The True Cost of Buying a Home in Tuscany

What tax is due on the purchase itself?

For a resale bought from a private individual, the main charge is imposta di registro — registration tax — typically nine per cent for a buyer who will not be claiming Italian tax residency at the property (the ordinary position for most of the families we work with), with a statutory minimum of €1,000, alongside small fixed land registry and mortgage taxes. If instead the property is purchased new, or from a seller who is VAT-registered, the structure changes: VAT applies to the price, generally at ten per cent and rising to twenty-two for certain luxury cadastral categories, with the registration, cadastral and mortgage taxes reduced to fixed amounts instead.

The detail that surprises almost everyone is what the registration tax is actually calculated on. It is not the price you paid. It is the valore catastale, the property’s official cadastral value, which for most rural and older Tuscan property sits well below market price. This is, in effect, one of the few places where the numbers work in a buyer’s favour.

What does everyone else in the transaction charge?

Agency commission is usually the largest single fee beyond tax, commonly around three per cent of the price plus VAT, and often payable by both buyer and seller (a structure covered in detail in our article on representation in an Italian purchase). The notaio, whose fee is regulated but variable with the complexity and value of the transaction, typically charges somewhere between one and two and a half per cent on more modest properties, with the percentage falling as the price rises. A lawyer engaged to review contracts and conduct independent due diligence, and a geometra or surveyor to verify the physical and cadastral state of the building, add further professional fees that are modest against the totals above but real, and worth budgeting rather than treating as an afterthought.

One cost this list does not include is the buyer’s own advisor, where one is engaged. Because a buyer’s advisor is paid by the buyer rather than out of the seller’s proceeds, it is a genuine addition to the budget rather than a reallocation of it — and it sits alongside any agency commission rather than replacing it, since the agency, where one is involved, is still the party holding the listing. What it buys is the only representation in the transaction that answers solely to the buyer. Whether that is worth its cost is a judgement each family makes, but it is a judgement better made with the figure in view than discovered later.

What does an illustrative example look like?

Take a resale farmhouse agreed at €2,000,000, bought by a family that will not be seeking Italian tax residency. Registration tax, calculated on a cadastral value likely well under half the price paid, might land somewhere in the region of €60,000–€90,000 rather than nine per cent of the full purchase price. Agency commission at three per cent plus VAT adds roughly €73,000. Notary fees, falling as a percentage at this level, might run to €12,000–€25,000. Legal and technical due diligence could add a further €15,000–€25,000. None of these figures is a quote — every transaction is different, and cadastral values in particular vary enormously by property and municipality — but together they land somewhere around €160,000–€215,000, or roughly eight to eleven per cent of the price, before any buyer’s advisor fee. A new-build or VAT-registered sale, where tax is charged on the price rather than the cadastral value, sits materially higher and can pass fifteen per cent.

What continues after completion?

Ownership brings its own annual charges, covered in full in our article on owning a Tuscan home from abroad — principally IMU, the municipal property tax due on second homes, and TARI, the waste collection charge, alongside utilities, insurance and upkeep. None of this is due at completion, but a buyer weighing the true cost of a Tuscan property should see the full picture from the outset, not discover the annual figures only once the keys are in hand.

How The Tuscan handles this

We give every client a clear, itemised picture of what a specific property will actually cost to acquire before an offer is made, not after — built from the real cadastral value, the real notary quoted for that transaction, and the real condition of the building, rather than a generic percentage. It is the difference between a number you can plan around and one that arrives as a surprise at the notary’s table.