How far from the neighbour can you build in Italy? The 10-metre rule, the 3-metre rule and the local plan, explained for buyers

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A recent case shows how. On 17 June 2026 Italy’s Court of Cassation (Corte di Cassazione), in order no. 20314, set aside an appeal judgment that had ordered a rebuilt house to be moved back (arretramento, in practice partial demolition). The lower courts had assumed that the neighbour’s facing wall was a "windowed wall" (parete finestrata), which would trigger a 10-metre minimum distance between the two buildings. The Cassation sent the case back: the judge must first establish whether the openings are real views (vedute), from which a person can look out and lean over onto the neighbour’s land, or mere light openings (luci). It must also check whether the work falls under the 10-metre rule at all.

That is the whole subject in one dispute: which rule applies, where you measure from, which window counts, and what happens to a house built too close. This guide takes those questions in order, with the arithmetic on an 18-metre-wide plot and a second calculation for buyers who plan to demolish and rebuild.

It is a general guide, not legal advice on your plot. The final measurements come from a surveyor, the final rules from your town’s plan.

Words you will meet, with the Italian

Three layers of rules, and the strictest wins

Distances in Italy are not set in one place. Three layers sit on top of each other.

The Civil Code: 3 metres between buildings. Article 873 of the Civil Code (codice civile, "c.c.") says that buildings on neighbouring plots, unless joined or built against each other, must be kept at least three metres apart, and that local regulations may set a greater distance. The second sentence matters most: nearly every town sets larger figures, and those figures then become part of the legal relationship between neighbours. The Code measures between buildings, not from the boundary. A boundary wall (muro di cinta) or other freestanding wall no higher than three metres does not count (art. 878 c.c.).

Because the Code measures between buildings, Italian courts derive a "first come" principle (principio di prevenzione) from article 873 and the articles after it: whoever builds first chooses where to stand, on the boundary or back from it, and the second builder adapts, for example by building against the first wall. The Code also lets a neighbour make a wall within one and a half metres of the boundary common to both (art. 875 c.c.). The Joint Chambers of the Cassation (Sezioni Unite, judgment 10318 of 19 May 2016) drew the line: where local rules only set a larger distance between buildings and no minimum distance from the boundary, first-come applies and the later builder may still build against the first wall. Where local rules set a distance from the boundary, first-come does not apply and each owner keeps their own setback.

The national standard: 10 metres between a windowed wall and the wall facing it. Article 9 of Ministerial Decree no. 1444 of 2 April 1968 (D.M. 1444/1968) requires, for new buildings in zones other than the historic centre (zona A), an absolute minimum of 10 metres between windowed walls and the walls of buildings facing them. The Council of State (Consiglio di Stato), Italy’s top administrative court, has tied the rule to health and hygiene: no unhealthy gaps between buildings (judgment 4374/2011). It applies where two walls face each other and at least one has windows (Fourth Section, 31 March 2015, no. 1670). The Cassation agrees that one windowed wall is enough (judgments 20548/2017 and 15178/2019, as summarised by the technical publisher BibLus).

What that means on the ground:

• If the neighbour’s facing wall has view windows, your wall must be 10 metres from it even if your wall is blind.
• Distance is checked from every part of the building, not only from the sections that directly face each other (Council of State, 17 July 2023, no. 7004).
• A town cannot go below 10 metres. Courts treat the rule as mandatory and apply it over a weaker local rule; order 20314/2026 also says that where local rules are silent, the 10 metres apply between private parties.

In zone A, the historic centre, the 10-metre rule for new buildings does not apply; the decree aims it at the "other zones", and in the centre the existing volumes and the historic-centre plan govern. Zone C gets a stricter rule: between facing walls with windows the gap must equal the height of the taller building, and this applies even when only one wall has windows if the buildings face each other for more than 12 metres. Decree-law 32/2019 confirmed that these extra limits apply only in zone C. Two 13-metre blocks in zone C therefore need 13 metres, not 10.

The local layer: usually 5 metres from the boundary. The town’s building regulations and plan rules set the setback from the boundary, from roads, and often repeat the 10 metres. Two published examples from Tuscany: the rules of an implementation plan in Pisa (attachment 5, sheet 14) set 5.00 m from external boundaries for main buildings, 1.50 m for pergolas, and 10.00 m between buildings, reducible to 5 m only when both facing walls have no windows. In Bibbiena (province of Arezzo), the rules of implementation plan PA15D2, updated September 2021, set a minimum of 5.00 m from other private property and public roads. Both are rules for one plan area, not the whole town. The number you need is the one for your zone, which you read from the zoning certificate and the plan.

