VAT credits, the certificate of compliance, blocks and penalties: when offsetting stops

Marco runs an SRL installing electrical systems and ends 2025 with a VAT credit of 32,000 €. He would like to use it on 16 March to pay February's contributions and withholdings, but the annual VAT return will only go out on 10 March. On that date he can offset just a small slice of the credit; the rest must wait until 20 March, and needs a certificate of compliance.

VAT credits and the tenth-day rule

A VAT credit arises in two ways. The annual credit comes out of the VAT return, when the tax deducted during the year exceeds the tax owed. The quarterly credit comes out of a quarterly application, which businesses meeting the requirements file to claim a refund of, or offset, the credit built up in a single quarter.

For both, paragraph 1 of Article 17 fixes the point from which the credit can pay other debts. Up to 5,000 euros a year there is no starting date to wait for. For the portion above that threshold, offsetting is allowed only from the tenth day after the return or application giving rise to the credit has been filed.

The 5,000-euro threshold is yearly. Once offsets during the year have reached it, every further use depends on the return being filed and on the tenth day having passed. Splitting the credit across several F24 forms changes nothing, because what counts is the total offset in the year rather than the amount on any one form.

In practice the calendar is built backwards from the deadline one wants to pay. Anyone planning to use a sizeable credit in the F24 due on the 16th of a given month needs to file the return at least ten days or so earlier. Filing at the last minute means paying in cash deadlines the credit could have covered.

The same rule applies to credits for income taxes and their surcharges, substitute taxes and IRAP. An update note in the Official Gazette text specifies that the changes made by Decree-Law 124 of 2019 apply to credits accrued from the tax period in progress on 31 December 2019 onwards.

Beware of dated material. The original 2009 wording set the threshold at 10,000 euros and let offsetting start on the sixteenth day of the month after filing. Guides and information pages that were never updated still repeat that rule. The text of Article 17 governing 2026 says something else: 5,000 euros and the tenth day.

The certificate of compliance

The second condition concerns the return itself. Anyone intending to offset an annual or quarterly VAT credit for more than 5,000 euros a year must obtain a certificate of compliance, the visto di conformità, on the return or application showing the credit. The rule sits in item 7 of letter a) of Article 10 of Decree-Law 78 of 2009.

The certificate is the one provided for by Article 35, paragraph 1, letter a), of Legislative Decree 241 of 1997, issued by an authorised professional. As an alternative, a company subject to statutory audit may have the return or application signed also by the person carrying out that audit, who attests that the required checks were performed.

Innovative start-ups enjoy a higher threshold. For as long as they are listed in the special section of the business register, the amount above which a certificate is needed rises from 5,000 to 50,000 euros. The tenth-day threshold stays where it was: item 7-bis adjusts only the certificate limit, not the offsetting timetable.

Offsetting without a certificate is expensive. If the credit above the threshold is used without a certificate or the auditor's signature, or with a certificate issued by someone not authorised, the tax office recovers the credits used in breach through a dedicated notice, together with interest, and imposes penalties. Whoever falsely attests the checks is penalised too.

The certificate is arranged before the return goes out, not after the first F24. Again the calendar runs backwards: estimate how much credit the business will want to offset during the year, check whether that crosses 5,000 euros, and if so agree in good time with the professional on the certificate and on the filing date.

When offsetting is blocked

Even a sound, certified credit can become unusable. The law provides blocks tied to the taxpayer's position, regardless of how good the credit is. Knowing them avoids the worst surprise: a form rejected on the very day of the deadline, the debt left unpaid and late-payment penalties starting to build.

The first block concerns a VAT number closed by the tax office. From the day the closure order under Article 35 of the VAT decree is served, the taxpayer may offset no credit at all, of any kind or amount, even one earned in a different activity. The ban lasts for as long as the VAT number remains closed.

The second concerns VIES, the register of traders dealing within the European Union. A business served with an order removing it from that database may not offset VAT credits from the date of service. This block is narrower: it hits VAT only and lifts once the irregularities are cured. In both cases an F24 breaching the ban is rejected.

