If you live in Chicago, London or Sydney and your mother or father in Italy can no longer manage alone, you are facing one of the hardest logistical problems a family can have: arranging residential care in a country you may only visit twice a year, in a system that works in Italian, on Italian office hours.
This guide walks through the process as it actually works in Italy — and how to run it from abroad without flying back and forth.
1. Understand what kind of structure your parent needs
Italy has several distinct types of residential care, and calling the wrong kind wastes weeks:
- RSA (Residenza Sanitaria Assistenziale) — for people who are no longer self-sufficient and need daily nursing care. This is the closest equivalent to a US skilled nursing facility or a UK nursing home.
- Casa di riposo — a rest home for people who are still largely self-sufficient. Comparable to assisted living.
- Casa famiglia / comunità alloggio — small family-style homes, usually under 10 residents.
- Centro diurno — day care only; your parent sleeps at home.
The dividing line is autosufficienza (self-sufficiency). If your parent has dementia, has had a stroke, or needs help washing, dressing and taking medication, you are almost certainly looking for an RSA.
2. Decide the geography before anything else
In Italy, placement usually works at the level of the province, not the country. Waiting lists, public funding and hospital discharge planning are all organised locally. Start from where your parent lives now — or where a sibling, cousin or trusted neighbour lives — and search within 20–30 km of that point.
3. Public route vs private route
There are two ways in:
- Convenzionata (public/contracted) beds: the regional health service covers the medical share of the fee and the family pays the hotel share. Cheaper, but there is a waiting list and access runs through the ASL (local health authority) and an assessment called the UVM/UVG.
- Private (solvente) beds: you pay the full fee, but admission can happen in days rather than months.
Many families abroad start with a private bed to solve the emergency, then apply for the public route to reduce the cost later. Both can be done by email and phone — but in Italian.
4. Contact several homes at once, in writing
Availability changes week to week. Contacting one home and waiting for an answer is the single most common mistake. Write to 4–6 suitable homes simultaneously with a short, precise message: your parent's age, self-sufficiency level, main diagnoses, the area, your budget range, and when the placement is needed. Ask three questions: Do you have a place now or a realistic date? What is the monthly fee and what does it include? What documents do you need for admission?
5. Handle the distance problem deliberately
- Set up email as the primary channel — Italian care homes answer email more reliably than international phone calls, and it gives you a written record across time zones.
- Nominate one person in Italy (relative, neighbour, parish contact) who can visit the shortlisted homes and sign papers if needed.
- If nobody is available, ask the home whether admission papers can be signed with a power of attorney (procura) — most accept it (see our guide on documents).
6. What it costs
Realistic 2026 figures: an RSA costs roughly €1,800–€3,500 per month for a private bed depending on region (northern cities are the most expensive); a casa di riposo roughly €1,400–€2,500. A public/contracted bed can cut the family's share to €1,200–€2,000. Your parent's pension and, in many regions, the indennità di accompagnamento (a national care allowance of about €530/month) can offset part of this.
7. A realistic timeline
- Week 1: define the area, type of structure and budget; gather the medical picture from your parent's GP (medico di base).
- Week 1–2: contact 4–6 homes in writing; visit (or have someone visit) the two best answers.
- Week 2–4: private admission is often possible in this window. The public route typically takes 1–6 months depending on the region.
The distance makes this harder, but not impossible — thousands of families run this process from abroad every year. The keys are choosing the right type of structure, contacting several homes in parallel, and keeping everything in writing.
If you are doing this from another country
The hardest part of arranging care in Italy from abroad is not the paperwork — it is that you cannot walk in, look around and tell which homes are worth a second call. If you would rather not spend your evenings phoning across a time zone, we will do that part. Tell us the area, your parent's care needs and your deadline, and you get a shortlist of homes worth calling, for $89. If you don't receive at least 3 homes matching the area and criteria you gave us, we refund you in full. Start here
This article is general information for families, not legal, tax or medical advice. Rules for admission, means testing and public funding are set regionally in Italy and change over time. Curalune does not allocate beds and does not guarantee availability.