Why the town hall and the judge may disagree about one window

The administrative courts, when they review a building permit, tend to treat any wall with any opening (doors, balconies, windows of every kind) as windowed. The civil judge in order 20314/2026 asked instead whether the openings allow a real, comfortable view onto the neighbour’s land, to be checked on site.

For a buyer the consequence is simple. A high, barred bathroom window on the neighbour’s wall might not trigger 10 metres in a civil lawsuit, but the town’s technical office (ufficio tecnico) may still count it when it examines your project. Design for the stricter reading unless the office confirms otherwise in writing. Balconies count too: case law reported by BibLus includes the balcony projection in the measurement.

The arithmetic: an 18-metre-wide plot

Take a rectangular plot in zone B, 18 m wide and 30 m deep: 540 m². The local rules set 5 m from every boundary, as in Pisa and Bibbiena. To the east there is a house from the 1960s, lawfully built, with its side wall 2 m from the boundary. To the west, an empty plot. These dimensions are a worked example; the legal figures are those cited above.

The 3-metre Civil Code distance is met in both columns (2 + 5 = 7 m apart in the second). The 60 m² difference is a 60% larger footprint, and on land priced per buildable cubic metre it is often the difference between the house that justifies the price and a compromise. The second column also lasts only as long as the neighbour has no lawful view window on that wall when you build.

Now move the boundary. Measurements start from the real boundary on the ground, not from the line on the cadastral map, which in Italy is not a precise survey. If the true boundary sits 60 cm further into your plot than you thought, the first column becomes 18 − 8.6 − 5 = 4.4 m. Why cadastral and real boundaries differ is covered in our guide to boundaries and boundary disputes.

Buying an old house to knock down and rebuild

Many foreign buyers want exactly this: a tired 1960s house on a good plot, demolished and replaced. The distance rules are the part of that plan most often misjudged.

Article 2-bis of the Consolidated Building Act (D.P.R. 380/2001, the Testo unico edilizia), paragraph 1-ter, added in 2019 by the "Sblocca cantieri" decree (D.L. 32/2019) and rewritten in 2020, lets a demolition and reconstruction keep the distances that legally existed before (distanze legittimamente preesistenti). The conditions, as technical sources and the Cassation read them: same footprint (area di sedime), same volume, and no higher than the old building. Volume bonuses granted by law may be built outside the old outline and above its height, still within the old distances; this second sentence is the contested part.

Two 2026 Cassation judgments show how carefully this is applied:

• No. 5376 of 10 March 2026, about a complex in Lombardy rebuilt with more volume under a regeneration plan (piano di recupero): the Court quashed an appeal decision that had simply applied new-build rules. Seeing that volume increased is not enough; the judge has to ask whether the new building can "inherit" the old distances.
• No. 15256 of 20 May 2026, about a roof space raised by about 2 metres after partial demolition, keeping the old perimeter: the summaries report that the relevant distances are those legally in place when the original building was built.

Technical press also warns that the old-distance exemption does not automatically cover new floors added on top.

Do the numbers on the same 18 m plot. The 1960s house stands 4 m from the neighbour’s view window. Rebuild it on the same footprint, same height: it can stay at 4 m. Add a floor: unless your designer shows a specific legal basis, that floor has to respect today’s 10 m, so it moves back 6 m. If the rebuilt house is 8 m wide, a 6 m setback leaves an upper floor 2 m wide, which is no floor at all. If the business plan for the purchase depends on that extra storey, get the technician’s written analysis before the preliminary contract.

Roof conversions after the 2024 "Salva Casa" law. When decree-law 69/2024 was converted by Law 105/2024, a new paragraph 1-quater was added to article 2-bis: turning a roof space (sottotetto) into living space may depart from minimum distances, within the limits of regional law, if the distances in force when the building was built are respected, the shape and floor area of the roof space are not changed, and the maximum height allowed by the original permit is kept. Raising the roof takes you outside this exemption, and where the region has no roof-conversion procedure the exemption has nothing to run on.

