CILA, SCIA, Permesso di Costruire and the Landscape Authorisation: Which Procedure for Which Works

Picture an owner standing in a half-empty room with a list in hand: a new bathroom, a repaired beam, a larger window. Each item on the list will fall into one of the groups described below.

This article sets out what the national building code and the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape provide for each procedure, who decides, and the time limits the texts state. It rests on the texts read on 30 September 2026. It does not assess any particular project. Regional laws and municipal rules add to the national texts it describes.

How does the law sort building works?

The building code defines the categories. The categories are ordinary maintenance, extraordinary maintenance, restoration and conservative restoration (restauro e risanamento conservativo), building restructuring (ristrutturazione edilizia), new construction and urban restructuring. Building restructuring includes demolition and reconstruction.^[1] The definitions prevail over local planning instruments and building regulations.^[2] The procedure follows the category, so a description of the work in these terms comes first, and the classification of a particular project is a matter for the technician and the municipality.

The table sets the five routes side by side: how each begins, when the works may start, and what the sanction is for skipping it.

Which works need no title at all?

Some works are carried out without any building title, subject to municipal planning rules and to the sector rules that still apply: seismic, safety, fire, hygiene, energy efficiency, hydrogeological protection and the heritage and landscape provisions. The list includes ordinary maintenance, the removal of architectural barriers that do not involve external lifts or change the outline of the building, removable transparent glazed panels on balconies and loggias (VEPA), and sun-protection structures of awnings and pergolas with retractable cover.^[9][10] It also takes in some temporary and agricultural works, external paving within the permeability index, and play areas and garden furniture.^[9]

Some earlier lettered items have been repealed. The list as read on Normattiva is the version in force from 11 December 2025.^[11] Regions with ordinary statute may extend the list, but not to works that need a permit or the SCIA instead of a permit.^[12] Where the law requires, the owner must file a cadastral update even for free works.^[13]

What is a CILA?

Works that appear on none of the lists for free activity, the SCIA or the permit can be carried out after a notice of the start of works to the administration, also by electronic means, respecting planning instruments, building regulations and sector rules.^[14][15] The owner sends the plan and the notice, sworn by a qualified technician. The technician attests, under his or her own responsibility, that the works comply with the approved planning instruments and building regulations, are compatible with the seismic and energy rules, and do not involve the structural parts of the building. The notice also names the firm that will carry out the works.^[16]

Where the notice of end of works comes with the cadastral update, the administration passes it to the Agenzia delle Entrate.^[17] Regions may extend the CILA to other works and regulate checks.^[18] The text states no waiting period before works start and no time limit for the administration.

If no notice is filed the sanction is €1,000, reduced by two thirds if the notice is filed spontaneously while the works are in progress.^[19] Where consents from other bodies are needed, the owner may ask the SUE to obtain them before filing or together with the notice. If the request is made together with the notice, works may start only after the SUE communicates that the consents have been obtained.^[20]

What is a SCIA, and what is the version that replaces a permit?

Extraordinary maintenance affecting the structural parts or the façades of the building is carried out by SCIA, in conformity with planning instruments and building regulations. So are restoration and conservative restoration affecting the structural parts, and building restructuring other than the cases described in the permit section below.^[21] Variations to permits that do not affect planning parameters or volumes, do not change use or category, do not alter the outline of a protected building and do not breach the permit’s conditions are also done by SCIA, and form part of the procedure of the main permit.^[22]

Variations to permits that are not “essential variations” may be done by SCIA and notified at the end of the works with a professional’s attestation, provided the consents required for landscape and other constraints have been obtained.^[23] Regions with ordinary statute may widen or narrow the field of application.^[24] The owner may in any case ask for a permit instead of filing a SCIA, without paying the construction contribution, subject to a condition in the building code.^[25]

