Opening a VAT number: form AA9/12, the thirty days and the filing channels

Davide, a translator in Bologna, received his first fee of 1,200 € from an agency and only then wondered whether he needed an Italian VAT number, the partita IVA. The question should have come earlier, and in another form: when did the activity start? From that day, thirty days run to file form AA9/12, and the clock does not wait for the first invoice.

Who opens a VAT number with the AA9/12

The partita IVA is the number by which the Agenzia delle Entrate, the Italian revenue agency, identifies anyone running a business, an art or a profession. An individual obtains it with a declaration that the activity has started, and the same tool is then used to report every change and the end of the activity. This course follows individuals.

The tool depends on the activity. For a professional activity, or any other activity that does not require registration in the Business Register or the REA, the individual fills in form AA9/12 and files it with the Agenzia delle Entrate. That is the route of the consultant, the translator, the psychologist, the architect.

Someone starting a business or craft activity takes another road: the Comunicazione Unica d'impresa, a single business notice run by Infocamere that bundles into one submission the steps needed to open the VAT number and the registration in the Business Register or the REA. In that case the opening does not go through an AA9/12 filed with the Agenzia.

Entities other than individuals, such as companies, use form AA7/10. When they must register with the Business Register or the REA, they complete it inside the single business notice. The rest of this module concerns only the individual who opens as a professional, or as a self-employed worker who is not on the Register.

The line is not always obvious. A photographer working on commission as a professional and one opening a shop with a studio may practise the same trade and still follow different routes: what decides is whether the activity requires registration in the Business Register. When in doubt, settle that question before choosing the form, not afterwards.

The thirty-day deadline

The Agenzia's guidance is clear-cut: form AA9/12 must be filed within 30 days of the date on which the activity starts. The count begins on the start day. Someone starting on 2 March has until 1 April; someone starting on 16 September, until 16 October. The same deadline applies to changes and to closure.

The channel you choose affects the date that counts. By certified email and by registered post, the declaration is deemed filed on the day it is shown as sent, not the day the office receives or logs it. Sending on the last valid day is therefore on time, provided you keep proof of dispatch.

The guidance does not state what happens if the form is filed after the deadline, and this course does not put a figure on it. The practical rule stays simple: write down the start date of the activity and file the form a few days ahead of the thirtieth, rather than counting on the last evening available.

The deadline runs even for someone who has not been paid yet. A professional who begins an assignment at the start of the month, with the invoice planned for when the job is done, counts the thirty days from the start of the assignment, not from the invoice: waiting for the first payment before opening risks missing the deadline.

Four channels for filing the form

Form AA9/12 can be prepared with the completion software provided by the Agenzia delle Entrate, and then filed in four ways. The choice depends on the tools you have: a certified email box, known in Italy as PEC, and a digital signature, the login for the Agenzia's reserved area, or simply an identity document and paper.

• By PEC to any Provincial Directorate, with the subject line «Dichiarazione di inizio attività»
• In person, or through someone holding a proxy, at any office of the Agenzia, after booking an appointment
• By registered post to any office of the Agenzia, enclosing a copy of a valid identity document
• Online, through the dedicated web service of the reserved area, after preparing the form with the Agenzia's software

By PEC the form may be signed digitally. If it is signed by hand, a copy of the signatory's identity document must be attached. The Agenzia publishes the list of PEC addresses of its Provincial Directorates, and there is no need to pick the one for your own province: the request can go to any Directorate.

The PEC channel has a concrete advantage: the VAT number that is assigned is sent back to the same PEC address the request came from. You thus keep a written trail of both the submission and the reply, which helps whenever you later have to prove a date to a client, a bank or the administration.

The online channel runs through the reserved area: the form is prepared with the Agenzia's software, on your own or through an authorised intermediary, and sent with the dedicated web service. It is the natural route for anyone who already holds the login to the online services and would rather not print anything at all.

