A friend sent me a version of the question I keep hearing about Italy: “Is it really true that I could retire there and pay 7% tax?”
The short answer is yes. Italy has a special 7% substitute-tax regime for some people receiving foreign pension income who move their tax residence to qualifying places. But there are two things to understand before you start looking at towns: the regime does not apply everywhere in southern Italy, and it does not mean you will pay 7% tax on everything.
It is a rule with personal conditions, geographic conditions and limits. And in 2026, one of those geographic conditions changed.
That is why we rebuilt our 7% pensioner tax page from the ground up, using the rule itself and applying it to every Italian comune in our database.
What does the 7% pensioner tax regime in Italy actually mean?
Italy’s Article 24-ter regime allows qualifying individuals who receive pension income from a foreign source and transfer their tax residence to an eligible Italian comune to opt for a 7% substitute tax on qualifying foreign-source income.
The option can run for the year of transfer plus the following nine tax periods — ten tax years in total.
That does not mean every retiree moving to Italy can use it. Personal eligibility matters. Among other things, the regime depends on where you were tax resident before moving, the source of your pension income, and whether the relevant country has the required administrative-cooperation relationship with Italy.
Our detailed guide explains how the regime works and the eligibility criteria we can verify from the legislation: How the 7% pensioner regime works.
Just as importantly, the map can only tell you whether a place qualifies. It cannot tell you whether you do.
A 2026 rule change means more Italian towns can now qualify
Until 2025, the population ceiling used for the main southern-regions route was 20,000 residents. In 2026, that ceiling was raised to 30,000.
You can see the practical difference in the Agenzia delle Entrate’s own materials. Its 2025 guidance describes eligible comuni in the eight southern regions with populations no higher than 20,000. Its 2026 payment guidance uses 30,000.
For someone reading an old blog post, forum answer or AI summary, that difference is not small. It changes which towns are in the conversation.
Our current eligibility layer applies the 2026 rule to the resident-population data behind the site. The result is 2,535 qualifying comuni and counting.
Of those, 2,424 qualify through the eight-region southern route. The rest enter through the two earthquake-zone routes encoded in the law.
The eight southern regions are Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia, Sardegna and Sicilia. The earthquake routes also bring in eligible comuni in parts of Lazio, Marche and Umbria.
That is why “move to southern Italy” is a useful shorthand, but not a reliable way to make a housing decision.
A tax regime is not a place
This is where the numbers become more interesting.
A tax rule can tell you that a town is eligible. It tells you nothing about whether you will like living there.
Take the cheapest places on our current list. Using OMI 2025H2 property data, our 20 cheapest qualifying towns start with Salaparuta in Sicily at €225 per square metre, followed by Poggioreale at €230 and Raddusa at €308.
Those prices are striking. They are also not an argument to move there.
Low price can reflect many things: a small local market, weak demand, distance from services, ageing housing stock or simply a place that does not fit your life. It can also be exactly what somebody wants: quiet, space, low fixed costs and a small community.
The point is not to turn “cheapest” into “best.” It is to use price as one filter, then keep going.
That is why each town on Expat Living Italy now sits inside a much bigger data picture. You can move from the national map to a comune page and see population, foreign residents, local housing data where available, and province-level well-being indicators.
For example, Opi in Abruzzo qualifies for the 7% regime. Its province, L’Aquila, scores strongly on quality of services, social relationships, education and environment in the latest ISTAT BES data available on our site.
Provvidenti in Molise also qualifies. Its province, Campobasso, scores relatively well on quality of services and environment, but much lower on health and economic well-being.
Baradili in Sardinia qualifies too. Oristano province is relatively strong on social relationships and environment, while its health percentile is much lower.
None of those province-level figures is a verdict on the town. They are a reminder that tax eligibility is only the first layer.
The place where you save tax may not be the place where you want to grow old
This is the emotional part of retirement planning that tax articles tend to miss.
You are not choosing a tax regime. You are choosing where you will wake up on a Tuesday in February.
You are choosing how far you are from a hospital, whether you can get groceries without driving forty minutes, whether there is a café open in winter, whether your children can reach you without two flight connections, and whether there are people around when the tourists have gone home.
A 7% tax rate can materially change a retirement budget. But the value of that saving depends on what you have to give up — or what you gain — to access it.
That is why we now treat the 7% regime as a map layer rather than a list of “best retirement towns.” You can see the qualifying comuni on the map, then switch to other layers and ask a second question: what is life like around them?
How can you use this data to plan your retirement in Italy?
If you are considering retiring in Italy, I would not start with, “Where can I pay 7%?”
A better approach is to use the tax regime as one of four filters.
First, check whether the regime could plausibly apply to you. That is a conversation for a qualified Italian tax adviser, because the map cannot see your personal tax history or income sources.
Second, decide what kind of Italy you actually want. Coast or mountains? Small town or provincial city? Airport access or isolation? A strong expat community or mostly Italian-speaking life?
Third, use the full Italy data map to narrow the places that match those preferences. Property cost, demographics and BES well-being indicators can quickly remove towns that look attractive on tax alone but do not fit your practical needs.
Fourth, visit in the wrong season. A town you love in June is not necessarily the town you want in January.
One final caution
The 7% regime is a tax rule, not a promise of a 7% total tax bill.
Its treatment depends on the type and source of your income, your personal circumstances and the interaction with other taxes and obligations. If you are seriously considering it, verify your position with a commercialista who works with international retirees before you move.
Our job is narrower: make the geography visible, make the underlying rule transparent, and give you enough data to ask better questions.
You can start with the 7% pensioner tax explainer, browse all 2,535 qualifying comuni, or look at the cheapest qualifying towns as a first shortlist.
The useful question is no longer, “Does Italy really have a 7% pensioner tax?”
It is: “If I qualify, which of the places on that map could actually feel like home?”