Italy Proposes Huge Tax Break to Retirees Who Move to Southern Regions

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Italy’s current nationalist, far-right party is hoping to bring retirees to southern Italy for a decade of tax-free retirement. “We’re trying to provide an incentive for the transfer of older adults (toward the south),” Alberto Brambilla, economic advisor to deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, told La Repubblica.

According to Italian news reports both local as well as foreign pensioners would be eligible for the project, which aims to repopulate the rapidly declining southern regions of Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria. To be eligible, retirees must move into villages and towns with a population that has declined by 20% or more within the last decade, and with a population less than 4,000 residents.

Although dual citizenship with Italy is not a requirement for foreigners under this proposal, those individuals who hold citizenship with Italy would be able to stay in Italy without a Visa and would be eligible for Italian Healthcare Benefits as well.

The proposal is far from becoming law, however, something to certainly keep in mind for Americans of Italian decent who’d love to retire in their ancestral homeland!