Registering a lease in Italy: deadlines, tax and what happens if you get it wrong

The deadline: thirty days

Article 17 of Presidential Decree 131/1986 says the tax due for registering leases of property in Italy is calculated by the contracting parties and paid within thirty days by payment. From which date the thirty days run (the date of the contract, or the start of the lease if earlier) is set by another article of the same decree, art. 13, which this guide does not reproduce: check it before working out your deadline.

How it is paid: all at once or year by year

For leases of urban property lasting several years, the tax can be paid on the rent agreed for the whole term, or each year on that year's rent. If you paid for the whole term and the contract ends early, you are entitled to a refund of the tax for the years after the current one. The tax for years after the first, including those following extensions, must be paid within thirty days (art. 17, paragraph 3).

What it costs

The ordinary rate for residential leases is 2% of the annual rent, with a minimum of 67 euro for the first year (the rates are in the Tariff attached to Presidential Decree 131/1986, which we do not reproduce here: check it for the year that matters to you). Resolution 134/E of 2006 specifies that the first year's tax is the main tax and can never be less than 67 euro, while the tax for later years, which is complementary, can be lower.

Article 17 says the tax is calculated by the contracting parties; how it is split between landlord and tenant is governed by another rule (art. 8 of Law 392/1978), which we do not reproduce here.

Extensions, assignments, terminations

Within thirty days, the notice of assignments, terminations and extensions, even tacit ones, must be filed with the office where the contract was registered. Anyone who fails to pay, in whole or in part, the tax on assignments, terminations and extensions, even tacit ones, is penalised under art. 13 of Legislative Decree 471/1997 (art. 17, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis).

With the cedolare secca

If the landlord chooses the cedolare secca, it replaces registration tax and stamp duty on the lease, and also those on termination and on extensions (Legislative Decree 23/2011, art. 3, paragraph 2). The cedolare secca can also be applied to contracts that do not have to be registered.

The notice of transfer of a building

Registering leases that must be registered within a fixed term absorbs the notice of transfer of a building required by art. 12 of Decree-Law 59/1978. If enjoyment is granted by a contract, even an oral one, that is not subject to registration within a fixed term, the notice is given to the competent Questore. This simplification does not cover the notice to the public security authority required by art. 7 of Legislative Decree 286/1998 for anyone who lodges, hosts or grants enjoyment of property to a foreign national or stateless person, to be made in writing within forty-eight hours to the local public security authority, for which what that article says continues to apply (Decree-Law 79/2012, art. 2; Legislative Decree 286/1998, art. 7).

What happens if a lease is not registered

Where registration of the lease is not requested, article 69 of Presidential Decree 131/1986 applies, that is the penalties for failure to register, which we do not reproduce here (Legislative Decree 23/2011, art. 3, paragraph 3). The special regime in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the same article 3 for unregistered contracts (a four-year term, rent equal to three times the cadastral income) was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in judgment no. 50 of 2014.

What this guide does not cover

This guide reads article 17 of Presidential Decree 131/1986, a resolution of the Agenzia delle Entrate, article 2 of Decree-Law 79/2012 and article 3 of Legislative Decree 23/2011. It does not cover stamp duty, penalties for late payment and voluntary correction, or contracts shorter than thirty days: for those, check the text in force or consult a professional.