Freedom of movement

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Italian legislation does not foresee a general limitation on the freedom of movement of asylum applicants. Nevertheless, the law specifies that the competent Prefect may limit the freedom of movement of asylum applicants, delimiting a specific place of residence or a geographic area in which they are free to move.^[1] In practice, this provision has never been applied up to June 2026. DL 100/2026 introduced Article 5 ter, 5 quater, 5 quinquies and 5 sexies, in order to provide for the obligation to reside in a specific location.

Dispersal of asylum applicants

The allocation of applicants for international protection across the Italian territory is governed by a series of official acts, prepared with the involvement of several local public actors. These measures are intended to ensure that applicants are distributed in a manner proportionate to each area’s capacity forabsorption and territories’ specificities. Since 2014, several initiatives have been introduced to promote a fairer distribution of asylum applicants throughout the territory. However, they have had a limited impact, and the distribution of applicants across the territory is still far from homogeneous. For further details and a historical perspective on this matter, please see previous versions of this country report, available here.

With the entry into force of the Salvini Decree (Decree Law 113/2018) and the exclusion of asylum applicants from SPRAR, then SIPROIMI, the expansion of the network and the objective of equitable distribution between municipalities ceased to be a government priority. The government has gradually abandoned the forms of local consultation that had been activated in the meantime. As a consequence, even before the entry into force of L. 50/2023 in May 2023, which once again excluded the majority of asylum applicants from the SAI system, the distribution of reception places across the national territory remained characterised by significant territorial disparities.

• According to the MOI response to a FOIA request submitted by ASGI, as of 31 December 2025, 101,106 asylum applicants were accommodated in CAS, 3,652 in hotspots 3,342 in Government centres.^[2]
• The total number of people accommodated in the SAI system on 31 January 2026 was 39,497 but it is not known how many of them were asylum applicants.^[3] It is not known how many people were accommodated in provisional CAS (so-called CASP). Responding to the FOIA request, the MOI stated that “data regarding the temporary reception centers referred to in Article 11, paragraph 2-bis, are not available, as they are not subject to data collection at the central level.”

The distribution of asylum applicants and protection holders in Italy remains highly imbalanced between regions.^[4]

The region with the highest overall number of individuals accommodated is Lombardy, followed by Emilia-Romagna Lazio,  Piedmont and Campania. In many regions, the situation is particularly worrying: reception is almost exclusively provided through government-run facilities (CAS and initial reception centres), in particular in Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Lombardy Piedmont Emilia Romagna and Lazio. This reflects the reluctance of municipalities to directly manage accommodation centres, including for political reasons. In practice, however, they remain subject to the reception quotas imposed by the Ministry of the Interior, based on the national distribution scheme and therefore continue to host applicants through government-managed facilities.

In 2025, the number of beneficiaries of reception measures represented approximately 0.24% of the resident population in Italy.

Transfers between reception centres

After their initial allocation, asylum applicants may be moved from one centre to another, moving from CPSA / hotspots; to CASP, governmental first reception centres, CAS, or SAI projects. As previously mentioned, in case of a shortage of places, it is likely that an applicant will remain in first reception facilities or in CAS centres for the entire duration of the asylum procedure.

Asylum applicants can be moved from one CAS to another of the same province or between different provinces, to achieve better redistribution between territories. The Prefectures organise transfers within their own province, whereas transfers between the different provinces are decided by the Ministry of the Interior.^[5] In these procedures, the opinion of the individual asylum applicants on the place of their reception is rarely taken into consideration. Transfer decisions cannot be appealed, but the refusal by the affected person to be transferred is equivalent to a non-acceptance of reception itself and can therefore give rise to a measure of withdrawal of the reception measures.^[6]

On 5 March 2024, the administrative court of Lombardy asked the CJEU to clarify whether the withdrawal of reception conditions on the ground that an applicant refused a transfer to another facility is compatible with the Reception Directive, which prohibits Member States from depriving applicants from the means necessary to meet their basic needs.^[7] The CJEU ruled, on 18 December 2025, that an applicant’s refusal to be transferred can never expose them to a deprivation of basic needs, and can only lead to a reduction of reception conditions, not withdrawal.^[8]

The Prefectures of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, a border area and therefore the first point of arrival for those coming through the Balkan Route, requested transfers organised by the Ministry to reduce the number of migrants in the region. As such, in 2025 several transfers were organised from Friuli Venezia Giulia to other regions, mainly Sardinia Lombardy and Calabria.

Given the uneven distribution of SAI projects across Italy, and the resulting absence or scarcity of SAI places in certain territories, transfers from CAS to SAI frequently requires applicants to relocate far away from where they were hosted and lived for months or years, often outside the region and towards SAI projects in Southern Italy. The prospect of being uprooted again and having to restart their path to integration in an unknown territory is often so traumatic that it leads applicants to abandon their transfer to SAI, and therefore to lose the right to reception to which they would be entitled. No data is available on non-acceptance of transfer measures into SAI. More frequently, however, asylum applicants are not given the opportunity to wait for a place in SAI system after recognition of national or international protection, as they are required to leave the reception centre immediately after protection is granted.