The third looks at debts with the collection agent. Paragraph 49-quinquies of Article 37 of Decree-Law 223 of 2006 rules out offsetting for anyone with tax rolls or collection orders for national taxes and agency assessments totalling more than 50,000 euros, past their payment deadline and not suspended.

In the previous version of the paragraph the threshold was 100,000 euros; the text governing 2026 sets it at 50,000. The block does not reach contribution credits or INAIL premiums, letters e), f) and g) of the Article 17 list, and it does not apply to amounts covered by instalment plans that have not lapsed.

Below that threshold the older ban from Article 31 of Decree-Law 78 of 2010 still applies. Credits relating to national taxes cannot be offset up to the amount of overdue rolls for national taxes and related charges exceeding 1,500 euros. Settling the roll first is usually wiser than counting on the credit.

Before filing an F24 carrying a large credit, then, it pays to check one's own position: the status of the VAT number, inclusion in VIES for anyone trading with customers or suppliers elsewhere in the Union, and any rolls held by the collection agent. A few minutes of checking can spare a rejection on the wrong day.

The agency's preventive checks

Beyond the blocks, the agency can halt a single form. Paragraph 49-ter lets it suspend for up to thirty days the execution of payment orders containing offsets that show risk factors, in order to check how the credit is being used. The suspension covers the whole order, cash payments included.

There are two possible outcomes. If the credit turns out to be used correctly, or thirty days pass after filing, the order is executed and offsets and payments count from the original date. Otherwise the order is not executed, and both payments and offsets are treated as never made: the debts have to be paid again.

When the credit proves wholly or partly unusable, the agency notifies the non-execution electronically to whoever sent the order, and through a notice to the taxpayer applies the penalty of Article 15, paragraph 2-ter, of Legislative Decree 471 of 1997. Within thirty days the taxpayer may explain, or pay and so avoid the amount going on a tax roll.

Penalties for misusing a credit

If an offset credit turns out to be wrong after the form was executed, the penalties of Article 13 of Legislative Decree 471 of 1997 apply. For breaches committed from 1 September 2024, the rule separates two categories defined by Legislative Decree 74 of 2000: the credit that is not due and the credit that does not exist.

For a credit that is not due, the penalty equals 25 percent of the credit offset. For a non-existent credit it rises to 70 percent, and in the most serious cases the rule describes it grows by half up to double. The gap between the two is almost threefold, so establishing which category applies is the first line of defence.

Formal lapses carry a fixed amount. Where a credit is used without completing ancillary administrative steps that are not required on pain of forfeiture, and the breach is cured by the deadline for the income tax return covering the year it occurred, the penalty is 250 euros.

The precise definitions of the two categories are found in letters g-quater and g-quinquies of paragraph 1 of Article 1 of Legislative Decree 74 of 2000, to which Article 13 refers. This course does not reproduce them: in any dispute they are the first text to read, because the size of the penalty depends on how the credit is classified.

A misuse that the business spots itself, before any audit begins, can be regularised by paying back the credit used, the interest and the reduced penalty of voluntary correction, the ravvedimento operoso. ActioFin's course on that procedure explains the reductions; here it is enough to remember that correcting on one's own costs less than waiting for a challenge.

Which texts these rules come from

Every rule in this course was read in the Official Gazette in the version governing 2026. Article 17 of Decree 241, Article 34 of Law 388, Article 10 of Decree-Law 78 of 2009 and paragraphs 49 onwards of Article 37 of Decree-Law 223 are already shown as repealed by Legislative Decree 33 of 2025, the consolidated code on payments.

That code, as amended by Decree-Law 200 of 2025, applies from 1 January 2027. Article 13 of Decree 471 is likewise shown as repealed by the new consolidated code on tax penalties. Anyone planning offsets for 2027 and later will need to reread thresholds, deadlines and penalties in the new texts, without assuming they are identical.