International courier from Bangalore to Italy. Free home pickup.
Collected from your Bengaluru address at any hour, packed and documented properly, and flown out of Kempegowda on the DTDC International network without a domestic hop first. 6–8 working days door-to-door on express, from ₹1,400 per kilogram before fuel surcharge and GST — and that band is honest about how Italian clearance actually behaves.
Five steps from your Bengaluru door to an Italian address.
Pickup at your door.
Free at 5 kg+, whatever the hour. The garment and export trade around Peenya, Mysore Road and Bommanahalli works to shipment cut-offs rather than office hours, and the HSR Layout desk is staffed to match. Tape, bubble wrap and the airway bill arrive with the rider.
Paperwork, done twice over.
Printed invoice, item by item, with quantity, unit value and HS code for commercial goods. The recipient's codice fiscale for a private consignee or Partita IVA for a business — on this lane that identifier is not optional, and its absence is the commonest reason an Italy-bound parcel sits still.
BLR gateway.
Into the DTDC International facility and out on an international departure from Kempegowda itself. Parcels booked from cities without a customs gateway must first travel overland to Mumbai or Delhi, which quietly eats a day or two before the flight. From here the clock starts on the ground in Bengaluru.
Agenzia delle Dogane.
Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino, Bologna or Venice depending on routing. Italian customs is fair and thorough, but slower in practice than Frankfurt or Schiphol — verification rounds are common and the same document is occasionally requested twice. That is why we quote 6–8 days rather than 5–7 on an otherwise similar air leg.
Doorstep delivery.
Poste Italiane, SDA or BRT for the last mile. Italian addresses carry a civic number, often with an interno for the flat, and a citofono name at the street door. A working Italian mobile matters here, because rural and small-town deliveries frequently need a callback. POD comes to you on WhatsApp the same day.
Starting rates. Weight decides the rest.
The rate applies to whichever is higher, scale weight or volumetric weight, and the international fuel surcharge current on your booking date is added to it, with GST charged separately. Italian IVA and any duty are calculated on arrival and collected from the consignee, not from you.
Starting per-kg rates
- Express (6–8 days, door)from ₹1,400 / kg
- Economy (9–14 days, door)from ₹1,000 / kg
- Min billable weight0.5 kg
- Pickup from BengaluruFree at 5 kg+
Volumetric formula: (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000.
Worked example
A 2 kg parcel — say a run of fabric swatches and two finished samples from a Peenya garment unit to a buying office in Milan, about 30 × 25 × 15 cm:
- Express, 2 kg × ₹1,400≈ ₹2,800
- + fuel surcharge (~25%)≈ ₹700
- + GST 18%≈ ₹630
- Approx total, express≈ ₹4,130
Treat this as an illustration; both the fuel surcharge and the rate card move. Italian IVA and duty are billed separately to the recipient.
What has to be in hand at pickup.
Italy shares the European customs code with every other member state, so the rules your parcel meets in Milan are the rules it would have met in Rotterdam. The difference is administrative temperament: Dogane checks more, asks again more often, and rewards paperwork that leaves nothing to interpret.
KYC of the sender
Photo identification for the sender named on the airway bill — Aadhaar card, passport or driving licence. It is photographed at pickup and held nowhere beyond DTDC's own booking record.
Invoice plus the recipient's tax code
Line-level descriptions, quantity, unit value, HS code. Then the identifier: codice fiscale for a private recipient, Partita IVA for a company. Italian clearance systems key the import to that number, and a parcel arriving without one is held pending it — from India that round trip regularly costs three to five days. Ask your recipient for it before you book, not after.
Prescription, for medicines
Sealed strips, a copy of the prescription carrying the doctor's registration number, and one line on what it is for. AIFA rules exclude controlled substances, and liquids and injectables do not travel by courier to any destination.
What Italy doesn’t let in.
The first few lines are the common European rulebook written in Italian; the rest is Italy's own emphasis. Dogane seizes and destroys against this list and bills disposal to the consignee, so it is worth reading before you pack rather than after.
Don’t even try
- Counterfeit and lookalike fashion — Italy makes the goods being copied, and Dogane treats brand infringement as an industrial matter. Logos, near-logos, branded packaging and "same as" designs are seized without negotiation.
- Dairy and meat in every form — the European ban on personal consignments of milk and meat products from third countries applies at Malpensa exactly as it does anywhere else. Ghee, milk barfi, khoa sweets and dried meat all fail, sealed or not.
- Plant material, seeds and fresh food — no phytosanitary certificate, no entry. That covers curry leaves, fresh coconut, saplings and seed packets.
- Weapons and replicas — Italian weapons law is strict and reads ornamental swords, kirpans and decorative daggers as weapons.
- Drug paraphernalia and cannabinoids — pipes, grinders, scales, cannabis seeds and CBD preparations are all blocked at parcel level.
- Ivory, coral, tortoiseshell and CITES-listed material — enforced strictly, and coral in particular catches jewellery senders out.
- Aerosols, perfumes and loose lithium cells above 100 Wh — an aviation restriction that applies on every lane we run.
Allowed with care
- Textiles, made-ups and garments — the backbone of this lane. European textile labelling wants the fibre composition stated, so put it on the invoice: "100% mulberry silk", "60/40 cotton-linen". Vague "fabric" descriptions attract a second look.