The SCIA is governed by a general law, Law 241/1990. The activity may start from the date of filing, and the administration has 30 days for building SCIAs, and 60 for others, a period that a later paragraph of art. 19 of Law 241/1990 reduces to 30.^[26][27] Within that time it can prohibit continuation if it finds the conditions lacking.^[27] After that time it can still act, in the cases that another article of the same law sets out.^[28] A false attestation is punished with imprisonment of one to three years.^[29]

The variant that stands in for a permit

In place of a permit, the SCIA can be used for restructuring of the kind that otherwise needs one, for new building or urban restructuring governed by detailed plans, and for new building carried out directly under general planning instruments with detailed provisions.^[30] These works are subject to the construction contribution.^[30] The owner files the notice with a detailed report by a qualified designer at least 30 days before the start of works.^[31] It is effective for three years, and the unfinished part needs a new notice.^[32]

If the property is subject to a constraint that the municipality itself protects, the 30 days run from the grant of the relevant consent. If the constraint is protected by another body, the municipality convenes a conference of services unless the favourable opinion is attached, and the 30 days run from its outcome.^[33] At the end, the designer or a technician issues a final test certificate.^[34]

A SCIA does not replace a landscape authorisation. Works under either kind of SCIA on property subject to historic-artistic, landscape-environmental or hydrogeological protection require the prior opinion or authorisation required by those rules.^[35]

Which works need a building permit?

The building code subjects the following to a permit. New building and urban restructuring come first.^[36] Next is building restructuring that produces a building wholly or partly different from the previous one, where it also changes the overall volume or, for buildings in historic zones (zone A), changes the use. Works that change the outline, volume or façades of buildings protected under the heritage code need a permit too. So does restructuring that involves demolition and reconstruction in certain areas protected under the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, or restoration of collapsed buildings there, where the outline, façades, footprint or planning-volume characteristics change or volume increases.^[36] The regions decide by law which changes of use, with or without physical work, require a permit or a SCIA, and they may add further works.^[37][38]

How long does the permit procedure take?

The application, signed by a person entitled to apply, goes to the SUE, with the designer’s declaration that the project complies with planning instruments, building regulations and sector rules.^[39] The SUE gives the applicant the name of the person in charge of the procedure within 10 days.^[40] Within 60 days of the application, the person in charge completes the investigation and formulates a proposed decision.^[41] That time may be interrupted once, within 30 days of the application, for a request for documents, or suspended for a request for minor changes.^[42][43]

The final decision is taken within 30 days of the proposal, or 40 if the applicant has been notified of the reasons that stand in the way of granting the application.^[44] In projects particularly complex according to the person in charge’s reasoned resolution, the 60-day and interruption periods are doubled.^[45] If the deadline for the final decision passes without a decision and without a reasoned refusal, silence gives consent.^[46] For properties subject to hydrogeological, environmental, landscape or cultural constraints the rules on conferences of services apply instead, with an exception where the formal consents for the same project have already been obtained and are still valid.^[46] Whoever knowingly makes false declarations in the application is punishable by imprisonment of one to three years.^[47]

How long does a permit last?

The permit states the time limits. Works must start within one year of the grant and be completed within three years of starting. The permit lapses for the part not carried out unless an extension was requested before the deadline, and the part not completed needs a new permit unless it could be done by SCIA. These rules are in force from 1 March 2026.^[48] The permit also lapses on the entry into force of conflicting planning provisions, unless works have begun and are completed within three years of the start.^[49]

When is a landscape authorisation needed, and who grants it?

The landscape authorisation is the one required by the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape. The sections below cover when it applies, how it relates to the title, who decides and when, which works are exempt, the simplified procedure, and what follows when works are done without it.

When does it apply?

