Tessera Sanitaria (health service registration)

The first time you book a doctor's appointment with an actual tessera sanitaria instead of travel insurance, it stops feeling like you're a guest in the healthcare system and starts feeling like you're actually in it. That card comes from registering with Italy's national health service (SSN) at your local health authority — in Ancona, now called AST Ancona following the September 2025 reorganization of what used to be ASUR/Area Vasta 2, not that the renaming changes what you'll actually do there.

Non-EU students on a permesso per motivi di studio register voluntarily rather than automatically, at the ASL office serving your registered address — for Ancona that's the Viale della Vittoria office. You'll need your permesso di soggiorno, passport, codice fiscale, and proof of address. Registration runs for a fixed calendar year (1 January–31 December, not prorated to when you sign up) and needs renewing every year your permesso is valid. Here's the one number worth double-checking yourself rather than trusting any single source on: UNIVPM's own materials cite roughly €150/year for students, but a 2024 national reform (Legge 213/2023) restructured SSN contribution tiers for foreign residents more broadly, with some sources now citing figures as high as €700/year for students depending on how the rule is being applied regionally. The gap between those numbers is wide enough that it's worth confirming the live amount at the AST office rather than budgeting off any guide, this one included.

Once registered, you'll usually get a temporary certificate the same day, with the physical tessera sanitaria card following by mail a few weeks later — and that temporary certificate is what actually gets you access to a medico di base (family doctor) at the Distretto in the meantime, so you don't need to wait for the card to start using it.