- Leather goods — bags, belts and finished leather move both directions on the India–Italy trade and clear normally. Declare the hide type; anything from a protected species does not ship at all.
- Filter coffee powder and dry podis — sealed, commercially packed, ingredients listed. Coffee culture being what it is in Italy, this is one of the few food items that raises no eyebrows at all.
- Sealed dry snacks — chakli, mixture, banana chips, factory-packed with an allergen panel. Gluten declarations matter under Italian labelling practice.
- Sandalwood soap and powder — manufactured goods and fine. The oil is a liquid and is not.
- Books, certificates and documents — declare a title and a value and they move without fuss.
Cloth in one direction, leather in the other.
The India–Italy relationship is older than most of this list and it has always run on textiles and leather. Bengaluru is the largest garment-manufacturing centre in the country, which gives this lane a commercial character the other European routes out of the city do not have.
Garment and textile sampling
Swatch cards, lab dips, fit samples, salesman samples and pre-production lots going from the Peenya, Mysore Road and Bommanahalli units to buying offices and design studios in Milan, Prato and Carpi. Per-piece values, fibre composition and an HS code on every line — sampling is where undervalued invoices get caught.
Leather and accessories trade
Finished leather, small goods and hardware trims travelling on established two-way business with Tuscan tanneries and the Marche footwear district. Declare hide type and finish; the Italian trade knows exactly what it is receiving, and so should the invoice.
Professional families in Milan and Rome
A smaller Indian community than Germany's, concentrated in Milan, Rome and the Emilia engineering belt. Coffee powder, dry podis, festival clothing and children's books, plus the practical replacements that are hard to find locally. Give us the citofono name and an Italian mobile.
Students at Politecnico and Bocconi
Milan draws design, engineering and business students from Bengaluru every year, with Sapienza, Bologna and Torino behind it. September and February cartons — bedding, cookware, sealed dry provisions, winter clothing. Residence addresses need the room and the student's Italian number.
Wedding and festival clothing
Silk sarees, lehengas and sherwanis for celebrations in the Indian-Italian community, and blouse pieces going out for stitching and coming back. Express and early — the Italian clearance band leaves less slack than the German one, and a wedding date does not move.
Documents and certificates
Degree certificates, transcripts, apostilled papers and dichiarazione di valore documentation for university admission, plus signed contracts on the trade side. Tracked express, and tell us the deadline so we route it to whichever gateway is moving fastest that week.
The AWB, the tracker, and the delivery proof.
The AWB number reaches you on WhatsApp the moment the shipment is booked into DTDC International — at three in the morning if that is when you handed it over, because the Bengaluru desk does not shut. Track it at dtdc.in. On the Italy lane the customs pause is the longest of the European routes and a two or three day gap in scans is ordinary rather than alarming. If the tracking asks for information, send us the AWB and we take it up from here. POD follows within an hour of delivery.
What Italy-bound senders actually ask.
Why is Italy quoted at 6–8 days when Germany and the Netherlands are 5–7?
Because Italian clearance genuinely takes longer, and we would rather say so than quote a band we miss. The flight is the same length and the customs rules are identical — Italy applies the same European customs code as every other member state. What differs is process. Agenzia delle Dogane runs more verification rounds, requests supporting documents more often, and occasionally asks for a paper it has already been given. A parcel that clears Frankfurt in a day can take two or three at Malpensa or Fiumicino. The good news is that this is delay, not failure: shipments with a clean invoice and a valid codice fiscale very rarely fail clearance outright, they just move at Italy's pace. Plan the extra two days into any date that matters and the lane is entirely reliable.
My parcel is stuck because Italian customs wants a codice fiscale. What now?
Get the number from your recipient and send it to us, and we pass it into the clearance file — that is usually all it takes, but the round trip costs days you did not need to spend. The codice fiscale is the Italian tax identification code every resident holds, and Italian import processing keys the shipment to it; a company consignee uses a Partita IVA instead. Without one the shipment sits in a queue while somebody writes to the recipient asking for it, and if the recipient is travelling or slow to reply the parcel simply waits. It is a sixteen-character string your recipient can read off their health card in ten seconds. Ask for it at the same time as the address — that one question removes the single most common Italy delay before it starts.
I'm shipping fabric samples to a Milan buyer. What does the invoice need to say?
More than "textile samples", which is the description that gets shipments opened. Each line needs what the item is, the fibre composition as a percentage, the quantity or metreage, the unit value and an HS code — European textile labelling law makes fibre content a real regulatory field, not a nicety, and Dogane knows the market price of what it is looking at. Mark true samples as samples with a realistic value rather than a nominal one; a declared value of one euro on a full swatch set reads as avoidance and invites the inspection. The buying office should give you a Partita IVA, which classifies the shipment as B2B and keeps it in the commercial stream instead of being reassessed as a personal import. With those in place, Malpensa handles sampling traffic all day and yours is unremarkable.
Tell us the rough weight and the destination CAP.
Other countries from Bangalore
A rider at your Bengaluru door, day or night.
WhatsApp us the pickup address or call the desk. HSR Layout is staffed 24×7, and we will ask for the codice fiscale before the box is sealed rather than after Dogane does.