Italy income tax calculator

Three rates, and a marginal rate that is almost never one of them

Italian income tax has three rates: 23% up to €28,000, 33% to €50,000, and 43% above. It is one of the simplest scales in Europe.

The simplicity is a surface. Underneath sits the detrazione per lavoro dipendente — an employment tax credit that shrinks as income rises — and it moves the real marginal rate away from the band almost everywhere.

Between €28,000 and €50,000 the credit falls from €1,910 to nothing across €22,000 of income. That is 8.68% of every extra euro, on top of the 33% band — a real marginal rate of about 41.68%.

On €35,000 of income the scale charges €8,750 and the detrazione takes off €1,367, leaving €7,383 — an effective rate of 21.1% against a band of 33%.

So Italy delivers its progressivity through the credit, not through the rates. Three rates is not the same as three marginal rates.

The middle rate is 33% in 2026, not 35%

Most published summaries of Italian income tax give the middle band as 35%. For 2026 it is 33%.

The reduction is recorded in the consolidated text of article 11 of the TUIR, where the amended figure is marked as such. The version in force runs from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026 and is what this page uses.

Two points of €22,000 of income is up to €440 a year for anyone earning above €50,000, and proportionally less below. It is not a rounding difference.

The reason it is easy to miss is that the change did not come with a new scale — the thresholds are unchanged at €28,000 and €50,000, only the middle rate moved. Anything reproducing the thresholds correctly and the rate incorrectly looks right at a glance.

The check is quick: on taxable income of €40,000 the gross tax is €10,400. Under the 35% version it would have been €10,640.

How the detrazione is built, including the 65-euro cliff

Article 13 of the TUIR sets the employment credit in three pieces, and adds a fourth on top.

Up to €15,000 of income it is €1,955, with a floor of €690 — or €1,380 for a fixed-term contract. Between €15,000 and €28,000 it is €1,910 plus €1,190 scaled by how far below €28,000 you are. Between €28,000 and €50,000 it is €1,910 scaled by how far below €50,000 you are, reaching exactly zero at the top.

Then comma 1.1 adds a flat €65 for anyone with income above €25,000 and not more than €35,000.

That last one is a cliff rather than a taper. At €35,000 the credit is €1,367.27; one euro more and it is €1,302.19. The whole €65 disappears for a single euro of income, which is small in absolute terms and is a genuine discontinuity in a scale that otherwise has none.

The credit is also prorated by days worked in the year, so someone starting a job in July gets half of it. This page assumes a full year.

Two more layers, set by the region and the comune

The figure on this page is national income tax. An Italian payslip carries two more charges on the same income.

The addizionale regionale is set by each of the twenty regions, within a band the state defines. Rates differ, some regions apply their own progressive scale rather than a flat rate, and a few add a surcharge to fund healthcare deficits.

The addizionale comunale is set by each of roughly eight thousand comuni. Many charge nothing; many charge a few tenths of a point; the maximum is capped.

Together they typically add one to two points to the effective rate — small next to the national tax and large enough that ignoring them understates an Italian bill.

They are not modelled here for the same reason Switzerland's cantonal layer and Spain's regional deductions are not: there is no single national answer, and a national average would be right for nobody. What is modelled is the layer that is identical across Italy.

The scale at four incomes

Annual taxable income for an employee, with the article 13 credit applied and nothing else.

On €20,000: €4,600 on the scale less €2,642 of credit — €1,958, an effective rate of 9.8%, with a real marginal rate of 32.15% against a band of 23%.

On €30,000: €7,100 on the scale less €1,801 of credit — €5,299, an effective rate of 17.7%, with a real marginal rate of 41.68% against a band of 33%.

On €45,000: €12,050 on the scale less €434 of credit — €11,616, an effective rate of 25.8%, with a real marginal rate of 41.68% against a band of 33%.

On €80,000: €26,600 on the scale less €0 of credit — €26,600, an effective rate of 33.3%, with a real marginal rate of 43.00% against a band of 43%.

The gap between the last two columns is the whole story of Italian income tax. Only above €50,000, where the credit has run out, do the band and the real marginal rate finally agree.

Article 11 is repealed from 2027

The article that has set Italian income tax rates since 1986 stops applying on 1 January 2027. It is repealed by legislative decree 117 of 19 June 2026, part of the recodification of the Italian tax code.

