How to check a model agency in Italy

In Italy no public register lists model agencies. That is not an omission on this site: it is the state of the law. Model agencies operate as representation agencies, outside the authorisation regime of legislative decree 276/2003.

What we checked

We searched the Albo informatico delle Agenzie per il Lavoro for nineteen Milan and Rome agency names, and for the generic trade terms. Zero results — while the same register returns 32 entries for “ADECCO” and finds “ELITE GROUP S.R.L.” from “LITE GROUP”. The search works: model agencies are not in it.

In France the licence exists and is published in the Official Journal; in Belgium no agency appears in the regional registers; in the Netherlands the public tool returns no status. Italy resembles Belgium.

Three signals that do not lie

You never pay to work. No book, no registration fee, no imposed photographer. An agency earns a commission on the jobs it finds you, not by selling you services.

A checkable VAT number. Eleven digits, published on the site. Where the agency publishes it, we repeat it here.

A real address. Some agencies publish none, which is not in itself a signal. A fully virtual agency asking for money is.