Italian law does not contain specific provisions governing the transfer of asylum applicants between reception facilities for personal reasons, such as the need to be closer to their workplace, or to be closer or reunite with family members elsewhere.^[9] There are no known regulatory provisions providing for families to be accommodated together. However, observation of local practices shows that family unity is usually valued, and the institutions involved ensure, where possible, that members of the same family are hosted in the same facility. It is not uncommon for family members to be separated during search and rescue operations at sea, and thus are transferred and accommodated in different places. Requests for transfer on employment-related grounds less guaranteed, especially when the transfer would involve different Prefectures. In general, a transfer between SAI projects is more likely than a transfer between Prefectures, as communication between SAI centres is faster and more effective.

Restrictions in accommodation in reception centres

The Reception Decree clarifies that asylum applicants are free to leave first reception centres during daytime, but must be present at night. The applicant can ask the Prefecture for a temporary permit to leave the centre at a different time for relevant personal reasons or for reasons related to the asylum procedure.^[10] The law does not provide such a limitation for people accommodated in CAS, but rules concerning entry into / exit from the centre are laid down in the reception agreement signed between the body running the structure and the asylum applicant at the beginning of the accommodation period.

Applicants’ freedom of movement can be affected by the requirement to obtain prior authorisation of the Prefecture to leave the reception centre temporarily, e.g. to visit relatives. Authorisation is usually granted with permission to leave for some days. In case a person leaves the centre without permission and does not return to the structure within a brief period of time (usually agreed with the management body and regulated by the “reception regulations” of each facility), that person cannot be readmitted to the same structure and material reception conditions can be withdrawn by the Prefecture (see Reduction or Withdrawal of Material Reception Conditions). Challenging such withdrawals is very difficult due to the restrictive rules regulating access to the structures and the potential ensuing lack of legal advice.

Rules on absences from SAI facilities are different and are based on the technical-operational note of the Central Service 1/2018 of 12 April 2018.^[11] It provides that people accommodated lose the right to stay after 72 hours of unjustified absence. Unjustified absence means a “voluntary removal, for more than 24 hours, without any agreement with the coordinator/ project manager for the local authority”. A justified absence is a duly motivated period of absence from the reception facility (for example, to visit relatives or friends, for job search, for training, for work, etc.), that the person can agree with the local authority project manager. Each beneficiary can use up to 30 days (cumulative) of justified absence within every 12 months of SAI reception. When assessing the request for justified absence, “the local authority is called upon to assess the real needs of the beneficiary, considering its path of inclusion”. Although these indications are intended to protect the people accommodated, it confers a broad margin of discretion on the local authority. In any case, periods of absence due to administrative or judicial procedures, or to therapeutic and rehabilitation needs, including hospitalisation, are not counted towards the maximum period of 30 days. In exceptional cases, the local authority may agree with the Central Service on additional periods of justified absence, with appropriate supporting documentation. These general rules are outlined in the reception regulation that SAI projects are required to formally share with each guest.^[12] As can be seen, the regulation of absences in the SAI is inspired by greater flexibility and a criterion of sharing choices in the reception process.^[13]

^[1]          Article 5(4) Reception Decree.

^[2]          Response to a FOIA data request presented to the MOI by ASGI.

^[3]          Rete SAI, 31 January 2026, available here https://www.retesai.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ultime-pagine.pdf

^[4]          A comprehensive analysis of the subject is available in the publication from Campo, Giunti and Mendola, The Political Impact of Refugee Migration: Evidence from the Italian Dispersal Policy, Center for European Studies Paper series, no. 456, December 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3o3zPgx.

^[5]          Article 15 (4) Reception Decree.

^[6]          Article 23 (1 a) Reception Decree.

^[7]          Administrative Court of Lombardy, available at: https://rb.gy/03c141. The case is registered as case C-184/24 before the CJEU and its progress can be followed here.

[8]          CJEU, case C-184/24, judgement of 18 December 2025, AF v Ministero dell’Interno – U.T.G. – Prefettura di Milano, available here.

^[9]          Article 14 (1) Reception Decree only foresees that asylum seekers have access to the reception measures “with the members of their family”. “Family members”, within the meaning of Article 2 (1 f) Reception Decree, shall mean: the spouse of the applicant, the minor children of the applicant, whether adopted or born out of wedlock, minors under guardianship, the parent or other adult legally responsible for the minor applicant.

^[10]         Article 10(2) Reception Decree.

^[11]         Text of the note is available, in Italian, at: https://bit.ly/3zVrCOf.

^[12]         A model of these regulations is available as an annex to the Operations Manual, see: https://bit.ly/3GFiQYk.

^[13]         For more information about the differences in reception conditions at various levels of the system, see the paragraph Conditions in Reception Facilities.