A freelancer who buys and starts using €10,000 of equipment in 2026, then moves to Italy's flat tax in January hands back €1,760 of the VAT they deducted

A designer working under Italy’s ordinary VAT rules buys €10,000 of equipment this year and deducts the €2,200 of VAT on it, as anyone charging VAT may. On 1 January 2027 they move to the flat-tax regime, the forfettario. €1,760 of that VAT goes back to the State, added to what the 2026 VAT return says they owe. They keep €440.12

The figure assumes equipment that counts as depreciable for VAT purposes, deducted in full and used only for the business. Bought in 2023, the same equipment sends back €440; bought in 2022 or earlier, nothing.32

Why deducted VAT goes back

A flat-rate freelancer charges no VAT on sales in Italy and has no right to deduct VAT on purchases. VAT deducted under the ordinary rules was deducted because the goods would serve taxed sales. The flat-tax law therefore says the move “comporta la rettifica della detrazione”, a correction of the deduction, made in the return for the last year under the ordinary rules.41

The Agency’s instructions for the VAT return put it in line VF70, with a row of its own in the appendix’s worksheet: “Rettifica per regime forfetario”. VAT owed on the annual return is due on 16 March. For a switch on 1 January 2027 the return is the one for 2026.5

Fifths of the VAT, for the years left

For a depreciable good the correction runs over five years: the year it enters service and the four after. It is worked in “tanti quinti dell’imposta quanti sono gli anni mancanti”, as many fifths of the VAT as there are years left in those five. A 2023 Agency ruling restates it in the same words.36

Equipment that went into service in 2026 has 2027 to 2030 left, four fifths. In service in 2023, it has only 2027, one fifth. Equipment from 2022 finished its five years in 2026 and is out of reach.2

The share does not depend on the price. Four fifths of the VAT, whatever was spent:

The rule changes text on 1 January

The switch lands on the day the rule itself changes. The paragraph of the VAT decree that governed a change of regime, comma 3 of article 19-bis.2, was repealed by a December 2025 decree, and a later decree-law made the repeal apply from 1 January 2027, keeping corrections already under way. The same day, the 1972 VAT decree gives way to a consolidated VAT code, the testo unico.78910

Neither change removes the correction. The flat-tax law still requires it, and the code says a reference to a repealed provision is read as a reference to the article that replaces it: here article 59, whose paragraphs on first use and on fifths repeat the old ones word for word. The old comma 3 limited the correction to goods not yet used and to depreciable goods less than four years past entering service. Under both texts every row in the dataset comes out to the same cent.1102

Small purchases and unused stock

Goods costing no more than €516.45 each do not count as depreciable here, nor do goods whose income-tax depreciation rate is above 25% a year. For those the correction looks only at their first use. Already in use before the switch, a €516.45 item sends nothing back. At one cent more, and a depreciation rate of 25% or less, it is depreciable: €90.90 of its €113.62 of VAT goes back. The 1972 decree wrote the line as a million lire; the new code writes €516.45, which puts every price in whole cents on the same side.3102

Goods and services bought but not yet used when the flat tax starts are the opposite case: the VAT on them goes back in full.910

The rule runs the other way too. Someone leaving the flat tax for the ordinary rules makes the same correction in their favour, in the return for their first ordinary year.15

What this does not settle

Whether a particular asset is depreciable for this purpose turns on its depreciation rate, which a 1988 ministerial table sets class by class. That table could not be opened here, so no asset class is named as falling on either side; the figures hold only for equipment rated at 25% a year or less. VAT deducted only in part, as on cars, or equipment used partly in private life, returns the same share of a smaller deduction. Buildings run on a ten-year period and are left out.310

The count of years left includes 2027, the first flat-tax year. That is how the old comma 3 reads: it still corrects a good that entered service in 2023, and the only year left for it is 2027. Of the Agency documents read for this piece, the 2026 VAT return instructions, a 2023 ruling and the titles of its circolari 4 to 9 of 2026, none works the count through year by year or deals with the January change. A credit already standing in the last ordinary return, and what the flat tax saves in other ways, are outside these figures. This is what the rules produce, not a view on whether to switch.962