For older houses this means old permits matter: the rule that applied at the time is proved by the original building permit, which is also what proves that the building is lawful at all. See our guide to ruins and restoration rights for the paperwork side.

Exemptions that do not exist

Article 2-bis(1) lets regions depart from the 1968 decree, distances included. The Constitutional Court has kept this narrow: distances between buildings belong to civil law, a state matter, and a region may depart from them only through planning instruments that regulate a group of buildings as a whole. In judgment 178/2016 it struck down a rule of the Marche region that allowed exemptions for one-off projects; in 41/2017 it reviewed a Veneto rule on the same issue; in 85/2023 it declared inadmissible challenges to article 2-bis(1) and to a Lombardy rule.

So a seller or agent who says "the region allows less here" should be able to point to a plan for your area, not to a general regional law. Regional detail you may meet:

• Trentino (autonomous province of Trento) had its own distance code (attachment 2 to provincial executive resolution no. 2023 of 3 September 2010), and provincial law no. 3 of 2025 has replaced that system for distances between buildings and from boundaries. Guides written before that law are out of date there.
• Emilia-Romagna publishes official opinions on how to measure distances under its uniform technical definitions (resolution 922 of 28 June 2017), for example on boundary distance (25 May 2023) and on zone boundaries and windowed walls (24 March 2023).
• Lombardy has long had its own roof-conversion rules (art. 64 of regional law 12/2005), to which the national paragraph 1-quater now refers.

Step by step, from abroad

You can do much of this before flying in, and the rest with a local technician.

1. Zone. Ask the seller or the town for the zoning certificate (certificato di destinazione urbanistica, CDU). It tells you the zone and whether an implementation plan applies. Our guide on what you can build under the PRG explains how to read it.
2. Plan rules. Download the NTA and the building regulations from the town’s website and find the article on distances (distanze). Machine translation is fine for a first read; check figures against the Italian.
3. Hire a geometra early. A measured survey (rilievo topografico) with the boundary markers, the position of neighbouring walls and photos of every opening facing your plot. Ask for a drawing that shows the usable footprint under the strictest reading.
4. Neighbour’s permit. The geometra can ask the town’s technical office for access to the neighbour’s permit file (accesso agli atti): when the house was built, at what distance, with which openings approved. A window opened without a permit counts differently from a lawful one. The request should say why you need it: you are assessing the purchase of the adjoining plot and must check distances.
5. Written question to the town. With the survey in hand, ask the technical office how it measures in your case, especially if the neighbour’s openings are borderline.
6. Contract. If the price reflects a buildable volume, tie the preliminary contract (compromesso) to that volume being achievable, or to a permit being granted.

If you will not be in Italy for the deed, you can sign through a notarised power of attorney (procura); the notary (notaio) checks title, mortgages and the town-planning documents that must be attached to the deed. The notary does not measure the distance between your future house and the neighbour’s window. That check is yours and your technician’s.

If the result is bad

An agreement with the neighbour. For Civil Code distances and local rules that supplement them, the neighbour can grant an easement (servitù) by notarial deed, registered in the land registers, allowing you to build closer or against their wall. It cannot authorise going below the 10 metres of article 9: a private deal does not make a permit lawful, and the town cannot grant one. Use it for the 3 m or 5 m problems, not the 10 m one.

A different design. Blind walls on the tight side, windows facing the other way, a long narrow house rather than a wide one. On the 18 m plot with the neighbour’s view window at 2 m, a house 5 m wide and 20 m deep on two floors gives about 200 m² gross. That is a real house, if not the one in the agent’s rendering.

A real exemption. Rebuild within the old distances (paragraph 1-ter), or convert the roof within paragraph 1-quater, with the technician citing the exact rule.

The price. If the land was marketed as buildable for 600 m³ and the survey says 400, renegotiate on the survey.

Know the risk if you build anyway. The neighbour can take you to court. Courts order arretramento, removal of the part of the building that is too close, often after a court-appointed expert has measured. A building permit does not protect you: it is issued without prejudice to third-party rights, and the neighbour sues in the civil court even against a fully permitted house. On the administrative side, a building at an unlawful distance departs from its permit, with the consequences described in our guide on building abuses.

Buying an existing house that already sits too close means buying the neighbour’s claim with it. Before signing, ask the seller in writing whether the neighbour has ever objected to the distance, by letter or in court, and have the answer written into the preliminary contract.

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