ISEE step by step: how to do it yourself, from your phone, without hunting for documents

This is the practical guide: how to get your ISEE (the Italian means-test indicator) yourself, step by step. If instead you want to know what it is, what it is for and who counts as your household, read The ISEE: the number that decides what you pay, and how to get it free first.

The thing to know before you start: there is a pre-filled DSU. DSU stands for Dichiarazione Sostitutiva Unica, the ISEE declaration form. «Pre-filled» means income, bank account and property data are already entered by INPS and the Revenue Agency: you check and confirm them.

Two advantages that matter:

• you do not have to hunt for any document about accounts and income;
• if you confirm what is pre-filled, you avoid notices of «omissions or discrepancies» — the letter saying your figures do not add up.

Before you start: the two things you need

• SPID (the Italian public digital identity), the electronic ID card or the Carta Nazionale dei Servizi. Without one of these you cannot log in.
• The health card of every adult in the household, with its expiry date. You need them if you take the second route in stage 1.

You log in on the INPS website, in the Portale unico ISEE. It can also be done from the INPS Mobile app, on your phone.

Stage 1 — Declare who you are, and give authorisation

The first thing it asks for is the composition of your household: who your family members are. If your household is already in the INPS archives, you will find it already filled in and will not have to type it.

Then comes the step that decides everything else: authorisation to pre-fill the data of each adult. There are two routes.

1. Each adult logs in themselves with their own digital identity and grants authorisation. This is the route INPS marks as recommended.
2. You do it all, entering for each adult the delegation data and the verification elements — the health card number and its expiry date. These go to the Revenue Agency, which checks them.

If everyone in the family has SPID, choose the first. The second is the only option when someone has no digital identity, but it is also the one that can get stuck: see below.

Stage 2 — You wait, and do nothing

This part is their work: INPS asks the Revenue Agency for the data, the Agency checks the verification elements you entered and sends back what is needed to fill the declaration.

When it is ready, INPS notifies you by email and SMS. Which is why it pays to have given a number and an address you actually check.

Stage 3 — You go back in, check, and the certificate is issued at once

Once notified, you log back in and the declaration shows as elaborated. From there:

1. you accept or correct the pre-filled data;
2. you add what is missing, the data the archives do not hold;
3. you request the ISEE certificate, which is issued immediately.

The certificate is the document carrying your figure: download it and keep it. Anyone in the household can obtain it.

If it says «suspended»: what happened

This is the part that throws people, and it only happens if you took the second route, the one with verification elements.

Suspended means at least one of the verification details you entered — a health card number or expiry date — does not match. You re-enter the correct data and wait for reprocessing.

Careful, and this is the costly mistake: you get three attempts. Once the three are used, the declaration becomes blocked. So before guessing again, pick up that person's health card and copy the number and expiry from it — not from memory.

If something goes wrong, the CAF is free

The ISEE can be done for you by a CAF (Centro di Assistenza Fiscale, a tax assistance centre), and for the citizen it is free: the CAF is paid by the State for this service. It is the right route if:

• someone in the family has no digital identity and the verification route got blocked;
• your household situation is complicated (people living elsewhere, adult children, separations);
• you have income or property in your country of origin: it must be declared, and how to declare it is exactly the question to put to a CAF or a patronato.

If you go to a CAF, bring everyone's documents and ask for a copy of the certificate before you leave.

Three things to remember for next year

• The ISEE is valid for the year you request it and expires on 31 December: in January it has to be done again, if you need it.
• Many benefits require it by a given date to pay arrears: if you are applying for one, watch that deadline, not the ISEE's.
• If your situation gets worse during the year — you lose your job, your income drops — there is the ISEE corrente, recalculated on more recent data. Ask for it, rather than keeping a figure that no longer describes your situation.

If you use Bahay Italia, add the 31 December deadline to your deadlines: it is one of those nobody reminds you about until you need the figure and do not have it.