Italy · Tax information · Information, not legal advice — as at 30 August 2026
The value you declare when you inherit in Italy — and the tax you pay when you sell
Italy inverts the logic of its neighbours. For a building, the succession declaration can use the official cadastral value — usually far below market — and that low value rarely costs anything later, because Italy generally does not charge capital-gains tax on the resale of a building that came to you by inheritance. So for houses and apartments the low official value tends to be the right answer. The care is needed elsewhere: building land plays by different rules, and the value still drives the property-transfer taxes paid with the declaration.
The Italian twist
In Portugal, Spain and France, the value declared at the succession becomes the base for capital-gains tax at the later sale — so a low value now usually means more tax later. Italy largely breaks that link for buildings: in broad terms, a building sold after being acquired by inheritance is outside the Italian capital-gains charge on resale. That is why Italian practice comfortably declares buildings at the revalued cadastral value (valore catastale) — a formula figure usually far below the market price — without storing up a capital-gains problem.
What the declared value still drives
The value is not free of consequences. It feeds the succession-tax computation — though the per-class allowances (a million euros per spouse or child before the 4% rate begins) mean close family on ordinary estates often pay little — and it drives the property-transfer taxes (the mortgage and cadastral duties) that are paid when the declaration is filed, which is precisely why the lower cadastral value is worth using where the law allows it.
Where the care is needed
Building land (area fabbricabile) does not enjoy the building exemption — there, a later sale can be taxed on the gain measured from the declared value, so the Portugal/Spain/France logic returns and the declared value deserves a decision. Foreign tax follows its own rules too: an heir taxed at home on the same sale gets no help from the Italian exemption. And the declaration itself is filed within twelve months, by us as intermediary, which is exactly when these questions are asked. Where the numbers call for advice, we say so plainly and brief a suitable tax adviser precisely.
What that looks like in figures (illustrative only)
Say a flat worth about €250,000 on the market carries a cadastral value of €100,000. Declared at the cadastral figure, the transfer taxes are 3% of €100,000 — €3,000. Declared at market, they would be €7,500. And unlike Portugal, Spain or France, the low figure costs nothing later: an inherited building resold is outside the Italian capital-gains rules whatever value went in, so there is no future bill to weigh against the €4,500 saved. The exception is the one that matters — building land gets neither shelter: no cadastral value to declare, and a later sale taxed on the gain from whatever was declared. On land, the arithmetic flips to the Portuguese one.
The same trade-off, country by country: Portugal · Spain · France — and the tax questions to ask before you list an inherited property abroad.
(Information, not tax advice; mechanics stated in broad terms as at the date above — the building/land boundary and the transfer-tax rates are exactly the sort of detail that changes and must be checked on the day.)