That does not mean the tax disappears. It means the rules move: a new consolidated text takes over, and the rates it carries are what will apply from 2027 onwards.

It is worth flagging on a page like this because it changes what "the Italian income tax scale" means depending on the year, and because a great deal of published material will keep citing article 11 long after it has gone.

The figures here are the version in force for 2026, with the vigency dates attached — 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026 — which is the only unambiguous way to state an Italian rate at the moment.

When the 2027 rules are in force and readable, this page will be re-read against them and the change recorded, in the same way every other figure on this site is.

How Italy compares with the rest of this site

Against Spain, the structure is the same and the transparency is not. Both stack a regional layer on a national one; Spain publishes all fifteen regional scales in one place, Italy leaves twenty regions and eight thousand comuni to publish their own.

Against the Netherlands, both bury their real marginal rate in a tapering credit, and the Italian one is the gentler of the two: about 41.68% against a Dutch peak above 49.5%.

Against France, the number of rates is similar and the household treatment is not. France divides income by household parts; Italy taxes individuals and adjusts through credits for dependants.

Against Portugal, the contrast is granularity: nine Portuguese bands against three Italian ones, and yet the Italian effective-rate curve is not much smoother once the credit is included.

What Italy has that nothing else here does is a scale with a legislated expiry. Article 11 is dated, and that date is inside the current tax year's horizon.

Four ways an Italian estimate goes wrong

Using 35% for the middle band. It is 33% for 2026, and the thresholds did not move — so the error hides behind a table that otherwise looks right.

Ignoring the detrazione. It is worth up to €1,955 and it is the main source of progressivity in the system. Applying the three rates alone overstates the tax badly at every income below €50,000.

Reading the marginal rate off the band. Between €28,000 and €50,000 it is about 41.68%, not 33%.

Stopping at the national tax. The regional and municipal addizionali are charged on the same income and typically add one to two points.

The trattamento integrativo, and the bonus that replaced it

Alongside the detrazione sits a separate payment for lower earners, historically the trattamento integrativo — an amount added to net pay rather than subtracted from tax, worth up to €1,200 a year.

It has been reshaped more than once, most recently into a bonus aimed at employment income below a threshold, with a taper above it. Because it is paid rather than deducted, it can exceed the tax due — the only genuinely refundable element in the Italian personal system.

Its interaction with the detrazione is where the arithmetic gets awkward: the two overlap in the same income range, and the combined withdrawal produces a real marginal rate at the bottom of the scale that is higher than the 23% band suggests.

Neither is applied here. The figure on this page is the tax computed under articles 11 and 13, which is the part that is stable enough to state as a scale.

Anyone earning below roughly €28,000 should therefore treat this figure as an upper bound on their national income tax, and a poor guide to their net pay.

Family support moved out of the tax system

Italy used to deliver child support through detrazioni per figli a carico — credits against the tax that varied with income and the number of children.

Since 2022 that has largely been replaced by the assegno unico e universale, a direct monthly payment administered by the social security institute rather than by the tax authority. The tax credits for children under 21 were withdrawn as it came in.

The change matters for anyone comparing Italy against systems like Austria's Familienbonus or Germany's Kinderfreibetrag: the Italian equivalent is no longer visible in the tax computation at all, which makes a naive tax-only comparison show Italy as less generous to families than it is.

Credits for a dependent spouse and for other dependants remain in article 12 of the TUIR and are not modelled here.

It is a good illustration of a general problem with cross-country tax comparison: two countries can deliver the same support and only one of them will show up in the tax figures.

The flat-rate regime that sits outside all of this

A self-employed Italian below a turnover ceiling can elect the regime forfettario: a flat substitute tax on a percentage of receipts, in place of income tax, the regional and municipal addizionali and VAT.

The rate is low, and lower still for the first years of a new activity. Taxable income is not computed from actual costs but from a coefficient applied to turnover, which varies by sector.

It is the most consequential election in the Italian personal tax system, and it is why a freelancer and an employee on the same money can face very different bills. It also makes the ordinary scale a poor guide to what a self-employed Italian pays.

Nothing about it is modelled here. This page is the ordinary progressive scale on employment income, which is what the search almost everyone is making refers to.

