Italy Short Let Tax 2026: Cedolare Secca Now Stops at Two Flats

Two Italian flats let by the night can still use the flat tax. A third turns the whole activity into a business.

From the 2026 tax year, Italy's cedolare secca on short lets applies only where no more than two apartments are used that way in the year. The Agenzia delle Entrate sets the rate at 21% on one property chosen in the tax return and 26% on the second. Above two apartments, the letting is treated as a business.

Apartments one person may let short term and still use cedolare secca

Tax year	Limit ( flats)
Before 2026		4 flats
From 2026		2 flats

What is cedolare secca, and what changed for 2026?

Cedolare secca is Italy's optional flat rate substitute tax on rental income. The Agenzia delle Entrate, the Italian revenue agency, describes it as an optional regime consisting of a substitute tax replacing IRPEF, the personal income tax, and its surcharges on the property income, and adds that contracts under cedolare secca do not pay the registration tax and stamp duty otherwise due on registering, ending or extending a lease.

The change for 2026 is a threshold, not a rate. The agency states that from the tax period relating to 2026, cedolare secca on short lets is available only if no more than two apartments are used for that purpose in the year, where previously the limit was no more than four, and that above that threshold the activity, by whoever it is carried on, is treated as carried on in business form.

The rates the agency publishes for short lets are 21% on income from short let contracts for one property chosen by the taxpayer in the tax return, and 26% on the second property. Cross that second apartment and the flat tax is not an option at all, which brings a VAT registration, a partita IVA, and business accounting with it.

The underlying law is the 2026 budget. Legge 30 dicembre 2025, n. 199, the state budget for the 2026 financial year, is recorded on Normattiva, the Italian government's consolidated law portal, as in force from 1 January 2026.

What counts as a short let?

A residential lease of no more than 30 days, agreed by a private individual outside a business. That definition, from the same Agenzia delle Entrate sheet, is what pulls a holiday flat into these rules rather than the ordinary long lease regime. The agency also notes that only individuals holding ownership or a real right of enjoyment, such as a usufruct, and not letting in the course of a business or profession, can opt for cedolare secca in the first place.

One consequence is easy to miss when buying with a partner or a sibling: the count is per taxpayer and per tax year, not per building.

Does the property need a CIN?

Yes, and the obligation is written into national law with penalties attached. Article 13-ter of Decreto-Legge 18 ottobre 2023, n. 145, as consolidated on Normattiva, requires the Ministry of Tourism to assign a codice identificativo nazionale, a national identification code known as the CIN, to residential units used for tourist lettings and short lets, and to hold the related database.

Comma 6 sets out what the holder must do. Anyone offering or granting such a letting must display the CIN on the outside of the building housing the apartment, subject to planning and landscape restrictions, and must state it in every advertisement wherever published. Estate agents and the operators of online portals carry their own duty to show the CIN in the adverts they publish.

Comma 9 attaches the money. Letting a unit that has no CIN is punished with a fine of 800 to 8,000 euro, scaled to the size of the property. Failing to display and state the CIN as required by comma 6 draws a fine of 500 to 5,000 euro for each structure or unit where the breach is established, together with immediate removal of the irregular advertisement. A further 600 to 6,000 euro applies per established breach where a unit lacks the safety requirements the article sets out.

What this changes for a buyer

The tax treatment of an Italian holiday flat now depends on how many other flats the same person already lets short term, which is a fact about the buyer rather than about the building. The CIN is a fact about the building, and its absence is chargeable at 800 euro upwards before any tax question is reached.

Italy is not alone in tightening here. Portugal has let its busiest councils freeze new short let licences, covered in the alojamento local freeze, while Spain's Supreme Court went the other way and struck down the national tourist rental registry, covered in the registry annulment.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here is a view on Italian property as an investment. What the cited sources support is precise: the cap fell from four apartments to two for the 2026 tax year, the published rates are 21% and 26%, the CIN duties sit in article 13-ter, and the fines run from 500 to 8,000 euro depending on the breach. AiMYNDi reads the listing, the financials and the legal paperwork for a specific property, so the questions that decide these numbers are answered before you commit. You can see an example of what a report looks like first.