Free online visura catastale, even for land you do not own

Already have a parcel in mind? The report checks it against public data, with a source and date for every finding. Open the map → €29 in English or Italian · €39 in both languages

What changed on 1 January 2025

Until 2024 online access to the cadastre was a paid service. Legislative Decree 139 of 18 September 2024 reorganised the fees and the access to the mortgage and cadastral databases, and an Agenzia delle Entrate measure of 30 December 2024 set out how it works. From that date online cadastral searches are free.

The Agenzia’s own guide says it plainly: since 1 January 2025 online visure are issued free of fees even for property where the applicant is not the registered holder.

At the counter the rule is different. For property not registered to you the fee remains €3.00 per unit, parcel or person searched (item 5.1.1 of the fee table attached to the decree). Mortgage-register searches are still charged; online requests cost 20 per cent less.

A page from a delivered report

Detail of page 9Open the full page

Source: TerrenoCheck, Diano San Pietro, parcel 444, p. 9

How to request the visura online

The route is the reserved area of the Agenzia delle Entrate online services. Individuals log in with SPID, CIE or CNS. Without a digital identity you can delegate a trusted person, under the rules the Agenzia sets out on its page about access to the online services.

There are two services with different purposes.

Personal consultation covers property you hold, even in part. Someone looking at land for sale does not hold any of it yet.

Cadastral visure of property you do not own is the service for buyers. It gives free access to cadastral data even if you hold no share in the property. The search covers all of Italy except the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano, and documents arrive as PDF files.

1. Log in to the reserved area with SPID, CIE or CNS.
2. Open the visura service for property you do not own.
3. For land, choose the land register and enter the cadastral comune, section if any, foglio and particella. If you leave out the section or the subalterno, the system lists every property that matches the partial data.
4. Download the current visura and, if the parcel was split, merged or renumbered, the historical one too.
5. From the same search you can request the map extract: an A4 PDF, to scale, centred on the parcel, with the outlines and numbers of the neighbouring parcels.

A search by person uses the tax code, or surname and first name, or a company name. It returns the property the person holds today; a historical visura by person is not available for now. It helps when a listing mentions a family’s land and you want to know how many parcels are registered to that name.

If you do not have the identifiers yet, find them on the map first: the steps are in the guide on how to find the foglio and particella.

Land register and building register

They are not two copies of the same document. The land register (Catasto dei terreni) records parcels, foglio, area, land quality and class, landowner and agricultural income, and holders. The building register (Catasto dei fabbricati) records urban units: category, class, size, rateable value, address and subalterno.

Land with a ruin or a farmhouse needs both searches. A listing that only mentions land may also involve a registered building, or a structure that exists on site but not in the cadastre. In that case compare the visura, the map and the site before making an offer; how to read each field is explained in the guide to the visura catastale.

What the visura does not tell you

The visura shows the cadastral holders, not the owners. The cadastre serves tax and identification purposes. Ownership and charges are checked in the property registers, with the seller’s title deed and a mortgage-register search. A clean visura does not rule out mortgages, attachments or pending claims: that check is described in the guide to mortgages and liens.

It does not say whether you can build. Cadastral quality and class are not a planning designation: for land you need the planning certificate (CDU), which the comune issues and which must be attached to the sale deed.

It does not say whether the land lies in a landslide or flood zone. A clean visura and a parcel inside a hazard band can go together, and the classes are explained in the guide to flood and landslide risk.

It does not fix the boundary on the ground and does not prove rights of way, utility connections or constraints.

When the free visura is not enough

The online visura does three jobs, all before the deposit: it confirms the foglio and particella in the listing, shows who is registered today, and reveals a building, a split or a share the agent did not mention.

Before paying money you need more answers, preferably in writing. Does the seller’s deed cover every parcel included in the price? Is the mortgage-register search free of entries that block the purchase? Does the person signing hold rights over the whole share? The notary checks the transfer, not your project: the notary’s role is set out in the guide to the notary’s checks, and the order of steps in the land-buying checklist.

In parallel a surveyor compares the CDU, municipal rules and hazard maps with what you plan to do. If a constraint or uncertain access turns up, the price and the conditions of the preliminary contract are discussed before signing.