Taxes on buying building land in Italy: private sale or VAT

If a private owner sells you building land in Italy, you pay 9% registration tax, never less than €1,000, plus €100 in two fixed taxes. If a business or a trading company sells it in the course of its trade, you pay 22% VAT and three fixed taxes of €200 each.

Already have a parcel in mind? The report runs these checks on your land, with a source and date for every finding: €29 in English or Italian · €39 in both languages · total, VAT included.

The seller decides the taxes

With building land (terreno edificabile) the first question is not who buys but who sells. A sale by a private owner is outside the scope of VAT: you pay registration tax (imposta di registro), mortgage tax (imposta ipotecaria) and cadastral tax (imposta catastale), partly as a percentage and partly as fixed sums. A sale by a business or a trading company acting in the course of its trade carries VAT (IVA), and the other three taxes become fixed amounts.

The table applies to deeds signed up to 31 December 2026; from 2027 the same figures move into the consolidated acts (last section).

Partnerships, joint-stock companies and limited companies, Italy’s snc, sas, spa and srl, are always treated as businesses for VAT, as are cooperatives and de facto companies (DPR 633/1972, Article 4). A società semplice (simple partnership) or another body counts as a business if its sole or main object is a commercial or farming activity. For an individual with a VAT number, such as a sole-trader builder, what matters is whether the sale is part of a trade carried on habitually, which is how the same article defines a business. For a farmer (imprenditore agricolo), the Agenzia delle Entrate requires two conditions for the sale to carry VAT: the land is building land and the seller used it in the farm business; if either is missing, the sale bears the proportional taxes that apply to land sold by private owners (circular 18/E/2013, section 4.5). In any of these cases ask the notary, before you make an offer, in which capacity the seller is selling: the bill changes by thousands of euros.

Sources: DPR 633/1972, Article 4; Agenzia delle Entrate, circular 18/E/2013, sections 4.2 and 4.5; Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10; DPR 131/1986, Article 40; Legislative Decree 347/1990, Article 10; Legislative Decree 347/1990, tariff, Article 1; Decree-Law 104/2013, Article 26; accessed 12 November 2026.

When land counts as building land for tax

For VAT, registration tax and income tax, an area is building land if it «can be used for building under the general planning instrument adopted by the comune, regardless of approval by the region and of the adoption of implementing instruments» (Decree-Law 223/2006, Article 36(2)). The adopted plan is enough: land that a new plan makes buildable is building land for tax before the plan is finally approved.

The document to ask for is the CDU, the certificato di destinazione urbanistica (zoning certificate) issued by the comune.

The difference matters between private sales too. The 15% registration rate in the tariff is for farmland and its appurtenances bought by someone who is not a working or professional farmer enrolled in the farmers’ pension scheme; building land sold by a private owner pays the 9% rate for property in general. The farmland rules are in the guide to taxes on buying agricultural land.

Sources: Decree-Law 223/2006, Article 36; Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10; accessed 12 November 2026.

Worked examples: private seller and business seller

A hypothetical example: a building plot for €70,000 (price before VAT), bought by an individual without a VAT number. Only the deed taxes are counted, without the notary’s fee or technical costs.

A second hypothetical example, a small plot for €8,000 sold by a private owner: 9% would be €720, but registration tax cannot fall below €1,000. Total €1,100 with the mortgage and cadastral tax, 13.75% of the price. The minimum applies to any price up to €11,111.11 (1,000 divided by 0.09).

The chart compares the three bills: in the business sale almost everything is VAT.

Private seller: 9% registration tax

9% is the rate for deeds transferring ownership of property in general (Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10(1)). The same article sets the €1,000 minimum, the mortgage and cadastral taxes at €50 each, and the exemption from stamp duty, cadastral fees and land-registry fees.

The 2% rate in the same provision is for dwellings that meet the first-home conditions. A plot is not a dwelling, even if you will build your own home on it, so from a private seller it pays 9%.

Sources: Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10; accessed 12 November 2026.

Business seller: 22% VAT and fixed taxes

Italian VAT law does not treat as a supply of goods the sale of land «that cannot be used for building» (DPR 633/1972, Article 2(3)(c)). Building land stays inside: sold by a business, it carries VAT at the standard 22% rate (Article 16).

When the sale is subject to VAT, registration tax is a fixed amount (DPR 131/1986, Article 40(1); the exceptions in that paragraph concern VAT-exempt transactions, not a taxable sale). Mortgage tax is fixed too for «transfers subject to value added tax» (tariff annexed to Legislative Decree 347/1990, Article 1, note), and so is cadastral tax where the change of cadastral owner follows from «deeds subject to value added tax» (Legislative Decree 347/1990, Article 10(2)).