The Code forbids owners, possessors and holders of property and areas of landscape interest from destroying them or making changes that harm the protected values.^[50] The protected areas are those protected by law and those covered by a declaration of public interest.^[51] The areas protected by law include, among others, coastal strips 300 metres deep from the shoreline, a 300-metre strip around lakes, a 150-metre strip on each side of rivers and streams listed in the official register, mountains above 1,200 metres for the Apennine chain, national and regional parks, and areas covered by forests and woods.^[52] Certain areas are excluded: those that on 6 September 1985 were zoned as A or B or fell within certain built-up areas.^[53]

Owners must submit the project and refrain from starting works until they have the authorisation.^[50]

How does it relate to the building title?

The landscape authorisation is an autonomous act, and a precondition of the permit or other title for the building works. Except in the cases covered by the rule on works done without it, described below, it cannot be granted after the works have been carried out, even partly.^[54] It is effective for five years. Works begun within that time may be finished within one further year. The five years run from the day the building title becomes effective, unless the delay is the applicant’s.^[54]

Who decides, and how long does it take?

The Region decides, after obtaining the Soprintendenza’s opinion, which is binding.^[55] Where the landscape plan has been approved and the Ministry has confirmed the municipal planning instruments’ adaptation, the opinion is mandatory but not binding.^[55] The Region may delegate the function to provinces, associations of local authorities, park bodies or municipalities that have the necessary structures.^[56]

Within 40 days of receiving the application, the competent authority checks the documents and the conformity of the proposal with the declaration of public interest and the landscape plan, and sends the papers to the Soprintendenza with a report and a proposal.^[57] The Soprintendenza gives its opinion within 45 days of receipt. The authority then decides in line with the opinion within 20 days of receiving it.^[58] If 60 days pass from the Soprintendenza’s receipt of the papers without an opinion, the authority decides on the application anyway.^[59] If the authority does not decide within its time, the applicant can ask the Region to act in its place, and the Region must do so within 60 days.^[60] The authorisation can be challenged before the administrative court by associations with a collective interest in the environment and by anyone with an interest.^[61]

Which works do not need it?

The Code excludes the authorisation, among others, for ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, structural consolidation and conservative restoration that do not alter the state of the places or the external appearance of buildings. It also excludes agro-forestry activity that does not permanently alter the state of the places with buildings or civil works, and certain forestry operations.^[62]

The DPR 31/2017 regulation adds a list of works excluded in protected areas, in its Annex A.^[63] It has 31 items in the text in force from 24 May 2026, for example interior works that do not alter the external appearance, repainting and re-roofing in keeping with the existing materials and colour plans, and static consolidation that does not change morphology, materials, volume or height. Some items are excluded only where the property is not protected as a landscape asset in the cases described in each item.^[63] Annex B lists works of minor scale subject to the simplified procedure.^[64]

What is the simplified procedure?

Works listed in Annex B follow a simplified procedure.^[64][65] The application is made on a simplified form with a simplified landscape report by a qualified technician, and is filed with the SUE where the works are building works.^[66][67] The procedure ends within 60 days of receipt by the authority.^[68]

The authority requests any further documents once only, within 10 days. Within 20 days of receiving the application, or the documents, it sends the Soprintendenza a reasoned proposal to grant. The Soprintendenza gives its binding opinion within 20 days, and the authority then adopts the decision within 10 days.^[69] If the Soprintendenza’s opinion is not given in time, silence-assent forms and the authority grants the authorisation.^[70] A request to renew an authorisation that expired no more than one year earlier, for works not (or not wholly) carried out and unchanged from the earlier project, also follows the simplified procedure.^[71]

What if the works were done without it?

The offender must in principle restore the place. The competent authority may ascertain landscape compatibility after the event only in three cases: works that did not create usable surface or volume or increase existing ones; use of materials differing from the authorisation; and works that amount to ordinary or extraordinary maintenance.^[72] The application is decided within 180 days, after a binding opinion of the Soprintendenza within 90 days.^[73] If compatibility is found, the offender pays a sum equal to the higher of the damage caused and the profit gained.^[73]

What are the time limits, side by side?

Most of what has been described above is a clock, and the table gathers the clocks in one place.