You've fallen for a place in Italy. Maybe it's a stone house in a hill town, an apartment with a view of the sea, or a courtyard you can already picture in summer. Buying it is one of the loveliest things you can do for yourself.
It is also nothing like buying property back home. The rules are different, the paperwork is older, the people involved play different roles than you expect, and some of the things that can go wrong stay invisible until someone shows you where to look.
This guide walks you through the whole journey, from the first viewing to the keys in your hand, so you know the shape of what's ahead and the right question to ask at each step. You don't need to become an expert. You need to know what exists.
First, the one number you can't buy without: the codice fiscale
Before you can do almost anything official in Italy, you need a codice fiscale — an Italian tax identification code. You'll be asked for it at the bank, at closing, even to rent an apartment. Nothing moves without it.
It looks cryptic, but it's no magic: it's built from a few letters of your surname and first name, your date of birth, a code for your place of birth, and one final random letter. It's really the Italian equivalent of a social security number. Getting one is simpler than it sounds — there's a form you submit to the Agenzia delle Entrate (the Italian revenue agency), often by registered email, or you can get one through an Italian consulate in your home country. Sort it out early.
Watch the nugget — The codice fiscale, explained →
Step 1: Understand how Italian estate agents actually work
This surprises almost every foreign buyer. Italy has no shared MLS listing system — each agency holds its own properties — and the agent is not a buyer's agent working only for you the way you may be used to. By law the agent here is a mediatore, a mediator who must act in the interests of both sides, and who is paid by both the buyer and the seller.
That has two consequences. First, if you buy a property an agent holds, you'll owe that agent a commission, typically a percentage of the price plus 22% VAT. Second, a good agent working as your property-finder makes you the priority — they'll approach other agencies and ask them to collaborate, which is how they can show you homes that aren't their own listings, and "get the full scoop" on a place from the agent who holds it. That collaboration is generous but never guaranteed: if an agency has run an advert and has a queue of buyers waiting, it won't want to share its commission, and a good finder will simply tell you to go and look at that one directly.
The point is that the right agent is less a salesperson and more, as I like to put it, a blanket — someone protecting you and keeping you informed through a very intimate process. Choose that person as carefully as you choose the house.
Watch the nugget — Why your agent should be more like a blanket →
Watch the nugget — Why property finders are rare in Italy →
Step 2: Learn to read the paperwork — and why due diligence can't be skipped
Listings here can gloss over things that matter enormously: whether the floor plan on file matches the house, whether every room is legally habitable, whether there are unregistered additions. A beautiful photo tells you none of that.
You don't need every document in hand to make an offer — gathering the municipality's building projects and licenses takes time, and an offer is usually made visto e piaciuto, "seen and liked." But read that phrase carefully, because it's exactly where buyers can get caught. By law the seller must deliver a house whose paperwork matches what you actually see, and where everything that has been built was properly authorised — by both the comune (the municipality, which grants the building permits and licenses) and the catasto (the cadastral office). That is real protection — but only if someone actually checks it. If you're buying with a mortgage, the bank's surveyor does part of this for the bank's own reasons; if you're paying cash, with no bank and no one in the middle, that due diligence can quietly fall through — and an unauthorised terrace, or a room that was never approved, becomes your problem after the keys change hands. This is exactly why a good agent who genuinely does their due diligence — or a geometra you bring in yourself — is worth so much: they are the ones who make sure the seller's obligation is actually checked and met before you're committed, not discovered long after.
Step 3: Work out the real costs — they're not the asking price
Here's where people get the biggest shock. The price on the listing is only part of what you'll pay, and for a normal resale your taxes aren't even calculated on it — they're based on the property's cadastral value (the rendita catastale), a "mysterious number" that can be considerably lower than the market price, especially on older homes. New builds work differently — taxed on the purchase price through VAT, not on the cadastral value.
Beyond tax, budget from the start for the agency commission, the notary's fee, registration taxes, and — if you want the structure properly looked at — a geometra or architect. A clear, honest cost calculation before you make an offer is one of the best protections you have.
Step 4: Financing — can foreigners get a mortgage in Italy?
Yes, but expect it to be harder than for a local, and to put down more. If you don't work for an Italian company or have Italian income, banks are more cautious; in some areas, banks used to serving particular communities (for example around the Aviano military base) are more comfortable. As a rough guide, banks in some areas have been lending around 70% of the purchase value to non-residents, meaning roughly 30% comes out of pocket, plus closing costs.
Start those conversations early, and make sure a mortgage condition is written into your offer, so that if the loan genuinely falls through you don't lose your deposit.
Step 5: Making the offer — la proposta is binding, and the deposit is real
A written, accepted offer in Italy — la proposta d'acquisto — is legally binding, not an opening move. You'll set out your price, your timeline and your conditions, and the seller has a window to accept, counter, or refuse. While they hold your offer, you can't go making offers on other homes, because if they say yes, you're committed.
