Luca: I read all the time about people that don’t want to come to Italy because of the wealth tax. There was this lady that wrote on Expats in Italy, the Facebook group, that she wouldn’t come to Italy because she had calculated that the wealth tax would exceed her annual salary.

Anna: Oh my God.

Luca: Yeah, it’s, it’s not true. So that’s how the idea for this podcast came about.

Let’s start with this complex, uh, and scary subject, in, under 15 minutes.

Anna: However, and welcome back to the Magic Towns Italy podcast. I am Anna here with my co-host Luca, and today we’re talking about a topic that causes a lot of confusion and worry for internationals in Italy, which is the so-called wealth tax on money held abroad.

Luca: [00:01:00] Yes. This is a topic that a lot of people ask about and there is a lot of misinformation about. So we have to tackle this. People are scared by a term like wealth tax and we’re here to clear the air with facts and um, try to make it interesting in under 15 minutes.

Anna: We’ll break down what Italy’s, foreign wealth tax, really is, uh, talk about, you know, the common myths and give you a few examples so you can understand everything better.

Luca: By the end of today’s show, you will know that the idea of a huge Italian wealth tax is a myth. What the actual numbers are and what kind of assets are exempt from this tax. And we’ll also give a few examples I like this one how having 5 million euro or dollars in a foreign bank account could result in a tax that’s cheaper than than dinner for two.

Anna: Okay, so, uh, one thing I’ve heard over and over is [00:02:00] that if you keep money abroad or transfer money into Italy, the government will whack it with a 10% or 20% tax. Is there any truth to this?

Luca: The quick answer is no. There is no generic 10 or 20% remittance tax on money that is sent to Italy. There is no automatic haircut on incoming funds. In 2014, there was a shortlived, government proposal. This was like three governments ago, of course.

But the proposal was basically dead as as soon as it was discussed. This came up in the, uh, years after the great financial crisis when Italy had a, uh, like many other European countries of a huge debt problem, and they were trying to shore up their finances. Anyway, for people listening to this in 2026, it is absolutely untrue that Italy will tax, or the Italy will intercept even a single euro of money coming from abroad.

Anna: Okay, so if I move, [00:03:00] say, 50,000 euros of my saving from my home country to my Italian bank, I won’t wake up to find 10,000 missing. Right?

Luca: That’s exactly right. You’re going to wake up and find 50 K in the bank account. What is more, if those 50k are your savings that are already taxed, uh, Italy doesn’t tax the fact that you moved them or the fact that you have it. There’s no tax on savings per se.

Anna: Okay. That is a huge relief for a lot of listeners, I’m sure. People in expat forums always panic about some mysterious wealth tax.

Luca: Absolutely. As a myth, it is a remarkably sturdy one. So let’s clarify this. Italy levies a wealth tax on foreign assets, so on cash and financial instruments held abroad. The taxes name is IVAFE. You don’t need to remember the acronym, but it translates to tax on the value of foreign financial [00:04:00] assets.

And this is what people are actually talking about when they mention a wealth tax on money kept abroad.

Anna: Okay, so let’s talk like more deeply about that. Like what is it, how much is it, why Italy has it, like how much is this tax actually?

Luca:<...