Rates, main residence and payments

Paolo owns two A/2 flats in the same town, each with a cadastral income of 1 000 €. He lives in the first with his family: no IMU. The second is his late in-laws' flat, now empty: at the statutory rate of 0.86 % it costs 1 444.80 € a year, and his municipality may push the rate higher. Same income, same taxable base, opposite outcomes.

A statutory rate and the municipality's margins

State law sets a standard rate for each case, which the municipality may raise or lower within the margins the same law allows. The rate actually paid is therefore the one resolved by the municipality where the property lies, not the one in the national table.

Since 2025 the rate resolution is no longer sent to the Ministry: the municipality drafts it solely through the application on the Fiscal Federalism Portal, picking cases from a list fixed by decree. The resulting summary sheet forms an integral part of the resolution, and it is there that taxpayers find the rate that applies.

The last column needs careful reading. The further increase may be set by the municipality in place of the former TASI surcharge, under Article 1, paragraph 755, of Law 160/2019. It is not a margin available to every municipality: it is the absolute ceiling for those that fall under that provision.

There is no need to hunt through a town hall website to find a municipality's rate: the Department of Finance offers a search of the regulations and rates adopted by each municipality. That publication is also what counts for the December balance, as shown further on.

Rural buildings used in farming have a very narrow band: a statutory rate of 0.1 %, which the municipality may cut to zero but not raise. Exempt from 2014, they became taxable again from 2020, something anyone running a farm has to bear in mind.

The “other buildings” line is the one most owners deal with: second homes, let or empty flats, offices, shops, garages that are not appurtenances. The table defines it by exclusion: every building other than the main residence, group D, unsold builder's stock and rural buildings used in farming.

Group D buildings and the State's share

For group D buildings the law sets the rate at 0.86 %, of which 0.76 % is reserved to the State. The lowest rate the municipality may adopt matches that share, 0.76 %; it may go up to 1.06 %, or 1.14 % with the further increase. The payment has to be divided between the two shares.

The main residence and its exceptions

The two conditions are read together. A home to which residence has been transferred but where nobody actually lives is not a main residence, and neither is one lived in without registered residence. In both cases the property remains an ordinary building and pays at that rate.

No IMU is due on the main residence. Only main residences in categories A/1, A/8 and A/9 are taxed. The regime extends to appurtenances in categories C/2, C/6 and C/7, up to one unit per category, even when they are registered together with the dwelling.

The appurtenance limit has practical effects. An owner with one C/6 garage and one C/2 cellar brings both under the main-residence regime. A second C/6 garage does not qualify: only one unit per category counts, and the second pays as an ordinary building.

• Units of undivided-ownership housing cooperatives used as the main residence of member assignees, with their appurtenances
• Units of the same cooperatives assigned to university students who are members, even without registered residence
• Social housing as defined by the decree of the Minister of Infrastructure of 22 April 2008, used as a main residence
• The family home assigned by court order to the parent who has custody of the children
• A single property, not let, held by permanent staff of the armed forces, the police forces, the fire service and the prefectural career

These equivalences are set by law and the municipality cannot alter them. Since 2020, on the other hand, the unit held by Italian citizens registered with AIRE, the register of Italians abroad, who already draw a pension in their country of residence is no longer treated as a main residence.

The municipality has one option of its own: by regulation it may treat as a main residence the unit held by elderly or disabled people permanently in care institutions, if it is not let, and only one unit where there are several. If it does so, it may not add conditions, such as requiring the home to be unoccupied.

The luxury home is the only case in which the house one lives in pays the tax, and also the one where the municipality has the widest room downwards: the table sets the minimum at zero. Two identical villas can therefore pay very different amounts in two neighbouring municipalities.

Exemptions and reductions of the tax

Some buildings are exempt by law: among others, those in categories E/1 to E/9, those used exclusively for worship, and property of the State and local authorities used for their institutional functions. Since 2022 unsold buildings built by a developer for sale and not let are exempt as well.

Also exempt is property that can be neither used nor accessed, where a complaint has been filed over the offences in Articles 614, second paragraph, or 633 of the Criminal Code, or whose unlawful occupation has led to criminal proceedings. An owner who cannot get back into the property does not pay its tax.

Besides the statutory exemptions, a municipality may create others by regulation: for property lent free of charge to the municipality or other bodies for their institutional tasks, and for shops and workshops in areas closed to traffic because of public works lasting more than six months.

Dwellings let under a canone concordato lease within the meaning of Law 431/1998 benefit from a reduction unlike those of the first module: it leaves the base untouched and acts on the tax. IMU is computed at the municipality's rate for dwellings other than a main residence, then reduced to 75 per cent.

This reduction concerns the owner's IMU and must not be confused with how the rent is taxed. The rent under that same lease may be taxed under the cedolare secca: they are two different taxes on two different events, and neither replaces the other.

When and how payment is made

IMU is paid in two instalments. The first falls due on 16 June and equals the tax for the first half-year, computed with the rate and deduction of the previous year's twelve months. The second, by 16 December, settles the tax for the whole year, with any adjustment on the first.

• 16 June: first instalment, half of the tax computed with the previous year's rates and deduction
• 16 December: balance for the whole year at the rates published by 28 October, with an adjustment on the first instalment
• Alternatively: a single annual payment by 16 June

The December balance is computed on the resolution and regulation published on the Department of Finance website by 28 October of the tax year. If the municipality has not published by then, the balance is computed with the acts adopted for the previous year.

Where the electronic rate summary sheet exists, the balance is computed on the rates it shows. If the summary sheet and the municipal regulation disagree, the summary sheet prevails. For the taxpayer the working rule is simple: use the rate that has been published, not the one that has been announced.

Payment is made only on the F24 form or with a compatible postal current-account payment slip. The law also allows payment through the pagoPA platform, but only once a specific ministerial decree has been adopted.

The IMU return is not filed every year. The obligation arises only when changes affect the tax due and the municipality cannot learn of them directly. It is filed by 30 June of the following year and holds for later years too, until the data declared change.

Three checks before every payment

• The case: exempt main residence, luxury home, group D, rural building used in farming or other building
• The rate the municipality has actually published for that case and that year
• Any reductions of the tax, such as canone concordato, and the deduction for a luxury home

In June the second check looks at the previous year, in December at the current one. That asymmetry is what produces the adjustment: if the municipality raised the rate, the December instalment exceeds June's; if it lowered it, December is lighter. Anyone paying everything at once in June must allow for this.