Import export licence. Four different things with the same name, and one of them is free.

If you're looking for an import export licence, you're looking for something that has no application form in Italy. What you actually need does exist, it goes by four different names, and one of the four is free.

This piece is part of the guide to export operations for small food producers and covers only the start: what you need to have in place before you can ship. Everything after that, from the first reply to a buyer to the goods leaving, is in the guide's eight steps.

What people call a licence, and what it really is

The word licence covers at least four different things, and the confusion wastes time because it sends people looking for an office that doesn't exist. This table puts the word on the left and the real thing on the right.

What it's called	What it really is	Who issues it
“Import export licence”	A registered business: a VAT number and entry in the Business Register. If you already produce and sell in Italy, you have it.	The Revenue Agency and the Chamber of Commerce, when the business was set up.
“The number for exporting”	The EORI number, the unique number customs authorities across the EU use to identify a business.	Only the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency, and free of charge.
“The health authorisation”	The registration or approval of your food production site. If you produce food you already have it, and it's the foundation for every certificate that follows.	The local health authority (ASL) for your area.
“The import licence”on the buyer's side	The authorisation the importer needs in their own country: the Canadian licence, China's facility registration, the alcohol permit in the Emirates.	The authority in the destination country, issued to your buyer. Not to you.
“AEO”	Authorised Economic Operator: a certification of reliability that brings simplifications and fewer checks. It comes in three forms: AEOC, AEOS and AEOF.	The Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency, to businesses that meet criteria on organisation, accounting, solvency and security. You don't need it to get started.

The row that most often leads people astray is the fourth. Someone who reads “you need a licence to import food into Canada” thinks they have to get it themselves, when in fact it's the buyer's obligation: it only becomes your problem if the buyer doesn't have one, and then the deal stalls before it starts. The country-by-country rows are on each market's page, starting with exporting food to Canada.

The EORI number is free, and there's a notice that says so

This is what makes this page useful, because people searching “how to get an import export licence” often run into someone who'll sell it to them. On 23 July 2025 the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency published a notice on exactly this, after receiving reports of websites offering, for a fee, an EORI registration service. The notice ends on a single point:

the EORI number is issued free of charge, and only the Agency itself can issue it.

You apply to the local Customs Office, following the procedure the Agency publishes in its dedicated section. The Agency itself explains what the number is for: identifying the business uniquely to every customs authority in the EU, for the exchange of information between customs offices and for the business's dealings with them.

If anyone asks you for money to assign you an EORI number, they're selling you a step you can take yourself at no cost. It's the only recommendation on this page that isn't about a procedure.

The order, which is the part that costs

The individual formalities are almost all quick. What delays a shipment by months is doing them in the wrong order, because some are prerequisites for others and some depend on a foreign authority that's in no hurry.

When	What	How long it takes
Step 0probably done already	VAT number, Business Register entry, health registration of the site.	None, if you already produce and sell. If the health registration is missing, everything else stops here.
Step 1now, and free	The EORI number, from the local Customs Office.	It's one application, not a process. Free, and issued only by the Agency.
Step 2as soon as there's a country	The registration the destination country requires for your site: the FDA for the United States, the customs portal for China, and so on.	Months. It's the longest item on the list, and the one almost nobody puts in the diary in time.
Step 3per product	Authorisations and lists for your product: ministerial lists for certain foods and countries, an excise number for wine.	It varies with the product. Wine adds a whole extra layer: the documents for wine.
Step 4per shipment	Health certificate from the ASL, Chamber of Commerce documents, proof of origin.	Days, but from submission of the complete paperwork: two working days for the certificate of origin and three for the certificate of free sale at the Lecce Chamber of Commerce.

The trap is in the last column of step 4, hidden in a few words: from submission of the complete paperwork. The two days start once the attachments are right, and getting them right takes days of work beforehand. The cost of a €10 document is the afternoon of the person who prepares it, not the fee: the full sum is in what your first export order costs.

The most expensive trap, though, is at step 2, and it's about the calendar. A registration that takes months has to be started when the negotiation begins, not when the buyer confirms the order. Start it after confirmation and you'll find yourself telling a buyer you've only just won over that the goods will ship in three months.

The health side, which is what holds shipments up

For food, the registration of your site is the foundation, and the certificates the destination country requires come from it. The Ministry of Health sets out a clear route: businesses wanting to start exporting should turn first and foremost to their local health authority, and certificates can only be signed by the official vet or the officer in charge of the food hygiene and nutrition service.

The notice period isn't national: each health authority sets its own, and reading three different pages gives you a range of three to five working days. Go by the wrong ASL and you miss a departure. The procedure, ASL by ASL, is in how to apply for the health certificate; the difference between a health certificate and a certificate of free sale is in which of the two your buyer is asking for.

When the list stops fitting in someone's head

With one product and one market, you can keep this list in your head. It breaks down when things multiply: four products, three countries, and each combination with its own registration, its own expiry date and its own notice period. At that point the problem stops being knowing what you need and becomes noticing that a registration expires in three weeks.

That's when the list needs to come out of someone's head and into a place where an alert arrives when it's time to act, not when it's time to have the document. With one rule that matters more than the technology, set out in Ethics: the system prepares and flags, but no application goes to an authority until a person has read and approved it.

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