Building land rezoned as farmland in Italy: what owners can do

In Italy land loses its building status when the comune approves a change to its town plan, sometimes at the owner’s own request. From then on the CDU planning certificate shows the new zoning, and the comune can state whether the plot still counts as building land for IMU, the annual property tax. Tax already paid is refunded only if that comune’s IMU rules provide for it (Law 160/2019, paragraph 777).

The report brings together public information about the land, with sources and dates, to prepare questions for the relevant offices: €29 in English or Italian · €39 in both languages · total, VAT included.

Why building land goes back to agricultural use

What you can build on a plot in Italy is decided by the comune’s town plan, not by the cadastre or by the deed. Land marked for building can lose that status in three ways, and each leaves the owner with different options.

The first is a variation (variante) of the plan or a new plan: the comune redraws its zones and some plots become agricultural or green space. The second is a request from the owner, where regional law allows one: people who will never build ask to give up the building capacity so they stop paying tax on it. The third concerns land reserved for a public work, a reservation that lasts five years and can then lapse.

Varianti verdi: how Padova handles them

Veneto introduced «green variations for the reclassification of building land» with Regional Law 4/2015, Article 7. Padova’s report on its variation no. 72 of 2024 shows how this works in practice. The comune published its notice on 19 January 2024, inviting owners who wanted their land stripped of the building capacity given by the Piano degli Interventi (the comune’s operational plan) to apply.

Requests are not granted automatically. Padova weighed each one against the aim of reducing land take, current planning, any harm to third parties’ building rights and any obstacle to planned works or public-interest agreements. Of the two requests it received, it found one acceptable and turned the other down.

The step is hard to undo. According to the same report, reclassified land cannot take part in development, directly or indirectly, including through transferable or compensatory building rights. If you buy land in Veneto that went through a variante verde, its building capacity is gone, including any right to sell volume to another plot.

Outside Veneto, whether owners can ask for this and how depends on regional law. The comune’s planning office (ufficio urbanistica) knows whether there is a regular call for requests and when it closes.

Land reserved for public works is a separate case

If the plan earmarks the plot for a road, a school or another public work, it has not been zoned as farmland: it carries a vincolo preordinato all’esproprio, a reservation for compulsory purchase. It lasts five years, during which the work can be declared of public interest; if that does not happen the reservation lapses and Article 9 of DPR 380/2001 applies, but the comune can renew it with stated reasons (DPR 327/2001, Article 9). Compensation follows the compulsory purchase code (DPR 327/2001).

IMU: when it changes and when you can get money back

IMU is the annual municipal property tax, and it treats two kinds of land very differently. Area fabbricabile (building land) is land that can be built on under general or implementing plans (Law 160/2019, paragraph 741, letter d), and Decree-Law 223/2006 adds that the general plan adopted by the comune is enough, even before regional approval or any implementing plan (Article 36, paragraph 2). Terreno agricolo (farmland) is any land recorded in the cadastre, whatever its use and even if left uncultivated (letter e).

The tax base differs. For building land it is the market value on 1 January, or from the date the plan was adopted; for farmland it is the reddito dominicale (the land’s cadastral income), raised by 25% and multiplied by 135 (paragraph 746). Land owned and farmed by coltivatori diretti or IAP (registered professional farmers enrolled in the farmers’ pension scheme) is not treated as building land, even in a building zone, as long as it stays in farm use (paragraph 741).

To find out when your parcel started to be taxed as farmland, the law gives you a specific tool: on the taxpayer’s request, the comune states whether a plot is building land under these criteria (paragraph 741, letter d). Write to the ufficio tributi (the comune’s tax office) with the sheet and parcel numbers and the variation that changed the zoning; the office tells you how long it takes to answer.

A refund of tax already paid is not automatic. The law lets each comune provide one in its own rules for land that later became unbuildable, setting deadlines, time limits and conditions (paragraph 777, letter c). If the comune’s rules say nothing, there is no refund on these grounds.

