Dreaming of living in Italy? Maybe working from the beach? Here’s your chance to make the move and (kind of) get paid to do so.
Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean, says it’ll pay people up to €15,000 (or around $14,400) to move there. To fund the program, the region’s government has set aside €45 million for 3,000 new arrivals.
“We have created the conditions for young people to decide to stay and [develop] the economic fabric of the most fragile territories,” Sardinia’s President, Christian Solinas, said in a press release. “There can be no growth without a real enhancement of the territories, of the internal areas and of the most disadvantaged ones, which must necessarily pass through new territorial repopulation policies.”
But there’s a catch.
First, you’d have to move to a town with fewer than 3,000 residents. And the money must go toward renovating a newly purchased home. You’d also have to live there full-time and, within 18 months, legally register Sardinia as your permanent residence.
The goal is to reverse a population slide in Sardinia, one of many regions in Italy where small towns are quickly losing residents.
Just know that if you do decide to make the move, you might live longer.
Sardinia—the first of five “Blue Zone” regions to be identified—is said to have nearly 10 times more centenarians, a person who’s reached the age of 100 years old or more, per capita than the U.S.
Sardinia isn’t the first place in Italy to dole out money in an effort to attract more residents.
The southern region of Calabria said in 2021 that it would give new residents €28,000 (or around $26,900) over the course of three years. In 2020, the commune of Santo Stefano di Sessanio offered people up to €44,000 (or around $42,300) in grants to move there.
