Guides / Buying in Italy

Buying in Italy: every tax, from the deed to the first year

Written by Dott. Giacomo Guella — tributarista · Lesa, Lake Maggiore

Almost every cost guide for foreign buyers in Italy stops at the notary's door. That is the wrong place to stop: the purchase taxes are the smaller half of the picture, and the obligations that start the day after the deed are the ones that catch people out. Here is the whole sequence.

1. At the deed: registration tax or VAT

Which one applies depends entirely on who is selling.

Buying from a private seller — registration tax at 9% of the cadastral base, plus fixed mortgage and cadastral duties of €50 each.9% + €100

Buying from a builder or developer, within 5 years of completion — VAT at 10% (22% for luxury categories A/1, A/8, A/9) on the price actually paid, plus three fixed duties of €200 each.10% + €600

Prima casa relief at 2% — available only if you become resident in the municipality within 18 months, or are an Italian citizen registered with AIRE. Rarely relevant to a holiday home.2%

2. The base most buyers do not know about: prezzo-valore

For a private-seller purchase by an individual, registration tax is not calculated on the price. It is calculated on the cadastral value: the rendita catastale, revalued by 5%, multiplied by 120 for a second home. On a lake property this base is very often less than half the market price.

Example: purchase price €400,000, rendita catastale €900.
Cadastral base = 900 × 1.05 × 120 = €113,400.
Registration tax = 9% = €10,206, not the €36,000 that 9% of the price would be.
The relief must be requested in the deed itself — it is not automatic.

This one line is usually worth more than every other piece of tax planning around a purchase, and it is lost forever if it is not asked for at signing.

3. The other costs at closing

Notary fee (the notary is a public officer, chosen and paid by the buyer)~1–2% of price

Estate agency commission, plus 22% VATtypically 3% + VAT

Translator and, if you are not attending in person, the power of attorneya few hundred euro

Technical survey and cadastral compliance check before signingvariable — always worth it

4. The day after: what starts immediately

IMU, pro rata. You owe municipal property tax from the month of purchase — a month counts as yours if you owned the property for more than 15 days of it. The first payment may fall due within weeks of the deed, and nobody will send you a bill.

Utilities and waste tax (TARI). Contracts must be transferred into your name; TARI is declared to the municipality and is due even on an empty second home.

Your Italian filing position. An unrented second home does not usually create an income tax return obligation for a non-resident — but the moment it is let, even for a fortnight on a platform, it does. See the tax calendar for what that year then looks like.

5. What to check before you sign, not after

Cadastral compliance (does the plan match the building?), any renovation-bonus history attached to the property, whether the seller's works were correctly declared, the actual IMU rate of that municipality, and whether the rendita catastale is realistic — an under-declared rendita is a liability that transfers to you. Our pre-purchase tax check (€700) is exactly this list, delivered as one written page with the year-one running cost at the bottom.

Figures are the national rules in force for 2026; municipal rates and individual circumstances vary and are verified case by case.

Know the real cost before you offer

A written pre-purchase check: taxes at the deed, first-year IMU, and what the property costs to hold. €700, delivered in one page.

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