A2 Italian test results: when they come out and where to check them
5 min read
After the A2 Italian language test you are not handed any certificate. The outcome is communicated to you and recorded in the information system of the Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, and from there the Questura reads it directly when it processes your application for the EU long-term residence permit (Ministerial Decree of 7 December 2021, art. 3 co. 5 and art. 5). You do not have to bring anything to the Questura — but you do need to know where to look and what to expect.
Where to check the outcome
The outcome appears in your personal area on the services portal of the Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration — portaleservizi.dlci.interno.it — the same portal you used to file the request, accessed with SPID or CIE. That is the channel that counts: the result is not posted on a noticeboard at the CPIA and does not arrive as a paper certificate.
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| Do I get a certificate? | No. The result stays inside the Ministry's system |
| Where do I see it? | In your personal area on the services portal, with SPID/CIE |
| Who else sees it? | The Questura handling your file |
| Is it valid for anything else? | No — only for the long-term residence permit |
| What score do I need? | At least 80 points out of 100 overall |
How long it takes for the result to appear
Here we have to be honest: no official source publishes a deadline by which the outcome must be available. The decree sets only one deadline, and it comes before the test — the Prefettura must summon you within sixty days of the request (art. 3 co. 2). For marking and for recording the result, no number of days is written anywhere.
In practice the marking is done by the commission of the school where you sat the test, so the timing depends on the individual CPIA and on its session calendar. If after a few weeks your personal area still shows nothing, the office to ask is the Prefettura of your province — not the Questura and not the CPIA: the Prefettura is the office that organised your summons. Be sceptical of any site promising "results in X days": that number does not appear in any published act.
What the outcome actually says
The outcome is binary — passed or not passed — and rests on a single threshold: at least eighty per cent of the total score, that is 80 points out of 100 on the total of the three papers, with no minimum on any single paper (art. 3 co. 3). The weights are these:
| Paper | Maximum points |
|---|---|
| Listening comprehension | 30 |
| Reading comprehension | 35 |
| Written interaction | 35 |
| Total | 100 |
So you can do badly on one part and still pass, as long as the sum reaches 80. How that total is built, how much margin you really have and why it pays to answer every question even when guessing is explained in our guide to the scoring.
Why no certificate arrives (and why that is not a problem)
This is the structural difference between the state test and a certificate bought from a recognised body: the certificate stays yours and you can show it to an employer, a school or a university; the state test instead produces an administrative record that lives inside the Ministry's information system and is designed for one single file.
Practical consequence: if you need a document at level A2 or above to show elsewhere, the Prefettura test will not give you one, and you will have to go through a certifying body. The opposite consequence, in your favour: there is no piece of paper to lose, and nothing to attach to your permit application.
If the outcome is negative
The decree expressly provides that the foreign national may repeat the test, setting no limit on the number of attempts. On its own page the Ministry of the Interior states a wait of ninety days after a fail or an unjustified absence — note carefully that this is administrative practice stated on a web page, not a rule written into the decree, so check with your Prefettura how it is applied in your province.
Those ninety days, if they are applied to you, are useful time: people who are sent back usually lose points in the same places every time. The new request is filed exactly like the first one, from the same portal — the full procedure is in our booking guide.
How to use the waiting time
Whether you are waiting for an outcome or preparing a second attempt, the useful work is the same: practising in the real format, paper by paper.
- The full practice tests reproduce the three papers with the same weights, so you watch the total rather than a single exercise.
- The writing trainer with AI feedback tells you whether your text would cover every piece of information you were asked for — which is the criterion by which written interaction is actually judged.
- If the overall picture is still unclear, start with what the A2 test is and with the frequently asked questions.
The information in this guide is for general information only and is not legal advice. Procedures, portals and timelines can change, and no official deadline exists for publishing the outcome: always check the current guidance on the official pages and with the Prefettura of your province.