For sales of building land by VAT-registered sellers, the Agenzia delle Entrate (Italy’s revenue agency) listed registration, mortgage and cadastral tax at €168 each in 2013, plus stamp duty (circular 18/E/2013, section 4.2). From 1 January 2014 every fixed registration, mortgage and cadastral tax of €168 rose to €200 (Decree-Law 104/2013, Article 26).

The exemption from stamp duty, land-registry fees and special cadastral fees is granted to deeds charged with proportional registration tax (Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10(3)). For transfers subject to VAT the Agenzia lists those items among the sums due (circular 2/E/2014): the notary works them out and the examples leave them out.

If the buyer is a company or professional with a VAT number buying for the business, the VAT paid can be deducted under the general rules (DPR 633/1972, Article 19). An individual buying privately deducts nothing: for them VAT is a cost.

Sources: DPR 633/1972, Article 2; DPR 633/1972, Article 16; DPR 131/1986, Article 40; Legislative Decree 347/1990, tariff, Article 1; Legislative Decree 347/1990, Article 10; Agenzia delle Entrate, circular 18/E/2013, sections 4.2 and 4.5; Decree-Law 104/2013, Article 26; Legislative Decree 23/2011, Article 10; Agenzia delle Entrate, circular 2/E/2014; DPR 633/1972, Article 19; accessed 12 November 2026.

What value the taxes are based on

Registration tax is worked out on the value stated in the deed or, if higher, the price; for property, value means market value (DPR 131/1986, Article 51). If the tax office thinks the value is higher, it adjusts it and claims the difference with interest and penalties (Article 52(1)). VAT, by contrast, is charged on the consideration due to the seller under the contract (DPR 633/1972, Article 13).

The value declared for building land is not shielded from adjustment. Article 52(4) bars an adjustment for property entered in the cadastre with an assigned income and declared at no less than seventy-five times the reddito dominicale (the notional income the cadastre assigns to the owner) for land, or one hundred times the cadastral income for buildings; later laws have revalued those multipliers. The same paragraph, however, «does not apply to land for which the planning instruments provide for building use».

Article 52(5-bis) also limits paragraphs 4 and 5 to the sales covered by Article 1(497) of Law 266/2005: residential property and its appurtenances sold to individuals not acting in a business capacity, at the buyer’s request to the notary. That is the prezzo-valore method, which taxes the cadastral value instead of the price (resolution 149/E/2008). For other sales the multiplier rule does not apply, and a plot sold on its own is not residential property. The declared value therefore needs market evidence behind it, such as a valuation or sales of similar plots.

Sources: DPR 131/1986, Article 51; DPR 131/1986, Article 52; DPR 633/1972, Article 13; Agenzia delle Entrate, resolution 149/E/2008; accessed 12 November 2026.

IMU after the purchase

Once you own it, building land is liable to IMU, the annual municipal property tax, on its market value at the rate set by the comune. Reference values, council resolutions and the exemption for registered farmers are covered in the guide to IMU on building land.

The sample report page on the Bagno a Ripoli parcel shows the annual formula for building land, value times the comune’s rate, with an example on a hypothetical value, alongside a main home, a second home and farmland.

Who pays, and when

The notary pays the taxes, being the person required to register the deed (DPR 131/1986, Article 10) within thirty days of signing (Article 13). VAT is different: the seller charges it on the invoice, together with the price. By law the parties to the contract are jointly liable with the notary for registration tax (Article 57): if more turns out to be due, the tax office can claim it from you too.

Sources: DPR 131/1986, Article 10; DPR 131/1986, Article 13; DPR 131/1986, Article 57; accessed 12 November 2026.

What changes from 1 January 2027

Three new consolidated acts gather rules now spread across separate laws, all applying from 1 January 2027: registration tax (Legislative Decree 123/2025, Article 205, date moved by Decree-Law 200/2025, Article 4(5)), VAT (Legislative Decree 10/2026, Article 171) and tax filing and assessment (Legislative Decree 141/2026, Article 368). Deeds signed up to 31 December 2026 stay under DPR 131/1986, DPR 633/1972 and Decree-Law 223/2006.

What stays: the 9%, the €1,000 minimum, the €50 fixed taxes, the fixed registration tax on VAT deeds and the fixed €200 mortgage and cadastral taxes on transfers subject to VAT; the 22% VAT rate; the definition of building land, restated in the same words and now naming IMU in its heading as well.

What changes for anyone reading a deed or a quote: the legal references. Normattiva already shows Article 36(2) of Decree-Law 223/2006 as repealed by Legislative Decree 141/2026, with effect from 2027. If your deed falls close to the turn of the year, ask the notary to calculate under the text in force on the day you sign.

Sources: Legislative Decree 123/2025, Article 205; Legislative Decree 123/2025, Article 44; Legislative Decree 123/2025, Article 79; Legislative Decree 10/2026, Article 5; Legislative Decree 10/2026, Article 34; Legislative Decree 141/2026, Article 336; accessed 12 November 2026.