 % of the population and is expected to shorten appointment lead-times for non-EU work-permit holders renewing their travel documents. For global-mobility teams, the expanded network means expatriate employees no longer need to travel to provincial police headquarters—often an all-day commitment—to replace full visa pages or renew five-year biometric passports. HR departments can book slots online through Poste’s CRM interface and have passports delivered by registered mail to corporate addresses, reducing downtime. The €1.2 billion project—part-funded by Italy’s PNRR post-pandemic recovery plan—also integrates other e-government services (pension certificates, civil-status documents) that are relevant when relocating staff. Smaller towns housing new green-energy plants or logistics parks stand to benefit most, making recruitment campaigns in those areas easier. Poste Italiane estimates the passport roll-out has generated over 18,500 jobs and added €1 billion to GDP through construction and IT procurement. The model is being studied by Spain and Portugal as they prepare similar ‘one-stop’ mobility hubs under the EU Digital Identity framework.
Source: ANSA
