Enrolment, fees and the ISEE
Enrolment, fees & aidJuly to November each year — miss it and there is no second chanceTuition at an Italian state university is banded by household means, and which band you land in depends on your ISEE. International students need the ISEE parificato, the version that accounts for income earned abroad. Starting early can save you a four-figure sum in euros.
Step by step
- 1
Find your university’s deadline first
Every university sets its own ISEE deadline, usually somewhere between October and December. Miss it and you are charged the top band for the whole year, with no way to file late. Ask the international office in your first week of term.
Put the deadline in your calendar and start gathering papers 6 weeks ahead — notarisation and legalisation are slow.
- 2
Put together the overseas income file
You need your parents’ income, property and savings documented, translated, and legalised by the consulate (legalizzazione). China has joined the Hague Convention, so some documents can go the Apostille route instead.
- 3
Get the ISEE parificato done at a CAF
CAFs are tax assistance offices, and there are branches all over Italy. Book an appointment and bring the file; they issue the DSU and the ISEE parificato.
- 4
Submit it through the university portal
Log in and upload the ISEE number or the document itself. The system recalculates your tuition band automatically, and anything you overpaid comes back.
- 5
While you are at it, apply for the regional grant
Every region has a student aid body — in Lombardy it is DSU Lombardia — offering grants that cover tuition, living costs and a room. They read the same ISEE. The window is usually July to September, earlier than the tuition banding.
The grant application and the ISEE are two separate things — filing the ISEE does not put you in the running for a grant.
Where people get stuck
- !Grant deadlines usually fall before term even starts. Most students only find out once they have arrived, and lose a whole year to it.
- !The ISEE and the ISEE parificato are not the same document: the first is for households with income in Italy, and almost every international student needs the second.
- !Falsified documents, once found, mean losing your place, repaying every euro of aid, and trouble with your permit.
- !A grant comes with a credit requirement (merito): you have to earn the set number of credits each year to keep it. Do not let too many exams slide.