Regime impatriati — the 50% tax break for workers moving to Italy

Workers who move their tax residence to Italy can have 50% of their Italian employment or self-employment income excluded from IRPEF for five tax periods — 60% where there is a minor child, including one born or adopted after the move — up to EUR 600,000 of eligible income a year. Unlike the 7% pensioner regime, it turns on who you are and where you came from, not on which comune you move to: it applies anywhere in Italy.

50%

of income exempt from IRPEF

60%

with a minor child

€600k

eligible income cap, per year

tax periods

This one isn’t about where you move. Unlike the 7% pensioner regime, which only applies in 2,535 specific comuni, the regime impatriati applies anywhere in Italy — Milan and a village in Molise alike. What it tests is you: where you were tax-resident before, what you do, and how long you commit to staying. It also covers different money: Italian work income here, foreign pension income there. Someone retiring on a foreign pension wants the other page.

Who qualifies

Transfers tax residence to Italy (from the 2024 tax period onwards; earlier transfers fall under the predecessor regime).
Was not tax-resident in Italy for the three tax periods preceding the transfer. That extends to six tax periods when returning to work for the same employer (or another company in the same corporate group) worked for abroad but never worked for in Italy before going abroad — and to seven tax periods when they HAD worked for that same employer or group in Italy before their time abroad.
Commits to remaining tax-resident in Italy for at least four years; breaking that commitment forfeits the whole benefit already claimed, plus interest.
Holds 'elevata qualificazione o specializzazione' under D.Lgs. 108/2012 (the EU Blue Card decree) or D.Lgs. 206/2007 (professional-qualification recognition) — a university degree is not strictly required if a professional qualification is otherwise evidenced by relevant experience — or has carried out applied research in artificial-intelligence technologies.
Performs the work mainly in Italian territory — in Italy for the majority of the tax period.
The relief applies to Italian employment or self-employment income only, up to €600,000 a year (income above that is taxed in full, but does not disqualify the option) — not to pensions, and not to foreign-source income.

What this page does not cover

This file encodes ONLY the regime as it applies to tax residence transferred from 1 January 2024. Anyone who moved before that is governed by the predecessor regime (art. 16 D.Lgs. 147/2015), whose rates were 70% — or 90% for a transfer to one of the eight southern regions — over a different duration. Those figures are still all over the internet and are the ones a reader is most likely to arrive believing. Their regime is not described here.
The regime for returning researchers and lecturers (docenti e ricercatori) is a separate provision with its own, more generous terms. It is frequently discussed under the same 'rientro dei cervelli' heading and is not encoded here.
This describes the income-tax relief only. It says nothing about whether a reader has the right to live and work in Italy, which is a separate question with separate rules.
The 'majority of the tax period' territoriality test (art. 5, comma 1, lett. c)) is unambiguous as a rule, but how it is measured for someone working partly remotely for a foreign employer — day-counting, occasional travel, and so on — is not settled by anything read for this file.
The headline duration figure on this page (5 tax periods) is the general case. A narrow transitional rule (comma 10) extends it to 8 for someone who transferred residence in 2024 AND had already bought their primary home in Italy by 31 December 2023 — but only at the base 50%-inclusion rate for the extra 3 periods; the text does not carry the 40%-taxable minor-child rate into them. Not given its own stat here because it only ever applies to 2024 transfers, a closed and shrinking population.

The legislation

D.Lgs. 27 dicembre 2023, n. 209, art. 5 — VERIFIED — read in full, all 10 commi, from Normattiva's consolidated text. The current regime, applying to tax residence transferred to Italy from 1 January 2024. Replaced art. 16 D.Lgs. 147/2015 outright (comma 9) rather than amending it.
D.Lgs. 14 settembre 2015, n. 147, art. 16 — The PREDECESSOR regime. Still governs anyone who transferred residence before 2024 — different rates (70%, or 90% in the eight southern regions) and a different duration. Not encoded here.
Legge 23 settembre 2025, n. 132, art. 22, comma 1 — VERIFIED — the ONLY change this law made to art. 5: comma 1, lett. d) gained an alternative qualifying path, applied AI-technologies research, alongside the existing D.Lgs. 108/2012 / D.Lgs. 206/2007 test. It did not touch the prior-residence test or anything else in the article — the 'stricter prior-residence test for employer-of-record arrangements' this file's draft note attributed to it does not appear in the text; that 6/7-period rule was already in the original December 2023 wording (comma 1, lett. b)).
Risposta ad interpello Agenzia delle Entrate n. 53/E del 28 febbraio 2025 — The 'test di continuità' behind the comma 1 lett. b) six/seven-period rule: confirms it turns on whether the worker was previously employed in Italy — not abroad — by the same employer or group.
Risposta ad interpello Agenzia delle Entrate n. 70/E del 12 marzo 2025 — Confirms the regime is open to someone transferring tax residence to Italy for the very first time — eligibility is about the ABSENCE of Italian residence in the look-back window, not about having had some prior period of it.
Risposta ad interpello Agenzia delle Entrate n. 71/E del 12 marzo 2025 — On the elevata qualificazione o specializzazione test: a university degree is not indispensable if a professional qualification under art. 27-quater D.Lgs. 286/1998 (the same route the EU Blue Card uses) is otherwise evidenced.
Risposta ad interpello Agenzia delle Entrate n. 74/E del 12 marzo 2025 — Same qualification question without a degree: at least three years' relevant professional experience in the seven years before applying can substitute, mirroring the EU Blue Card's own test.