What buying a home in Italy really costs

The price in the listing is not what you pay. On top of it come taxes, the notary, almost always an agency, and then the taxes that arrive every year. Buyers from abroad usually know their own country's system well and expect Italy's to resemble it. Partly it does, partly it doesn't, and the differences are in the detail.

All the rules below were checked against official sources (Italian Revenue Agency, the notaries' national council guides, statute) in July 2026. The figures for notary and agency, on the other hand, are market orders of magnitude, because those fees are not regulated. This is not tax or legal advice: the final word belongs to the notary and your accountant.

The question that decides almost everything: who is selling?

The first fork is not "first or second home" but who you are buying from.

From a private individual — or from a company when the sale is VAT-exempt, which is the normal case more than five years after building work finished — you pay registration tax:

• 2% with first-home relief;
• 9% without;
• in both cases with a minimum of €1,000;
• plus mortgage and cadastral taxes fixed at €50 each.

From a company charging VAT — typically a developer selling within five years of completion, or later if it opts to charge VAT — you pay VAT on the price:

• 4% first home;
• 10% other homes;
• 22% for luxury cadastral categories (A/1, A/8, A/9);
• plus registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes fixed at €200 each.

Cadastral value: a tax base that isn't the price

This is the surprise buyers most often welcome. On sales subject to registration tax, a buyer who is a private individual can ask the notary to calculate the tax not on the price but on the cadastral value. In Italian this is called prezzo-valore.

Cadastral value comes from the property's rendita catastale, a notional income recorded in the land registry:

• rendita × 1.05 × 110 for a first home;
• rendita × 1.05 × 120 for other homes.

An example from the Revenue Agency's own guide: with a rendita of €900, the base is €113,400 and tax at 9% is €10,206; as a first home the base is €103,950 and tax at 2% is €2,079. In most cases cadastral value sits well below market value.

Three points that many explainers get wrong:

1. It is the buyer who must be a private individual, not the seller: the rule applies even when buying from a company, as long as the sale is under registration tax rather than VAT.
2. It applies to non-residents too: the law sets no residence or nationality condition.
3. It must be requested in the deed itself. The real price must still be stated: concealing it forfeits the benefit and triggers penalties.

On a VAT sale, by contrast, cadastral value never applies: the base is the price.

First-home relief if you live abroad?

Yes, it is possible. You do not need Italian citizenship or prior residence. The usual route is to commit in the deed to move your residence to the municipality within 18 months. The other conditions remain: the home must not be in a luxury category, and you must not hold other rights over homes in the same municipality.

One rule has changed. The old fast lane for Italian citizens registered abroad (AIRE) no longer exists since June 2023. Today, anyone who moved abroad for work, lived or worked in Italy for at least five years, and buys in their municipality of birth or of previous residence or work, gets the 2% rate without having to move their residence.

Notary and agency

The notary. Fees are deregulated and agreed. As an order of magnitude, the fee alone is around 0.4–0.7% of value, falling as a percentage as the price rises, plus VAT. Taxes, registrations and searches are added to the bill. Ask for a written quote. Buyers who use the cadastral-value rule are entitled by law to a 30% reduction in the notary's fee.

The agency. In Italy the agent is an impartial intermediary and commission is owed by both parties, buyer included. Residential practice is 2–4% plus VAT per side, with no legal cap. Two things to know: commission is earned when the deal is concluded — normally at the accepted offer or the preliminary contract, not at completion — and the amount and terms should be agreed in writing beforehand.

Before completion: the preliminary contract

The preliminary contract must be registered within 30 days: €200 fixed tax, stamp duty, and 0.5% on the deposit and any advance payments. That last sum is not lost: it is credited against the tax due at completion. Many sources still quote 3% on advances; since 2025 that is no longer the case.

The deposit has no legal minimum or maximum; in practice it runs from 5 to 20% of the price, most often around 10%.

Afterwards: the annual taxes

Friuli Venezia Giulia has no IMU: since 2023 it has been replaced by a regional tax, ILIA. A main residence is exempt (except luxury categories). But for a buyer who stays resident abroad the home is never a main residence: it is taxed as a second home. In Trieste in 2026 the ordinary rate is 1.06%, falling to 0.70% for your "first second home" in the region — only if you file a notification by 30 June of the following year. It is not automatic, and it is the point most often missed.

Why we built a calculator that doesn't guess

We built a tool that estimates these items for buyers. Two design choices, which double as advice for anyone reading:

• the calculation is deterministic. Even where we use an AI assistant to answer questions, the taxes are computed by a function with written rules and cited sources, never by the language model from memory;
• where the data isn't there, it shows a range and says why. Without the real rendita you cannot know the exact tax: the tool assumes a cadastral value between 40 and 60% of the price, says so, and asks for the rendita to narrow the result.

A precise but invented number does more harm than an honest range.

Sources: Italian Revenue Agency, first-home relief guidance (updated May 2026) and guide "L'acquisto della casa" (June 2024); Revenue Agency Circular 3/E/2024; Resolution 149/E/2008; Law 266/2005, art. 1 para. 497; Legislative Decree 139/2024; FVG Regional Law 17/2022; Municipality of Trieste, ILIA rates 2026. Facts checked July 2026. Not tax or legal advice.