Italian rental contracts: how the transitional lease works

Italy has four main kinds of residential lease: the 4+4, at a rent you and the tenant agree freely; the 3+2, at an agreed rent set by local tables, the canone concordato; the transitional lease, of up to eighteen months; and the short let, of up to 30 days. There is also a lease for university students. Which one you use decides how long the home is committed and how freely you set the rent.

The transitional lease, the contratto transitorio, is the one for a few months: at most eighteen months, only for a documented temporary need of one of the parties, from the list in the council’s local agreement, and it ends on its own on the date written in it. In councils with more than ten thousand inhabitants, such as Turin and Milan, its rent sits within the bands of that agreement. It makes sense when your home has people who stay a few months and you don’t want to commit it for years.

Rules change with new decrees and local agreements: before you sign, check the sources linked here (they’re in Italian), and for tax, ask an Italian accountant, a commercialista.

Italian rental contracts at a glance

Every residential lease in Italy has to be in writing: Law 431 of 1998, the law on residential leases, requires it for the lease to be valid. These are the types you’ll come across.

The 4+4: a rent agreed freely

The standard lease. It lasts at least four years and then renews for four more. At the first expiry you can refuse the renewal only for the reasons the law lists, such as needing the home for yourself or a close relative, or selling it under certain conditions, and you have to give notice in advance. At the second expiry either side can propose new terms or end the lease, by registered letter at least six months ahead; if nobody writes, it renews on the same terms. The tenant can leave at any time for serious reasons, with six months’ notice.

The 3+2: the agreed rent, or canone concordato

It lasts at least three years; at the first expiry, if you don’t agree on renewing it, it’s extended by law for two more, hence “3+2”, and here too you can refuse only for the reasons the law lists. The rent isn’t free: it sits between the minimum and maximum values that the council’s local agreement, signed by the landlords’ and the tenants’ associations, sets zone by zone. In exchange come tax advantages: a reduced cedolare secca rate in the councils the Revenue Agency lists, Turin and Milan among them, and, depending on the council, a lighter IMU, the municipal property tax. The conditions for the reduced rate are on the Revenue Agency’s page on the cedolare secca.

The transitional lease: up to eighteen months

For a temporary need, backed by documents. It’s the subject of the rest of this guide.

The student lease

From six months to three years, in councils with a university and in those nearby, when the tenant is enrolled on a degree or post-graduate course in a council other than the one where they’re resident.

The short let: up to 30 days

Stays of up to thirty days for people who are travelling. It has rules of its own: a let of no more than 30 days in the year with the same guest doesn’t have to be registered, but the home needs the CIN, the national identification code, and every guest has to be identified and registered with the police. Everything it involves is in Airbnb rules in Italy.

What a transitional lease is

It’s provided for by Article 5 of Law 431 of 1998. Its conditions, from the length and the reasons to the rent and the model contract, are set by the ministerial decree of 16 January 2017, published in the Official Journal, the Gazzetta Ufficiale, on 15 March 2017. The model is compulsory: transitional leases are signed only on the standard contract annexed to the decree, which the local agreements take up.

How long it lasts and how it ends

Up to eighteen months. The length is written in the contract, and on that date the lease ends with no need for notice: it doesn’t renew itself. The tenant can leave earlier for serious reasons, by registered letter and with the notice stated in the contract.

The delicate point is another one. If the contract doesn’t follow the decree’s rules on the reason, the documents, the rent and the model, it’s converted into a 4+4. And if the reason was yours, say a home you need for your son or daughter, and at the end you don’t use it for that purpose within six months without good reason, the tenant can ask for the lease to be restored or for compensation.

The reasons the law accepts

The decree speaks of particular needs of the landlord or the tenant, and gives examples: moving for work, study, apprenticeships and training, looking for a job. The exact list is in each council’s local agreement, and a need of either party is enough. It has to be written into the contract and, for leases longer than thirty days, backed by documents attached to it.

In Turin, the local agreement in force since 1 May 2024 includes, among others:

• for the tenant: a temporary transfer of their place of work, a fixed-term job in a council other than the one where they live, or a council home allocated to them, or a home they’ve bought, that becomes available within eighteen months;
• for the landlord: a temporary transfer for work, a return from abroad, waiting for permits to renovate;
• other cases, such as marriage, separation or a home needed by a family member, with a certificate from the associations that signed the agreement.

If you live abroad and plan to come back within eighteen months, that’s one of the landlord’s reasons in the Turin list.

In Milan, the 2023 local agreement includes, among others, a temporary transfer of the place of work, looking for work for people not resident in Milan, an apprenticeship or vocational training, separation, and caring for a relative. For cases outside the list, or hard to document, the parties are assisted by the associations that signed the agreement.

The rent: in the cities it isn’t free

In councils with more than ten thousand inhabitants, the rent on a transitional lease is set within the minimum and maximum values that the local agreement lays down for each zone. Turin and Milan are among them: the rent is calculated, not chosen.

In Turin the values are per square metre, zone by zone, in the tables annexed to the agreement, and the agreement also takes the furniture into account. In Milan the transitional lease follows the same bands as the canone concordato, and the council offers a calculator to give you an idea.

If you sign without the assistance of an association, the agreements require a certificate, issued by one of the associations that signed them, stating that the contract complies. In Turin the form is among the annexes on the council’s page on agreed-rent contracts.

What you need to be in order

1. The contract on the standard model, the decree’s or the local agreement’s.
2. The reason written into the contract, with the documents attached: for example, the employer’s letter or the employment contract.
3. The rent within the bands of the agreement, and the certificate if the agreement asks for it.
4. Registration with the Revenue Agency, the Agenzia delle Entrate, within thirty days of signing, or of the start date if that comes first: it applies to every lease of more than thirty days in the year, as the Agency’s information sheet explains.
5. If the tenant is a citizen of a country outside the EU, a notice to the police within 48 hours of handing over the home, even if the contract is registered. In the other cases, registration takes the place of that notice: the rule is explained by the Questura of Genoa.

If you live abroad, points 4 and 5 are the ones with deadlines counted in days: agree beforehand who takes care of them.

Residence, CIN and cedolare secca

Transitional, 4+4 or short let: which suits you

• A transitional lease commits the home for up to eighteen months, one tenant at a time, at a rent within the agreement’s bands, and needs a real, documented reason.
• A 4+4 commits the home for years to the same tenant, at a rent the two of you agree.
• A short let leaves the home free whenever you want it, with guests who change every few days: more gross income and much more work, from the CIN to the cleaning at every changeover.

A transitional lease makes sense if the home is near a university, a hospital, an office district or a building site, if it’s furnished and ready to live in, and if you want one tenant at a time without committing for four years. It doesn’t make sense if the tenant’s need can’t be documented. The full comparison is in short or long-term rental: how to decide. In Turin and Milan we often suggest alternating: short lets in the months with events, a few months of transitional lease in the quiet ones.

How we manage it

The transitional lease is, with the student lease, the contract we use most in mid-term rentals. We list the home on Spotahome, Uniplaces and HousingAnywhere and put it forward to companies and universities in the city. We check income and references, prepare the contract on the right model with the reason and the documents, and register it. We write the check-in and check-out reports, with photos of the state of the home, and deal with the tenant for the whole contract. Every month you get the statement: bookings, expenses and our commission, line by line; how and when payments are made is agreed with you and written into the contract.

From you we need the furnished home, the property’s documents, including the energy performance certificate, the APE, and the lowest rent you’re willing to accept. For 4+4 and 3+2 leases there’s long-term rental management. If you want to know whether your home suits a let of a few months, and what it could earn under each of the three options, start with the free estimate.