Italian income tax rates and brackets in 2026

What the IRPEF brackets are in 2026

Three brackets, three rates. Art. 11, comma 1 TUIR says the gross tax is reached "by applying to the total income, net of deductible charges" the following rates¹:

The second row is this year's change. That band was at 35% until 2025, and the 2026 budget law cut it: art. 1, comma 3 of Law 30 December 2025, no. 199 provides that in art. 11, comma 1, letter b) TUIR "the words '35 per cento' are replaced by the following: '33 per cento'"².

Two points of rate across a 22.000 €-wide band is worth up to 440 € a year. For incomes above 200.000 € the legislature took it back: comma 4 of the same article inserts an art. 16-ter, comma 5-bis into the TUIR that reduces by 440 € the detrazione on charges relieved at 19%². Same figure, and not a coincidence.

Mind where you read the table

The "Aliquote e calcolo dell'Irpef" page of the Agenzia delle Entrate, the body that actually administers the tax, still carries the table with 35% and a cumulative tax of 14.140 € at 50.000 € of income, recording the 2026 cut in a note underneath⁸.

Taking that row at face value overstates the tax on every income above 28.000 €. The text that governs is art. 11 TUIR, which Normattiva serves as "in force from 1-1-2026 to 31-12-2026" with 33%, and under those rates the cumulative tax at 50.000 € is 13.700 €, not 14.140 €¹.

By band means in slices

The commonest mistake about Italian brackets is not about the rates but about how they apply. Crossing a threshold does not re-tax the whole income at the higher rate: each rate applies only to the slice of income that falls inside its own band.

On 30.000 € of taxable income you pay 23% on the first 28.000 € (6.440 €) and 33% on the next 2.000 € (660 €): 7.100 € of gross tax. Not 9.900 €, which would be 33% on everything. One euro either side of 28.000 € costs ten cents, not 2.800 €.

The detrazioni: three tables, not one

The rates tell half the story. The gross tax is then reduced by the detrazioni, and art. 11, comma 3 is precise about how: "the net tax is determined by applying to the gross tax, up to the amount of the latter, the detrazioni provided for in articles 12, 13, 15, 16 and 16-bis"¹.

The detrazione that depends on income, the one everybody gets, with no receipts to produce, is in art. 13, and it has three different tables by type of income³.

Employment income (comma 1)

Comma 1.1 adds 65 € where the total income is above 25.000 € and not above 35.000 €³.

Pension income (comma 3)

Comma 3-bis adds 50 € between 25.000 € and 29.000 €: a different window, narrower, and one that closes six thousand euro earlier than the employment one³.

Other income (comma 5)

For self-employment income, small business income and certain other income: 1.265 € up to 5.500 € of total income, then 500 € + 765 € × (28.000 − income) / 22.500 up to 28.000 €, then 500 € × (50.000 − income) / 22.000, reaching zero at 50.000 €. Comma 5-ter adds 50 € between 11.000 € and 17.000 €³.

What the difference is worth

On the same income, with the same gross tax:

For the employee there is also an additional 1.000 € detrazione, covered below, already reflected in the first row. Same income, same gross tax, and more than two thousand euro of difference purely from the type of income.

The step at 15.000 euro

Look at the first table again and try crossing the 15.000 € threshold.

Up to 15.000 € the detrazione is 1.955 €. At 15.000,01 € the second formula takes over, and at the bottom of its own band the product is almost the whole 1.190 €: the detrazione becomes 3.099,88 €. One cent more income, 1.144,88 € more relief.

This is not rounding and not a misreading: the art. 13, comma 1 curve genuinely is not continuous. And the advantage lasts: the second formula stays above the 1.955 € of the band below until roughly 27.508 € of income, not "until about 21.000 €" as several guides state. You can see it by solving 1.910 + 1.190 × (28.000 − R) / 13.000 = 1.955.

The pension table behaves the opposite way: at 8.500 € the second formula gives 700 + 1.255 = 1.955 €, exactly the figure in the band below. There the join is smooth. Two tables that look alike and do different things at their first junction.

One technical detail no guide reports, and it moves the cents: comma 6 of art. 13 provides that where the ratio in the formulas "is greater than zero, it is taken in the first four decimal places"³. It is truncated, not rounded. That is why at 8.500,01 € the pension detrazione is 1.954,87 € rather than a round 1.955 €.

Why the step is not a windfall

Here you have to look past the rates and the detrazioni, because two other things happen at the same point.

The trattamento integrativo of 1.200 €, introduced by art. 1 of Decree-law 5 February 2020, no. 3, has its first branch closing at exactly 15.000 € of total income⁵. At 15.000,01 € it switches off. And the L. 207/2024 payroll top-up drops from 5,3% to 4,8% of income⁴.

The net outcome, for an employee with no dependants and no other deductible expenses:

Earn one euro more and your balance with the state worsens by 130,30 €. No rate table can show this, because it depends on four separate statutes meeting on the same euro.

