What you actually pay when buying in Italy: first-home and second-home taxes

Purchase taxes in Italy are almost never calculated on the price paid. That is the first thing to understand, and the one that changes the final bill most.

Buying from a private seller

Registration tax is 2% with first-home relief, 9% otherwise. Mortgage and cadastral taxes are fixed at €50 each. The proportional registration tax cannot in any case be lower than €1,000.

Buying from a VAT-registered business

You pay 4% VAT on the price with first-home relief, 10% otherwise (different rates apply to luxury properties). Registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes become fixed at €200 each.

The price-value mechanism: where the saving is

When buying a home from a private seller, an individual buyer may ask the notary, in the deed, to calculate taxes on the cadastral value rather than the price. Cadastral value is the cadastral income uplifted by 5% and multiplied by 110 for a first home or 120 otherwise.

Cadastral value is almost always far below market price: this is why, in a private sale, the real tax bill is often a fraction of what buyers fear. But it must be requested — it is the buyer's option, not an automatic setting. Raise it with the notary before the deed, not after.

First-home conditions

In summary, the reduced rate requires that:

• the property is not in the luxury cadastral categories A/1, A/8, A/9;
• the buyer is resident in the municipality where the property sits, or transfers residence there within eighteen months of the deed;
• the buyer does not own another home in the same municipality, nor another property anywhere in Italy bought with the same relief.

If you already own a first home

Since 2025 the window has widened. The 2025 budget law (Law 207/2024, art. 1(116)) extended from one year to two the time allowed to sell the previously relieved property while keeping the benefit on the new purchase. The extension also applies, in limited form, to deeds before 1 January 2025 whose one-year term had not yet expired at the end of 2024.

Miss the deadline and the relief on the new purchase is lost, with tax to repay and penalties. Two years feels generous until you try to sell a flat nobody wants at the price you had in mind.

There is also the repurchase tax credit: someone who sold a relieved first home and buys another under the same conditions may offset the tax paid on the first purchase, within statutory limits.

Under-36 buyers in 2026

The extraordinary exemption that zeroed registration, mortgage and cadastral taxes for under-36 buyers has not been renewed in its original form: buyers today fall under the ordinary first-home regime (2%, or 4% VAT, with €50 fixed taxes).

The Consap first-home guarantee fund remains active, covering up to 80% of the loan principal, for applicants with household ISEE up to €40,000 and a loan up to €250,000, who have not turned 36 in the year of the deed.

In practice

Before signing an offer, ask for three numbers: the property's cadastral income, the estimated tax under the price-value mechanism, and the notary's fee. Three phone calls, and they change your view of what you can afford.

This is an informative guide, not tax advice: rules change and every case differs. The exact calculation is the notary's. For your own case write to info@triesteimmobiliare.com or call +39 040 2473628.