Check whether your income/savings clear the threshold, and compute regime-forfettario tax + INPS step by step. A guide, not tax advice: get the exact figure from a commercialista; verify rates on agenziaentrate.gov.it and inps.it.
Route
Required income
€8500/yr
Your income
€30.000
Renewal income threshold ~8,500/yr (community). The APPLICATION needs a Camera di Commercio parameters certificate (~21,304). Verify current.
Important: only officially declared income counts. Bank movements and a portfolio alone do NOT count as income.
The coefficient depends on your activity (ATECO). INPS Gestione Separata in 2025-2026 is 26.07% (or 24% if already insured) and is deducted from the imposta base. Estimate only - get exact figures from a commercialista; rates on agenziaentrate.gov.it / inps.it.
Every motive has its own bar, but almost all of them grow from one base - the annual assegno sociale, the INPS social allowance. Its amount is the ruler of migration thresholds: when it is indexed in January, income requirements rise with it. Community benchmarks: lavoro autonomo - roughly 8,400-8,500 euro a year for renewal, with the application tied to the Camera di Commercio economic-parameters certificate; digital nomad - about 25,000-33,000 euro a year depending on employment form; residenza elettiva - around 31,000 euro of net passive income plus 30,000-50,000 in the bank. All figures are time-sensitive and vary by consulate - verify current ones; this is a guide, not advice. How the base itself works - in assegno sociale for foreigners. The family-reunification threshold (assegno sociale + 50% per family member) has its own family-income calculator.
For the self-employed the calculator mirrors the forfettario regime. First, revenue is multiplied by the profitability coefficient of your ATECO code (community: about 78 percent for many services, about 67 for IT codes) - that gives the tax base. INPS contributions are paid on it: for the self-employed without a professional fund that is usually the gestione separata, around a quarter of the base (chats cite about 26 percent). Then paid contributions are deducted from the base and the tax itself - 5 percent in the first years for a new activity (nuova attivita), or 15 - applies to the rest. A chat-sourced nuance: year one usually has no contributions, but year two brings the balance for year one plus the advance for the current year. The full breakdown with typical mistakes - in self-employed taxes: forfettario and INPS.
The detail people trip on most: the questura looks not at your invoice total but at the final income line of the tax return (reddito complessivo) - after the ATECO coefficient and net of INPS contributions paid. With a 67 percent coefficient the same required income means notably more turnover than with 78. That is why the calculator compares the computed base, not revenue, against the threshold. If you are still choosing between remote-work routes, start with DN vs lavoro autonomo; passive-income bars are covered in the residenza elettiva requirements. An Italian salary is computed differently - gross to net lives in the net-salary calculator.
There is no single figure - the bar depends on the motive. Per the community: lavoro autonomo - roughly 8,400-8,500 euro a year for renewal (the application follows the Camera di Commercio parameters certificate); digital nomad - about 25,000-33,000 euro a year; residenza elettiva - around 31,000 euro of passive income plus a savings cushion. The base ruler for many thresholds is the annual assegno sociale, indexed every January. Community benchmarks - verify current figures; not legal advice.
Per community experience the main load is not the tax itself but INPS contributions: for the self-employed without a professional fund it is usually the gestione separata, around a quarter of the tax base (chats cite about 26 percent). The base itself is computed not from full revenue but via the profitability coefficient of your ATECO code, and the forfettario tax - 5 or 15 percent - applies to that. Exact rates depend on the year and activity code - work it out with a commercialista and verify on inps.it and agenziaentrate.gov.it.
A simplified tax regime for the self-employed with modest turnover (the community cites a limit around 85,000 euro a year). Instead of the progressive IRPEF scale, income is taxed at a flat rate: 5 percent in the first years for a new activity (nuova attivita), then 15. The tax base is computed via a fixed coefficient per ATECO code (about 78 percent for many services, about 67 for IT codes). Conditions change periodically - check agenziaentrate.gov.it.
It depends on the motive. For family reunification the threshold is built from the annual assegno sociale plus 50 percent per family member joining, and the combined income of cohabiting family members counts - there is a dedicated family-income calculator for that math. On residenza elettiva the community reports spouses' incomes are usually added up, but the total must cover each applicant. Verify your questura's and consulate's requirements separately - this is not legal advice.
The logic is the same: the questura looks at provable annual income, only payslips (busta paga) and the tax return replace invoices and the ATECO coefficient. To estimate what an Italian gross salary leaves in hand and which contributions are withheld, use the separate net-salary calculator. For a digital nomad employed by a foreign company the community reports a higher bar than for the self-employed - around 33,000 euro a year. Figures change - verify current ones.
In one group, I was asked to share an unpleasant situation. Six years ago, I registered a partita IVA as forfettario without residency. I worked like that for a year and a half, then I obtained residency. Now I am facing a tax audit, and I will have to pay the difference between the regimes, plus fines and penalties. Do not repeat my mistakes.
The tax rate is 15% under the simplified system, 5% for the first five years, social contributions are about 24%, but from 78% of income.
Rephrased from open chats of Russian-speaking expats in Italy, with names and identifying details removed. This is lived experience, not legal advice: check rules and figures on the official sites.
Short answers from community experience are on the FAQ page.
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