Hi, everyone! My name is Caroline, and I'm an American studying at a university in Milan.
I'm having a bit of trouble with my permesso di soggiorno, and I was wondering if anyone had some light to shed? I arrived for my first year of university in September 2017 and visited the post office to make my questura appointment. The appointment ended up being for January, so I somehow left and returned to Italy without presenting any documents besides my passport.
In January, I attended my questura appointment, where I presented all of the documents and gave my fingerprints. They said I'd receive a text message when the permesso was ready.
Now, it's July, and I still haven't received the text. I visited the questura today, and they told me they couldn't do anything without the receipt. The problem is that I definitely never received a receipt. 
I carefully filed all of my permesso-related documents in a special folder, and there is no receipt to be found. Now, I'm quite worried because I'm supposed to fly home this month and I still have to renew the permesso for next school year... but that's impossible to do if I don't have the physical copy of the permesso in my possession.
Does anyone have advice? Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you recommend? Thank you so much in advance!
Permesso di Soggiorno Renewal?
Dear carlyycorn,
Usually when you present any documents in Italy you are given a receipt. To be more specific, when you request a permit stay in the post office and you pay, they MUST give you a receipt. If you do not have this receipt then i advise you to go to the police and report this - you tell the police that you lost the receipt and they will collect your information and give you a document. Do not tell the police that they did not give you a receipt as this is not true and you have no way of proving it. Simply tell them that you lost the receipt and they will declare this in the report.
Once you have this document/report, go back to the post office or questura. With this document they will search for your file and if its there they will process.
What you should avoid is trying to say they never gave you a receipt as thats impossible, unless the post office person was distracted. You must have paid for the permit and hence they should have given you a receipt.
Cheers
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