Codice Fiscale (Italian tax code)

Nobody warns you that an entire country's worth of bureaucracy hinges on a sixteen-character code you've never heard of until you need it — but by week two, you'll have written your codice fiscale from memory. It's Italy's tax identification number, issued by the Agenzia delle Entrate, and it's the quiet prerequisite behind almost everything that comes after it: the bank account, the lease, the health card, even finishing your university enrollment.

If you're a non-EU student staying more than 90 days, you don't need to request it separately — it gets issued automatically as part of your permesso di soggiorno application at the Questura, so by the time your kit giallo receipt is in hand, your codice fiscale usually already exists somewhere in the system. Everyone else — EU students, or non-EU students who want it sooner — can walk into any Agenzia delle Entrate office with a passport and ask directly, using modulo AA4/8. In Ancona that's the office on Via Palestro 15, open Monday–Friday 8:15am–12:45pm, with Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons from 2:30–3:15pm.

It's free, it's usually issued the same day if your documents are in order, and unlike the residence permit it never expires — the same code follows you for the rest of your time in Italy, so there's no renewal to track. If in doubt whether one's already been assigned to you, the Agenzia delle Entrate site has a lookup tool before you go stand in line for nothing.