Declaration of value and CIMEA statements
How Italy checks a Tunisian diploma: comparability, authenticity, translations and apostilles.
What Italy needs to check
A foreign diploma raises two questions: what level does it correspond to (comparability), and was it really issued by the stated authority (authenticity)? The university alone decides on admission, but for the visa the diploma must come with one of the two documents below.
CIMEA statements
CIMEA is the Italian information centre on the recognition of qualifications, a member of the European ENIC-NARIC networks. It issues a statement of comparability, which places your diploma within the European levels, and a statement of verification, which confirms its authenticity. Both are requested online, on the CIMEA-Diplome platform.
For the visa, the ministerial circular asks for exactly these two statements, comparability and verification, or failing that the declaration of value.
The declaration of value
The « dichiarazione di valore » is issued by the Italian diplomatic mission in the country where the diploma was obtained. It is still accepted for comparability; if it does not state that authenticity was verified, authenticity must be proven by other means.
Translations and apostilles
The Italian Embassy in Tunis requires documents in French, translated into Italian and apostilled, and a secondary-school diploma translated and legalised. Allow for these lead times before the visa appointment: they are often what delays a file.
What we do
We prepare the sworn translations, the legalisations and the CIMEA request, and check that every document matches what the university and the embassy ask for.