Moving to Tuscany: what to set up digitally
Before the boxes arrive, set up the few digital things that make life here work: an Italian tax code and PEC for paperwork, a local bank and SPID for anything official, and a way to find your people. Do these first and the rest of the move gets easier.
The paperwork base, in order
Most of Italian bureaucracy runs through a short list of credentials, and once you have them the rest stops feeling impossible. You want a codice fiscale, the tax code that every form asks for, then SPID, the digital identity that logs you into public services, and a PEC, the certified email address that counts as a legal letter here. A local bank account and a residency registration at the comune round it out.
None of this is glamorous, and all of it is worth doing in the first weeks, because almost everything else, from the doctor to the internet contract, asks for one of these before it will move.
Finding your people is a setup task too
The part newcomers underestimate is the social base. You can sort your tax code in a morning, but a life takes longer, and the difference between a hard first year and a good one is usually whether you found other people early. Tuscany has real expat communities, and they are easier to reach than they look once you know where to search.
Start with the towns that already have a foreign community around them, Cortona, Lucca, the areas near Florence, and search for the groups by name rather than waiting to bump into them. A short list of Facebook groups, a local aperitivo meetup, and one or two association events will teach you more about living here than a month of reading.
If you are bringing work or a business
If part of the plan is to earn from here, whether that is a rental, a craft, a consultancy, or remote work, your digital presence stops being optional. An Italian client, a guest, or a collaborator will look you up, and increasingly they will ask an AI assistant about you before they ever email. If there is nothing clear to find, in the language they search in, you start every relationship a step behind.
This is the same problem a local business has, seen from the other side. Being good is not the same as being findable, and the fix is the same groundwork: a clear page about who you are and what you do, a consistent name and contact everywhere, and enough real signal that both a person and a model can trust it.
A simple order of operations
If you want a sequence, it is roughly this. Codice fiscale and residency first, because they unlock everything. SPID and PEC next, because the official world runs on them. Bank and health registration after that. Then the human layer, the communities and the local contacts, because a move is only half logistics. And if you will work from here, the small digital presence that lets people find and trust you, before you need it rather than after.
If the working part applies to you, the same visibility checks I run for local businesses apply to a new arrival building something here. You can see how you look to someone searching for what you offer with the free snapshot below.
Frequently asked
What is the single most useful thing to set up first?
The codice fiscale, the Italian tax code. Almost every other step, from a bank account to a phone contract, asks for it, so getting it early unlocks the rest of the list.
Where do I find expat communities in Tuscany?
Search by town and by group name rather than waiting to meet people. The areas around Cortona, Lucca, and Florence have active foreign communities, with Facebook groups and local meetups that are easy to join once you look for them.
Do I need a website if I am just moving, not opening a business?
Not for the move itself. But if you will earn anything here, a rental, a craft, remote work, a clear and findable presence pays off, because clients and collaborators will look you up before they contact you.
