Enrichment DailyEnrichment Daily
If you’ve ever dreamed of living in Italy, your wish is about to come true. And even better: You could get paid to move to Italy.
The stunning Mediterranean island of Sardinia is prepared to pay people €15,000 each (approximately $14,976) to move there. It’s hard to imagine that a place so beautiful would need to pay people to relocate to its shores, but the intention is to attract new residents in order to combat dwindling population numbers.
And the Sardinian government is serious about it, setting aside €45 million—enough to subsidize 3,000 grants of up to $15,000 each.
Other parts of Italy are using similar promises of money to lure a new population, from the region of Calabria—which is giving a handful of new residents about $33,000 each—to the village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, which offered people up to $52,500 in grants to move there and work.
In the U.S., there have been similar programs, with regions and cities and states paying people to move there.
The Italian island of Sardinia is paying people to move there. Pictured here: a Costa Paradiso … [+] landscape.
“We have created the conditions for young people to decide to stay and [develop] the economic fabric of the most fragile territories,” said Christian Solinas, Sardinia’s president. “There can be no growth without a real enhancement of the territories, of the interior and most disadvantaged areas, which must pass through new policies for their repopulation.”
So what do you need to know? As with any of these programs, there’s a catch. To be eligible, you have to move to a Sardinian town with a population of less than 3,000 residents. The money must also go toward renovating a home. You must live there full-time (sorry, no vacation villas allowed). And within 18 months, you need to register Sardinia as your permanent residence.
A view of the village of Bosa in Sardinia, Italy.
But what a pay-off it is. The second largest island in the Mediterranean, Sardinia is famous for its clear waters, bronze-age ruins and delicious food like locally caught lobster. It has more than 1,200 miles of coastline dotted with sandy beaches and a mountainous interior lined with hiking trails.
Some of the charming little villages that qualify for the program include Galtellì (popular for hiking) and Calasetta (which is known for its spectacular white-sand beaches).
La dolce vita, indeed.
