There’s a region in Italy that will pay you each month for three years straight if you choose to move your life there.
The region of Molise is located in the south of Italy, and it’s probably one of the country’s least known areas— so much that there’s a running jokes among Italians that Molise doesn’t exist (there are memes about “Molisn’t” everywhere in the Italian side of the Internet). But with the population seriously decreasing over the last few years, the region’s government has decided to put up a project to try and fight it, and attract new residents to the area. Several other Italian regions are trying similar solutions, like putting houses up for sale for the symbolic price of €1.
The scheme is called “Active Residence Income,” and it was devised by the regional councillor Antonio Tedesco. Its aim is to fight depopulation, revitalise the economy and create new jobs, and the way it will do it is by paying all new active residents €700 each month for a maximum of three years, to help them in building up their businesses.
Creating new businesses is one of the two requisites new residents will need to meet, together with choosing to live in a village with less than 2000 inhabitants. That should be easy enough, considering more than 100 out of 136 villages fit into the category— and both requirements aim to make sure this is an actual “active residence” that will mean long-term investments in the region.
Molise has put together an overall fund of €1 million for the scheme, and all the details will be published on the Molise Region’s Bulletin on 16 September, also the scheme’s official starting date.
Once the scheme is made officially public, whoever is interested in participating will have a maximum of two months to send in their applications— all of them will be carefully evaluated before the successful applicants are selected. If you’re thinking this might be what you were looking for to turn your life around, then you can find all details on the Molise Bulletin here.
