Planned Five-Hour Shutdown of CO, UNIPI and UNIMARE Portals Hits Work-Permit Filing Window

Milan – The Ministry of Labour has reminded stakeholders that its three core immigration portals – Comunicazioni Obbligatorie (CO), UNIPI and UNIMARE – will be offline today, 29 July 2026, from 12:00 to 17:00 CEST for scheduled maintenance. The announcement, originally posted on 27 July, affects the electronic submission of employment notifications, intra-company transfer declarations and maritime-crew permits. For multinational employers the outage overlaps with the last week of the current Decreto Flussi quota-application phase. Filings that fail to reach the system before noon will automatically roll over to 30 July, potentially pushing applicants further back in first-come-first-served rankings. The Labour Ministry has confirmed that timestamps generated after the reboot will determine queue order – no retroactive correction requests will be accepted. Payroll and posted-worker declarations (Distacco Transnazionale) that normally route through the CO platform must also wait until service restoration. Companies with individuals entering Italy this afternoon should carry printed copies of the draft notification, as labour inspectors at the border and airports have been advised of the downtime. Failure to present proof of pre-filing could lead to fines ranging from €180 to €900. Immigration consultancies report that system slowdowns started earlier than advertised, with sporadic session drops at 11:15. Users are urged not to refresh repeatedly, as this can lock the SPID session for 30 minutes. The Ministry’s ICT unit says the upgrade will install new API endpoints preparing the portals for EU Talent Pool data exchange and for the biometric-ready residence-permit format that enters circulation in October. Action Items: 1) Re-schedule uploads after 17:00; 2) Print draft filings for travellers landing during the blackout; 3) Update internal trackers with the actual protocol number once received tonight.