What it is
A resignation caused by the employer's conduct being so serious that the employment cannot continue, not even temporarily.
CAF services · Employment
Online resignation in Italy
A letter handed to your employer counts for nothing: without the online submission, a resignation has no legal effect. The rule exists to stop undated resignation letters being signed in advance, but it is worth knowing before you ever need it.
01 · How it is done
How to submit your online resignation
Resignation and termination of employment by mutual consent must be notified exclusively online, on a standard form sent to the Ministry of Labour and to the employer.
Notice given in any other way (letter, email, text message) has no legal effect: the employment continues, with everything that follows from that.
Digital identity
You need SPID or CIE (the Italian digital identity systems) to log in to the Ministry of Labour portal.
Filling in the form
You enter the employer's details, the start date of the employment, the date the resignation takes effect and the type of termination.
Submission
The system sends the notice to the employer and to the local labour office. You receive a receipt with the date and an identification code.
Alternatively
The procedure can be completed through a CAF (authorised tax assistance centre), a patronato (welfare advice office), a labour consultant, a trade union or a certification commission, with a proxy.
The effective date entered on the form is the first day on which the employment no longer exists: it must be worked out taking into account the notice period set by the collective agreement. Get it wrong and the payment in lieu of notice is deducted from your last payslip.
02 · The exceptions
When the procedure does not apply
Some situations fall outside the online requirement, but almost all of them have an alternative safeguard, often a stronger one.
- Domestic work: domestic workers, carers and babysitters are not subject to the online procedure.
- Pregnant workers and parents in the first years of the child's life: the resignation must be validated at the Ispettorato del lavoro (the labour inspectorate).
- Employment still in the probation period, under the specific rules for ending a probation.
- Public sector employment, which follows its own rules.
- Termination in a protected setting, that is, agreed before a conciliation commission or at a trade union.
- The validation for parents is not a formality: without it, the resignation has no effect.
The protection for parents covers a period running from pregnancy up to an age of the child set by law, and it applies to both parents. It is designed to prevent resignations being extracted when a child is born, and it also has an important effect on the right to NASpI (the Italian unemployment benefit).
03 · Changing your mind
The right to change your mind
For a short time after submission, you can withdraw the resignation using the same online procedure, without having to give a reason.
- The time limit is seven days from the date of submission, not from the effective date.
- Withdrawal uses the same procedure, on the portal or through an intermediary.
- In the meantime the employment continues: there is no break at all.
- If you have already stopped working, those days are treated under the ordinary rules on absence.
- The employer cannot object to a withdrawal made within the time limit.
- Once the time limit has passed, the resignation is final: the only route is an agreement with the employer to take you back on.
04 · The decisive case
Resignation for just cause
It is the difference between being left with no income and receiving NASpI, and it has to be classified correctly on the online form.
Typical cases
Unpaid wages, unpaid social security contributions, harassment, workplace bullying, a change of duties for the worse, an unlawful transfer to another site.
The effect on NASpI
It gives the right to unemployment benefit, which an ordinary resignation does not.
The effect on notice
No notice is owed: the worker is entitled to a payment in lieu of notice, paid by the employer.
How to declare it
Select the correct type on the online form, stating the cause.
Evidence
Keep everything: unpaid payslips, correspondence, formal warnings, medical reports. You need them if the employer disputes it.
Before you resign
Three things to do when the situation has already broken down.
- Put your complaint to the employer in writing, with a date
- Keep payslips, correspondence and proof of the missing payments
- Check your contribution record with the contribution statement
- Get help before submitting, not afterwards
05 · Resignation by conduct
If you simply stop turning up
The law deals with the case of a worker who is absent without justification beyond a certain period: the employment can end at the worker's initiative, without the online procedure.
- Unjustified absence beyond the period set by the collective agreement (or, failing that, by law) allows the employer to notify the termination.
- The employer must report it to the Ispettorato, which may check.
- The employment is treated as ended at the worker's initiative, with the same consequences as an ordinary resignation.
- There is no NASpI, because the termination is not involuntary.
- The rule does not apply if the absence is due to force majeure or to something attributable to the employer, and the worker can prove it.
- The rule is aimed at cases of abandonment, but anyone who is absent for serious reasons and cannot manage to tell the employer should know about it too.
If you cannot come to work for a serious reason, you must still let the employer know, in any traceable form, as soon as possible. Prolonged silence has a precise and unfavourable legal effect.
06 · What follows
What happens next
The end of the employment opens a series of formalities and entitlements that are worth knowing in advance.
- The TFR (severance pay) must be paid according to the terms of the collective agreement. See severance pay.
- The Certificazione Unica (the annual income statement from the employer) will arrive the following year and you will need it for your tax return: see how to read it.
- If you resigned for just cause, the NASpI application must be submitted within sixty-eight days.
- It is worth checking your contribution statement before the company becomes impossible to reach.
- If you move to a new employer you will have two Certificazioni Uniche for the same year, probably with a balance to pay.
- If you open a partita IVA (Italian VAT number), you need to consider the effect on contributions and on the start date of the business.
Frequently asked
The questions that keep coming up
I handed in a resignation letter. Is that enough?
No. Without the online submission the resignation has no legal effect: in law the employment continues, with all the consequences, including those relating to absence.
The letter may count as a statement of your intentions in your dealings with the employer, but it does not replace the procedure. You still have to complete the online submission.
If I resign, am I entitled to unemployment benefit?
As a rule, no: an ordinary voluntary resignation does not give the right to NASpI, because the termination is not involuntary.
The right does arise with a resignation for just cause, a resignation during the protected period for maternity and paternity, and termination by mutual consent reached within the mandatory conciliation procedure.
Do I have to give notice?
Yes, except in the case of just cause. The length of notice is set by the applicable collective agreement and varies with length of service and job grade.
If you do not work it, the employer deducts the payment in lieu of notice from your last payslip. Work it out before you enter the effective date on the online form.
I am a carer. Do I have to use the online procedure?
No, domestic work is exempt from the online resignation requirement. Notice to the employer follows the ordinary forms.
The other formalities still need attention, in particular the notice of termination to INPS (the Italian social security institute), which is the employer's responsibility. The page on domestic workers and carers covers how to manage the employment from start to finish.
Let's talk
How your employment ends decides whether you get NASpI
Ordinary resignation, resignation for just cause, termination by mutual consent in a protected setting: three routes with very different outcomes. Talk to us before you sign.