In person you can go to any office of the Agenzia, including through someone holding a proxy, but an appointment must be booked. Registered post, finally, can be sent to any office with a copy of an identity document that is still valid; as with PEC, the date of dispatch is the one that counts.

A special case concerns someone who lives outside the European Union and the European Economic Area and appoints a tax representative. For them the AA9/12 is filed only with the Provincial Directorate office responsible for the representative's tax domicile, together with the statement of requirements and the guarantee referred to in the guidance.

So which channel should you pick? Whoever already has PEC and a digital signature has the most traceable route; whoever has the reserved-area login has the quickest route from home; post and the counter remain for those without digital tools. None of the four is reserved to a category: the guidance presents them as equivalent alternatives.

What you declare at opening

The form describes the activity being started. The Agenzia's guidance points to the Ateco 2025 classification, the system of codes that identifies the type of activity. Choosing the code carefully matters: the flat-rate scheme, for instance, links its profitability coefficient to the group of Ateco codes the activity belongs to.

The form also records the intention to apply the flat-rate scheme. For someone starting an activity who expects to meet its conditions, the Agenzia's guidance on the scheme makes this a duty to notify, with a purely registry value. The second module comes back to this point, together with the choice of regime.

Another box concerns intra-EU transactions. To carry them out you must be included in the VIES database. The wish to be included is expressed in the «Operazioni intracomunitarie» field of section I of the AA9/12, or later on, online, either directly or through an authorised intermediary.

Inclusion in VIES is not permanent. The taxpayer can revoke the option at any time, that is ask to be removed because they no longer intend to carry out intra-EU transactions. Unlike the original option, the revocation can only be made through the Agenzia's online services.

Anyone expecting to work with clients or suppliers in other Union countries should ask the question before sending the form. Declaring it straight away avoids discovering, once a contract is already signed, that your VAT number does not appear in the database the foreign partner checks before paying.

Changing the details or closing the VAT number

The VAT number follows the activity for its whole life. If one of the items stated in the start declaration changes, or if the activity ends, the AA9/12 is filled in again and filed within 30 days of the change or of the closure, using the same four channels as at opening.

By PEC the subject line changes: «Variazione attività» or «Cessazione attività». The receipt confirming the change or the closure is also sent to the PEC address used for the submission. The deadline is still thirty days, and the rule on the date of dispatch applies again for PEC and registered post.

What counts as a change is defined by the form itself, through the items it asks for at opening: if one of those details is no longer true, it must be updated. Anyone who leaves the form untouched while the activity evolves ends up with tax records that no longer match the work they actually do.

Ex officio closure

There is also a closure the taxpayer does not ask for. Under article 35, paragraph 15-quinquies, of Presidential Decree 633/1972, the Agenzia closes ex officio the VAT numbers of those who, on the data it holds, have not carried out any business, artistic or professional activity in the three previous years. The taxpayer is notified.

A taxpayer who receives the notice but considers themselves still active for VAT can send the Agenzia documents proving the activity: through the «Consegna documenti» service in the reserved area, by PEC with the subject «Risposta a comunicazione di chiusura della Partita IVA», or in person by appointment.

Ex officio closure is no substitute for closing voluntarily. Someone who stops working should report the closure within the thirty days, instead of waiting for the Agenzia to detect three years of inactivity: in the meantime the VAT number remains formally open, in their own name.

Before you send: a checklist

• Start date of the activity fixed and provable
• Professional or business activity: AA9/12 or single business notice
• Ateco code chosen from the Ateco 2025 classification
• Regime: notice of the flat-rate scheme, if you expect to meet its conditions
• Intra-EU transactions: field in section I, if you need them
• Filing channel chosen, with signature and identity document where required
• Receipt kept and date of dispatch noted

The checklist does not replace the official instructions for the form, which the Agenzia publishes as a PDF that this course could not read and therefore does not summarise. Its purpose is to make sure you do not forget the points that the Agenzia's descriptive pages highlight for an opening.