All things you need to know about living in Cefalù
Cefalù, in the province of Palermo, is home to 19 French nationals: 0.14% of its 13,874 residents.
That is the 417th-highest concentration of French nationals among the 5,872 Italian comuni with at least 1,000 residents.
Within Sicilia it ranks 11th.
ISTAT counts 480 residents with a foreign citizenship in Cefalù, 3.46% of the population. The largest groups among the nationalities we follow most closely are French nationals (19), Britons (17), Russians (17).
Cefalù qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime.
On ISTAT's well-being measures, the province of Palermo scores in the top quarter of Italian provinces for overall Fixed Very High Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage and intentional homicide rate.
It scores in the bottom quarter for nonprofit organizations and employment rate (20-64 years old).
These figures describe the province, not the town. A comune can sit some way from its province's average.
Summers average a high of 27.8°C (82°F) and winters a low of 7.6°C (46°F), measured over 2015 to 2024.
Cefalù sees about 13 days a year above 30°C (86°F).
It gets about 671mm of rain a year, spread across roughly 102 days.
These come from ERA5-Land reanalysis at the comune itself, not from the nearest weather station.
OMI puts residential purchase prices in Cefalù at about €2,675 per square meter in the second half of 2025.
Cefalù population over time
By nationality
| Nationality | Citizens | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Romania | 116 | 0.84% |
| Albania | 40 | 0.29% |
| Ukraine | 23 | 0.17% |
| France | 19 | 0.14% |
| United Kingdom | 17 | 0.12% |
| Russia | 17 | 0.12% |
| Germany | 15 | 0.11% |
| Poland | 9 | 0.06% |
| Netherlands | 8 | 0.06% |
| Argentina | 6 | 0.04% |
| Switzerland | 5 | 0.04% |
| Belgium | 4 | 0.03% |
| Czechia | 4 | 0.03% |
| Spain | 4 | 0.03% |
| Greece | 3 | 0.02% |
| Hungary | 3 | 0.02% |
| United States | 3 | 0.02% |
| Austria | 2 | 0.01% |
| Ireland | 2 | 0.01% |
| Japan | 2 | 0.01% |
| Mexico | 2 | 0.01% |
| Sweden | 2 | 0.01% |
| Venezuela | 2 | 0.01% |
| Australia | 1 | 0.01% |
| Brazil | 1 | 0.01% |
| Canada | 1 | 0.01% |
| Lithuania | 1 | 0.01% |
| Luxembourg | 1 | 0.01% |
| Portugal | 1 | 0.01% |
| Slovakia | 1 | 0.01% |
| Bulgaria | 0 | 0.00% |
| Cyprus | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denmark | 0 | 0.00% |
| Estonia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Finland | 0 | 0.00% |
| Croatia | 0 | 0.00% |
| South Korea | 0 | 0.00% |
| Latvia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Malta | 0 | 0.00% |
| Norway | 0 | 0.00% |
| Slovenia | 0 | 0.00% |
Country of birth
| Group | Residents | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Born in Italy | 12,873 | 92.79% |
| Born elsewhere in the EU | 439 | 3.16% |
| Born outside the EU | 562 | 4.05% |
French nationals over time
Quality of life in Palermo
Full BES profile for Palermo →Palermo on cost vs quality of life (province-level) →
Tax regimes
Cefalù qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime. Comfortably below the 30,000-resident ceiling.
Qualifying is about the town. Whether it applies to you depends on criteria no map can check — where you were tax-resident before, and where your income comes from.
How the 7% pensioner regime works, and every qualifying comune →Property prices
Buying in Cefalù is far above the Palermo average of €1,110/m². Averaged across 3 OMI micro-zones, which can differ substantially within the same town.
37 years of rent here equal the purchase price — well above the national median of 22.2 years.
A ratio between two OMI prices, not a return on investment. It leaves out purchase taxes, IMU, maintenance, financing and the months a place sits empty — all of which push the real figure up. Useful for the question it does answer: whether this town looks expensive to buy relative to what renting in it costs.
A detached house here averages €1,906/m², against €2,675 for an apartment.
Compared street for street — houses and flats priced in the same neighborhood — the two cost about the same per square meter.
OMI prices “Ville e Villini” separately from the apartments every other figure on this page describes. Nationally a house costs about 14% more per square meter, but in 450 comuni it costs less — worth checking rather than assuming.
Seismic zone
Cefalù is in seismic zone 2. Of the four zones, zone 1 is the highest hazard and zone 4 the lowest. The Department of Civil Protection describes zone 2 as a zone where strong earthquakes are possible.
This is the legal classification the Region gave the comune, used for planning and for control of building works. It is not a forecast, and it says nothing about the building you are looking at: since the 2018 building code the design load of a new building comes from site-specific hazard, not from the zone. Have any specific property checked by a qualified engineer.
Not to be confused with the “seismic” routes of the 7% pensioner regime. Those turn on whether the comune was in the 2009 L’Aquila or 2016–17 central-Italy earthquake areas, not on its zone, and being in zone 1 does not make anyone eligible for that regime, or for any tax treatment.
See every comune on the map →Hospital, airport and daily-needs distance
Nearest hospital: P.O. S. Cimino Termini Imerese, about 36 km / 27 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Nearest emergency department: Fond. Ist. S. Raffaele - Giglio, Cefalù (DEA level I), about 2.3 km / 3 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Nearest airport: Falcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO), about 100.7 km / 70 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Nearest supermarket (OpenStreetMap): Food Sicily, about 1 km / 2 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Nearest pharmacy: Farmacia Santa Barbara, about 1 km / 2 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Nearest railway station (OpenStreetMap): Cefalù, about 1.8 km / 3 minutes by road from Cefalù (the main town).
Measured by road from the main town of the comune (its OpenStreetMap place point; the geographic center for the few comuni with none), at free-flow speeds with no traffic. It is approximate. For Cefalù, a trip from your own address can take longer or shorter. Drive the route before you rely on it, and ask the local health authority which hospital serves the town. Shops, pharmacies and stations are the nearest to the main town, not to your address.
Nearby comuni
← See Cefalù on the interactive map
This page, as data
Every figure above sits behind the page as a value with its source, its date and its coverage attached. Your assistant reads the same record, gaps included.