With acceptance you leave a caparra confirmatoria — earnest money, traditionally around 10% of the price. People hear "banks lend 70%" and panic that they need 30% down immediately; in fact only the 10% is needed up front, with the balance due at closing. Why 10%? Because it has to guarantee both sides and, as Federica puts it, hurt a little on both. Done properly it's deposited, not a check someone just holds: if the seller backs out they owe you that sum back and the same again on top; if you back out without a valid reason, you lose it. It can't be a token amount, or "Zio Luigi" comes along, offers €5,000 more, and you've given notice on your rental for nothing. The one escape that returns your money is a mortgage that's refused through no fault of yours — if the conditional clause is in writing.
Step 6: Due diligence — three sets of eyes, and nothing slips past them
Between offer and closing, the checking happens, and in Italy it's genuinely layered. There can be three separate passages, each legally bound to have done its due diligence: your licensed agent (who must bring every relevant fact to your attention, and compare the municipal and cadastral records against the real house); the bank's surveyor if you have a mortgage (a lighter inspection that mainly confirms the papers are in order and the value matches the loan); and finally the notaio. The notary here is nothing like a notary in the US — the role is as high as a judge, and they verify every legal, financial and cadastral detail before the sale can pass.
None of these three can let the sale complete if something is unresolved — if an issue surfaces, everything is blocked until it's put right. The things that surface: old liens or debts on the property (seen via a visura ipotecaria), a floor plan that doesn't match (the planimetria catastale), a neighbor's right of first refusal on agricultural land (prelazione agraria), or a structural problem the paperwork never mentions. And remember that systems — electrics, heating — generally only have to have met the norms of their day, not today's, with the details written into the deed, so know what you're accepting.
Watch the nugget — Who's actually responsible for due diligence →
Step 7: The preliminary contract and signing from overseas
Often there's a contratto preliminare (or compromesso) — a more detailed binding agreement, registered, that sits between the offer and the final deed and carries you through, especially if closing is months away. These are usually signed in originals — some offices, such as the Agenzia delle Entrate, are only starting to accept digital signatures, so you often still sign on paper — in two copies, and an agent in the middle can usually register it for you.
Watch the nugget — What the preliminary contract really does →
If you can't be in Italy to sign, a power of attorney (procura) lets someone sign in your name. There's a deeper reason this comes up so often, too: by law you can only be bound by a contract in a language you genuinely understand — yet the official deed is in Italian, because the agency that registers it wants Italian. So a foreign buyer really has three choices: understand the Italian well enough to sign it yourself, have a sworn translation prepared, or give a power of attorney to someone who understands Italian and signs on your behalf after confirming that you understood what you agreed to. At closing you're declaring you understand 100% of what you're signing, much of it dense legalese, and for long contracts the power of attorney is usually the cheaper, smoother route. The person signing takes on none of your obligations — they're only confirming you understood. One thing to plan for from the very start: if the power of attorney has to be issued overseas — at an Italian consulate, or locally with an apostille and a sworn translation — it's a slower, more involved process than arranging it in Italy, so set it in motion early, not up against the closing date. If you ask an Italian friend to do it, make sure they genuinely understand they're signing on your behalf, and let the notary clarify it for them.
Watch the nugget — Why you might need a power of attorney →
Step 8: Closing day — signing the rogito in front of the notaio
The sale completes with the rogito, the final deed, signed in front of the notaio (the notary). The notary confirms there are no blocking issues, handles the taxes, and makes the transfer official. This is the day the property becomes yours.
Watch the nugget — The notary is basically a judge →
Step 9: Decide honestly how much help you need
You can do a great deal of this yourself, especially armed with the right questions. But there will almost certainly be a moment where you're out of your depth — a document whose legal meaning isn't what a translation suggests, a decision you can't easily undo. There's no shame in getting help. There's only shame in losing far more than you meant to.
Three honest paths tend to work:
- Do it yourself, with good information and the right questions.
- Bring in a professional for the parts that feel uncertain — a commercialista for tax, a lawyer for the legal side, a geometra for the structure.
- Have someone beside you the whole way — a trusted property-finder who follows you from the first viewing to the keys.
A free place to start
If you'd like the shortest possible version of the traps above, I put the eight that catch foreign buyers most often — and the exact question that catches each one — into a short free guide. Get "The 8 Surprises That Catch Foreign Buyers Off Guard in Italy" here →
And if you'd like the whole journey in detail, with the tools I use myself — the cost calculator, the glossary, the checklists — that's my map, Living the Italian Dream. You can meet Federica and me there and see how the whole thing works — and when you'd rather simply have someone carry the weight for you, that's what my partner Federica does.
Sabine De Vito · Infinicity Real Estate
This guide is general information drawn from years of real transactions, not legal or tax advice for your specific purchase. Tax rates, mortgage terms and procedures change and vary by region and property type — always confirm the details of your own purchase with a qualified professional.