Foreign Amateurs who wish to operate in Italy may do so if the country of which they are a citizen and amateur licensee has entered into a bilateral or multilateral reciprocal operating agreement with the C.E.P.T. Countries.

No additional permit is required -- simply bring your original license, a C.E.P.T. certificate and a valid I.D. (such as your passport ID card for E.U. residents) (this is pursuant to Article 140 of the Italian Decree 259 of 1 August 2003)

Often the C.E.P.T. agreement license is included in the home country license.

If your country does not belong to the C.E.P.T, you should contact the Italian Ministry of Communications direct (you can ask ARI for support). Usually a reciprocal permit is granted, but it may take up to a few months. Italian call areas

Using the C.E.P.T. license, mobile and portable operations are allowed. You can also use a local Amateur home or club station.

You should abide by the Italian regulations and if you decide to stay longer than 90 days, you should apply for a local license.

Only one class of Amateur Radio licenses is available in Italy (full license) (this is pursuant to Decree of 21 July 2005 published in the official Gazette nr 196 of 24 August 2005). No Morse code is required. All Italian licenses are equivalent to the C.E.P.T. class 1 - recommendation T/R 61-01.

Please remember to identify your station with the appropriate call sign. Following the C.E.P.T. rules, you must identify the country of operation, your home call and the operating conditions, e.g. IK/DL1ABC/P. Please note that Italy is divided into call areas, mainly on a regional basis (see above), so that it is standard practice to use the appropriate local prefix, e.g. I2/DL1ABC/P.

Please note that with the C.E.P.T. agreement, frequencies are limited by the country of operation, and Italy has its own frequencies. You can request a list of frequencies to ARI.

For standard VHF and UHF operations, please note:

6 meters: 50 to 51 MHz, mainly CW, SSB and digital operation. FM is not in use as per IARU band plan.

2 meters: 144 to 146 MHz. Lower portion of the band (144 to 145MHz) is CW, SSB and digital. Upper portion of the band (145 to 146 MHz) is FM and repeaters. APRS is on 144.800 MHz (in all EU).

70 cm: 430 to 434 and 435 to 438 MHz. From 434 to 435 it is NOT for Amateur radio (be careful).

In Italy, aircraft or similar operations are not allowed.

Important notices: (1) you are not allowed to use a microphone or a mobile phone while driving a car, you may be fined by the Police. (2) frequencies one is not allowed to listen to (such as Police frequencies, etc.) should not be stored in your rig's memory.