The parallel with the Philippine 8% option is close: both are flat charges on turnover offered as an alternative to a progressive scale, and both are ceilings-based elections that have to be made rather than calculated afterwards.

How much the two extra layers actually add

The addizionale regionale has a statutory floor and a ceiling within which each region sets its own figure, and several regions apply a progressive scale rather than a single rate.

Regions running healthcare deficits are required to apply the maximum, which is why the highest regional surcharges cluster in the same places year after year rather than moving with local politics.

The addizionale comunale is set by each comune within a cap, and a large minority charge nothing at all. Many set an exemption threshold below which the surcharge does not apply, so it is not uniformly a flat charge either.

Together the two typically add between one and two points to an effective rate, and the spread between the lightest and heaviest combinations is roughly two points on the same income.

That is small next to Spain's regional spread or Switzerland's cantonal one, and large enough that a national-only figure is an underestimate everywhere rather than an average.

The wedge between what an employer pays and what an employee keeps

Italy has one of the widest gaps in Europe between the cost of employing someone and the money that reaches them, and reducing it — the cuneo fiscale — has been an explicit policy objective through several governments.

Employee social contributions of roughly 9.2% come off gross pay before income tax applies. Employer contributions are far larger again and never appear on the employee's side.

Successive measures have cut the employee share for lower earners, first as a contribution reduction and later restructured into the income-tax-side bonus that replaced the trattamento integrativo. The instrument keeps changing; the objective does not.

That churn is the practical reason a page like this states what it computes precisely. The scale in articles 11 and 13 has been stable across the current year; the relief layered on top of it has been redesigned repeatedly.

Anyone comparing an Italian net salary against a German or Spanish one should be comparing employer cost to net pay, not gross to net — and on that measure the Italian gap is wider than the income tax scale alone would suggest.

Reading an Italian figure correctly

Which year. The middle rate is 33% for 2026 and article 11 is repealed from 2027, so an Italian rate without a year is ambiguous in a way it is not in most countries.

Which base. The scale runs on taxable income after social contributions of roughly 9.2%, not on gross salary.

Which layers. National tax is what this page computes. Regional and municipal addizionali are charged on the same income and add one to two points.

Which marginal rate. Below €50,000 the real one is well above the band, because the detrazione is being withdrawn as income rises.

Get those four right and an Italian figure is reliable. Miss any of them and it will be wrong in a direction that is hard to spot, because the three-rate scale looks so simple that it invites being taken at face value.

Questions

How much IRPEF do I pay on €35,000 in Italy?

€7,383 of national income tax — €8,750 on the scale less €1,367 of employment credit, an effective rate of 21.1%. Regional and municipal addizionali are charged on top and typically add one to two points.

What are the Italian tax brackets for 2026?

Three: 23% up to €28,000, 33% from €28,000 to €50,000, and 43% above €50,000. Article 11 of the TUIR, in the version in force from 1 January to 31 December 2026.

Is the middle Italian rate 33% or 35%?

33% for 2026. Most published summaries still give 35%, which was the earlier figure. The thresholds did not change when the rate did, so a table with the right bands and the wrong rate looks correct at a glance — on €40,000 of income the difference is €240.

What is the detrazione per lavoro dipendente?

A credit against the tax for employment income that shrinks as income rises: €1,955 up to €15,000, then a formula down to €1,910 at €28,000, then down to zero at €50,000. A further €65 applies between €25,000 and €35,000.

Why is my real Italian marginal rate above 33%?

Because the detrazione is being withdrawn at the same time. Between €28,000 and €50,000 it falls by 8.68% of every extra euro, so the real marginal rate is about 41.68% rather than the 33% the band suggests.

Are the regional and municipal addizionali included?

No. Each of the twenty regions sets its own regional surcharge and each of roughly eight thousand comuni sets its own municipal one, so there is no single national figure. Together they typically add one to two points to the effective rate, and this page computes the layer that is the same everywhere in Italy.

Is it true that article 11 of the TUIR is being repealed?

Yes, from 1 January 2027, by legislative decree 117 of 19 June 2026 as part of the recodification of the tax code. The tax does not disappear — the rules move to a new consolidated text. The figures on this page are the version in force for 2026, with its vigency dates attached.