One important qualification, which is also the limit of that table: between 15.000 € and 28.000 € the trattamento integrativo is not necessarily zero. DL 3/2020 grants it in that band too, but as the shortfall of a list of detrazioni (dependants, interest on pre-2021 mortgages, certain expenses) against the gross tax, capped at 1.200 €⁵. Someone with those expenses recovers part of it. Someone without them does not.

The 75 euros that are worth 1.200 euros

The trattamento integrativo does not go to every income below 15.000 €: the gross tax has to be "higher than the detrazione due under art. 13, comma 1 [...] reduced by 75 euro prorated to the period worked in the year"⁵. This is the so-called capienza test.

Those 75 € look like bookkeeping and are in fact the most elegant thing in the whole provision. L. 207/2024, at comma 2, had raised the art. 13 detrazione from 1.880 € to 1.955 €⁴. On its own, that increase would have failed the capienza test for everyone between the two figures: a tax cut that removes 1.200 €. Comma 3 of the same law subtracts exactly the increase from the comparison⁴.

In practice the trattamento integrativo starts at 8.173,91 € of income rather than at 8.500 €. Within that 326 € band, 1.200 € rests entirely on 75.

The surcharges are a switch

Two local taxes sit on top of IRPEF: the regional surcharge, provided for by art. 50 of D.Lgs. 446/1997⁷, and the municipal surcharge, provided for by art. 1 of D.Lgs. 360/1998⁶. The rates are set by the region and the comune, so they have to be looked up case by case.

What matters is not the rate but the condition. Comma 4 says the surcharge "is determined by applying to the total income [...] and is due if the personal income tax is due for the same year", counting the detrazioni⁶.

It is all or nothing, not a scale:

Twenty-three cents of IRPEF due switch on 172,57 € of local tax. It is also why many comuni set an exemption threshold of their own: without one, the step is at its steepest exactly where incomes are lowest.

The no-tax area, and why it is 8.500 euro

The no-tax area is the income up to which no IRPEF is payable, and in 2026 it is 8.500 € for both employment and pension income. The figure was not picked at a desk: 8.500 € at 23% is exactly 1.955 €, the first-band detrazione. Gross tax and relief cancel out.

There is also a rule of its own, in comma 2 of art. 11: where the total income is made up of "pension income only, not above 7.500 €", plus the main residence and land income up to 185,92 €, "the tax is not due"¹. That threshold is lower than 8.500 €, so in practice the detrazione is what decides.

Marginal rate and effective rate

"I'm in the 33 per cent bracket" conflates two different numbers.

The marginal rate is the one on the band your last earned euro falls into: it tells you what the next euro costs, and it is the number you want when deciding whether extra work or overtime is worth it.

The effective rate is what you actually pay divided by what you earn: it tells you what is left.

On 30.000 € of employment income, with surcharges at 1,23% and 0,8%, the marginal rate is 33% and the effective rate is 16,36%. Less than half. Anyone looking only at the bracket convinces themselves they pay twice what they pay.

A worked example

Taxable employment income: 30.000 €. Regional surcharge 1,23%, municipal 0,8%.

The 1.000 € additional detrazione applies because the income sits between 20.000 € and 32.000 €: L. 207/2024, at art. 1, comma 6, grants it to holders of employment income with total income above 20.000 €, in full up to 32.000 € and then tapering to nothing at 40.000 €⁴.

No payroll top-up, because above 20.000 € none is due. Effective take: 16,36% of income, against a 33% marginal rate.

The same income as a pension would pay 7.072,70 €, which is 2.164,89 € more. The comma 3 table gives only 636,30 € of detrazione, and pensioners get no additional detrazione, because comma 6 addresses holders of employment income "excluding those indicated in letter a) of comma 2" of art. 49 TUIR, and that letter is "pensions of every kind and allowances treated as such"⁴.

From 2027 the article numbers change

Legislative decree 19 June 2026, no. 117 approved a new consolidated income tax code, in force since 4 July 2026⁹. Its provisions, however, apply from 1 January 2027, when articles 1 to 191 of DPR 917/1986 are repealed.

It is a consolidation, not a reform: the rates and the detrazioni stay as they are, the numbering changes, and the articles go from 191 to 377. For the 2026 tax year, the one you are computing, the old TUIR still governs, and that is what every source cited here points to.

From your numbers to the tax

The tables above are the text of the law. To know what they mean for you, you need your taxable income, your type of income and the rates set by your region and your comune: the IRPEF calculator applies the four layers in order and shows every row, from the brackets to the surcharges to the two top-ups.

One warning about the figure to enter: the income IRPEF is computed on is already net of your own INPS contributions, so it is not the gross salary in your contract but the taxable income shown on your Certificazione Unica. Starting from the contractual gross overstates the tax by roughly 9,19% of the base.