Oristano’s IMU regulation, adopted in 2020 and amended in 2023, shows what such a rule looks like (Article 3). It refunds tax paid from 1 January 2020 on land that became unbuildable after a variation was finally approved, or because of a constraint imposed by national or regional law. The refund is the difference between the tax paid on the land’s value and the tax worked out on its cadastral income, for at most five tax years. The application must be made within five years of the date the land became unbuildable, or the right is lost, and only if nothing has ever been built on the land or any part of it, even illegally.

With the figures above and rules like Oristano’s, five years of difference come to (1,032 − 11.54) × 5 = €5,102.30. What counts for your plot is the regulation in force in your comune and the rates it set for each year: both are on the comune’s website, or the tax office can send them.

What the CDU tells you

The certificato di destinazione urbanistica (CDU) is the document that states a parcel’s current zoning. The head of the relevant comune office must issue it within a strict 30 days of the request, and it stays valid for a year if, according to a statement by the seller or a co-owner, the planning instruments have not changed (DPR 380/2001, Article 30). If the comune misses the deadline, the seller can replace it with a declaration that the request was made, stating the zoning under the plans in force or adopted.

After a variation the CDU is the first document to request: it shows the new zone and the rules that apply. For a buyer the date matters. A certificate issued eleven months ago may describe a plan that has since been changed by an adopted variation, which is exactly when the one-year validity does not hold. How to request and read the certificate is covered in the guide to the CDU planning certificate; what the plan lets you build, in what you can build under the PRG.

Sources: DPR 380/2001, Article 30; accessed 12 November 2026.

What an owner can do, and when

There are only a few useful steps, and the deadlines are short. The timeline below puts them in order, from the adopted plan to the refund application.

1. While the adopted plan is on deposit. Read the map and the rules for your parcel and send written comments (osservazioni) to the planning office within the deadline in the comune’s notice. At this stage the council has not yet decided.
2. After approval: 60 days to appeal. An action to annul the decision must be brought before the TAR within a 60-day time bar (administrative procedure code, Article 29). The time does not simply run from the day of approval: it runs from notice, communication or full knowledge of the decision or, for acts not notified individually, from the end of any publication required by law. The time to serve the appeal is extended by 30 days if the parties, or some of them, live in another European country, and by 90 days if they live outside Europe (Article 41, paragraphs 2 and 5). Your exact deadline is for a lawyer who practises administrative law to work out, and you should contact one at once.
3. After approval. Ask the planning office for an updated CDU (30 days) and the tax office for the statement on building-land status.
4. For an IMU refund. Read the comune’s IMU regulation: if it provides a refund, apply within the deadline it sets. In Oristano that is five years from the date the land became unbuildable.

Sources: Administrative procedure code, Article 29; Administrative procedure code, Article 41; DPR 380/2001, Article 30; Law 160/2019, Article 1, paragraphs 741, 746 and 777; Oristano IMU regulation, Article 3; accessed 12 November 2026.

If you are buying land sold as «edificabile»

A listing that says «edificabile» (buildable) describes the plan at the time it was written. Before you sign a preliminary contract, three checks are worth making, all at the comune.

The first is a recent CDU, with its date. The second is a question to the planning office about variations adopted but not yet approved that affect the parcel: a CDU issued before adoption will not show them, and for IMU the law already looks at the adopted plan. The third is about the past: ask the seller whether a reclassification request (in Veneto, a variante verde) was ever filed and what came of it, then check with the comune and on the CDU whether the variation was approved and is in force. A request on its own changes nothing, because the comune can turn it down; the building capacity is lost only once the variation is approved and in force.

If buildability is the reason you are buying, make the zoning shown in the CDU a condition of the preliminary contract and state what happens if a variation changes it before the deed. How conditions and the deposit work is explained in the guide to the preliminary contract. For the annual tax on land that keeps its building status, see IMU on building land.