June 3rd, 2026 marked 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union by the narrowest of margins, severing their economic ties and ending freedom of movement.
For many Brits living in Italy, as well as frequent visitors, second-home owners and hopeful future residents, the ramifications of Brexit were significant.
We wanted to know how our UK readers’ lives in – or relationships to – Italy have been affected by the vote a decade on, so we asked for you to share your experiences.
Most of those who responded say their lives were profoundly disrupted by the change, with at least one person saying it had drastically altered the course of their future.
Steven Martin in England had hoped to relocate full time to an apartment he owns in Pisa, but as a third country national has found his freedom of movement limited by the bloc’s 90-day rule.
“I will probably never be able to get residency” due to the Italian consulate’s “ludicrous ERV [Elective Residency Visa] passive income requirements”, he says: "so I’ll probably have to sell up and go somewhere else.”
Brexit has influenced his life “negatively in every aspect”, says Steven.
For Dennis, an Italy resident originally from Winchester, the main impact of losing EU citizenship was that the minimum residency requirement for him and his wife to naturalise as Italians jumped from four to ten years.
READ ALSO: When can you start counting your residency in Italy towards citizenship?
“After all this time and living [in Italy] on and off since 1990, it’s hugely depressing,” he says.
Nicholas Scott, who has lived in Pesaro since 2018, says that as a pre-Brexit resident he has avoided any issues with immigration authorities, but has struggled professionally.
“The red tape of trading with the UK and employment of British people has made things stressful”, he says.
Several readers pointed to the obstacles leaving the EU has thrown up in the way of travel.
“Airport chaos, lack of border guards training and consistency means delays and many stamps resulting in new passports needed for pages”, says one London native now in Sardinia.
Says another 81-year-old reader in Lucca: “Though I am now disabled and don’t travel much it has affected how often people come to visit me”, adding that they “feel cut off from Europe”.
Martin H in Arezzo tells us: “Virtually every act is now more difficult, time consuming and annoying.”
“I find it embarrassing, frustrating and sad that my life in Italy as a post brexit immigrant to Italy is so affected by the catastrophic decision.”
MF Power goes against the grain in concluding that “Brexit has not really affected my life in Italy (as a resident) in any way”, adding, “I still feel culturally part of Europe and integrated into Italian life”.
“I am thankful however that we are no longer bound to a sclerotic behemoth whose lawmakers in part are not even elected”, the Abruzzo resident says.
For Diccon Masterman in Pietrasanta, Tuscany, the opposite is true.
“I became a permanent resident of Italy in 1986 and for 30 years I rejoiced in the fact that I was a citizen of Europe”, he says. “All that ended in 2016”.
“Brexit reinforced my affection for Italy as I compared my lifestyle over the next 10 years with what it would've been like if I was still living in Britain.”
“I was so annoyed at no longer being a European citizen that I have gone to enormous trouble and expense in a quixotic determination to recover my European citizenship”, he says – a goal he recently achieved.
“So, Brexit has been a source of great annoyance and trouble”.
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