In the sixteenth century, Venice was a dynamic and cosmopolitan city, attracting tens of thousands of migrants who came to stay for shorter or longer periods. In order to settle in the lagoon, newcomers had to obtain the “right to reside”, a right determined by social and community practice as much as by a legal framework. This article explores how the practice and the right changed over the course of the sixteenth century, in a context of political and economic tensions. It analyses what it meant to be “Venetian”, a “resident” or a “foreigner” as one found one’s place within the community of ordinary people who populated the city. It seeks to ascertain how immigrants were identified, individually and collectively, as they settled in the city and sought to access rights, in the context of the establishment of new standardized forms of identification and written procedures of registration adopted by the Venetian government in the period.