On 7 April 2026, Italy made the most significant change to its 7% flat tax regime for foreign pensioners since the scheme launched in 2019. A 2026 legislative amendment raised the population ceiling for eligible municipalities from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. Seventy-four new towns across Southern Italy — and some designated earthquake-reconstruction zones in the centre — now fall within the perimeter for the first time.
As someone who works daily with retirees considering a move to Southern Europe, I think this is a genuinely positive development. I also think it is worth being clear about what it does and does not change.
What the regime offers
The 7% flat tax allows foreign pensioners who transfer their tax residency to a qualifying municipality to pay a single rate on all foreign-sourced income — pensions, overseas rental income, investment returns — for up to ten years, replacing Italy’s standard progressive rates, which reach 43%. Eligibility requires that the applicant holds a foreign pension, has not been an Italian tax resident in the previous five years, and takes residency in one of eight southern regions or designated earthquake-zone comuni.
The expansion does not change any of these conditions. It simply widens the pool of eligible towns within the existing framework.
Which towns now qualify
The 74 new entries include some names that will catch attention among international retirees. In Puglia, Ostuni — the so-called “white city,” a hilltop town of whitewashed buildings above ancient olive groves — enters the list at just under 30,000 inhabitants, having sat fractionally above the old cap. It has an established international property market, year-round infrastructure, and good access to Brindisi airport. It is probably the most significant single addition.
In Sicily, Noto — a Unesco World Heritage site of Sicilian Baroque — is now eligible for the first time, alongside Milazzo, the gateway to the Aeolian Islands. From Campania, Pompei qualifies; in Puglia, Manduria, the heartland of Primitivo wine production; in Abruzzo, Sulmona, a medieval market town widely regarded as one of the most liveable small cities in the region.
Campania gains 23 towns in total, Sicily and Puglia each gain 18, Sardinia adds 7, Abruzzo 5. The 2026 change also applies to municipalities in the central Italy earthquake zones impacted by earthquakes in 2009 and 2016.
The government’s logic — and why it matters
The stated rationale for raising the ceiling is to route foreign retirees toward medium-sized towns with better infrastructure, services, and transport connections, rather than purely remote villages. That is a meaningful acknowledgement from the authorities, and it reflects a real tension the scheme has always had.
The comparison that comes to mind is the €100,000 flat tax for high-net-worth individuals — now raised to €300,000 — which generated enormous international interest and genuine relocation flows. The difference is that most of those beneficiaries chose Milan, Rome, or the Italian north. The 7% regime was specifically designed to redirect people toward the Mezzogiorno. That objective has proved harder to achieve.
What we observe in practice
In our work with clients, the 7% regime is well known and investigated seriously. We see it as a genuinely positive development — the expansion toward more functional, better-connected towns is the right response to the real friction points that have made some clients hesitate. Ostuni and Noto are places people already want to live; adding a compelling tax incentive on top of that is how these schemes work best.
Where clients do pause, two things come up most consistently.
The first is mobility: the south of Italy works well for those who drive, and less easily for those who don’t. Public transport connections — between towns and to international airports — are thinner than in Northern Europe, though the move to larger towns meaningfully improves this.
The second is language: everyday life in most eligible towns runs in Italian, and English isn’t widely available in local services or public administration. That said, Italians in the south are exceptionally warm and community-oriented, and many clients integrate well over time. It is a question of fit rather than a barrier — but it’s worth being honest with clients about what they’re choosing.
Healthcare is worth researching at the level of the specific town rather than generalising across the south. Quality varies, and the larger towns now entering the eligible list are generally better served than the smallest comuni that previously defined the scheme.
The expansion to 30,000 inhabitants is a real improvement on all three counts. A comune of 25,000 is statistically more likely to have a train station, a multi-specialism clinic, and staff with working English than a village of 4,000.
What actually changes for advisors and clients
The expansion is most useful for two groups: clients who were already committed to a specific southern destination and found their preferred town sat just above the old threshold, and those who needed a more functional daily-life environment than the original list offered. The new additions, particularly in Puglia and Sicily, are materially more navigable on both counts.
One structuring point that deserves attention in client conversations: opting into the flat tax means waiving the foreign tax credit on income covered by the substitute rate. If a client’s source country withholds tax on pension or some types of income (such as real estate), that amount cannot be offset against the Italian liability — potentially resulting in taxation in both jurisdictions on the same income. The regime does allow specific countries’ income to be excluded from the flat tax election and kept on the ordinary Italian regime instead, which can significantly change the economics depending on the client’s income profile. This is one of the more consequential decisions in the structuring and requires specialist Italian tax advice.
Tax incentives work best as the final push for people already inclined to move somewhere on its own merits. Ostuni and Noto are places people genuinely want to live. The 7% regime now applying to them is good news — and this expansion, by bringing more of those places into scope, is a meaningful step in the right direction.
