Visa holders · From Italy
AIRE registration alone does not end your Italian tax residence after moving to the US from Italy. Taxes also follow your family life and your days in Italy.
Under Italian law, any residence test met for most of the year makes you resident for all of it. Most means 183 days, or 184 in a leap year, counting part days. That makes the year you leave wholly resident or wholly non-resident. The US treaty has no split-year clause, but its tie-breaker may still settle the months you count as resident in both countries.
Updated · Sources
AIRE, Italy’s registry of citizens abroad
- 90 days
- after you arrive is your deadline to declare the move to the Italian consulate for your US area.
- Over a year
- abroad is the stay that makes that declaration a duty for an Italian citizen.
- €1,000
- is the most your town can fine you for each year you go unregistered. The least is €200.
Registering no more than 90 days late, before any check has started, cuts the fine to €20.
What keeps you an Italian tax resident, and what can end it?
Italian law makes you resident through your days, your family life or your civil-law residence, and a town registry entry adds a presumption.
Your days in Italy
Being in Italy for most of the year makes you resident, even with no home or family there. Separate stays add up, so long visits back after your move can tip a later year.
Your family life
Your domicile is where your personal and family ties mainly are, so a family that stays in Italy can keep it there. The Revenue Agency gives an example of a domicile that survives AIRE. It is a house you keep with the utilities on and return to on weekends.
Your name on a town registry
If your town’s resident registry lists you for most of the year, Italy presumes you are resident. Since 2024 you can rebut that with objective evidence, though before then the presumption was final. Registering with AIRE takes you off the town registry. If you never told your town you were leaving, that happens on the day you file.
You are also a US resident
When both countries count you as resident, Article 4(2) of the treaty assigns you to one. It weighs, in order, a permanent home, your center of vital interests, your habitual abode and then nationality. The Revenue Agency accepts that this result overrides your registry entry.
Italy’s exit tax does not reach your private shares and funds. Article 166 of its income tax code taxes only commercial business assets that leave Italy with you. Assets kept in an Italian branch fall outside it. For a US move it is due in full, since installments are open only for moves to EU states or listed EEA states.
In 2026, each parent in Italy can give you €1,000,000 free of Italian gift tax, and the tax above that is 4%.
Italian gift tax depends on where the giver lives, so a gift from a parent resident in Italy falls entirely under it. The gift is not US income, but Form 3520 reports a gift this size if you are a US resident when it arrives.
From one parent
€20,000
The €500,000 above that parent’s €1,000,000 allowance for you is taxed at 4%.
Split between both parents
€0
Each parent gives €750,000, inside that parent’s own allowance for you.
From a brother or sister
€84,000
A sibling’s allowance is €100,000, and the €1,400,000 above it is taxed at 6%.
From an aunt or uncle
€90,000
Other relatives get no allowance, so the whole gift is taxed at 6%.
The figures use the 2026 rates and allowances in articles 56 and 57 of Italy’s gift and inheritance tax law (D.Lgs. 346/1990), applied to the gift’s net value. Earlier gifts from the same giver count against that giver’s allowance, so it does not renew each year. They assume a gift made by deed. An informal transfer can be taxed differently under article 56-bis, so ask an Italian notary first. A new code takes over on January 1, 2027, so check the rates for a later gift.
Who taxes your Italian pension, rent and gains under the US-Italy tax treaty?
Most of the 1999 convention’s rules have applied since January 1, 2010. The rows apply once the treaty counts you as a US resident.
| Italy | US | |
|---|---|---|
| Interest on an Italian bank or postal account | Not taxed Not Italian income for a non-resident | Taxed |
| Dividends from an Italian company | 15% at most Article 10(2) | Taxed Italy’s tax is credited |
| Rent from a flat or house in Italy | Taxed Article 6 | Taxed Italy’s income tax is credited |
| A sale of property in Italy | Taxed if sold within 5 years of buying Exempt if inherited, or if it was your or your family’s main home for most of that time. Building land is always taxed. You can ask the notary for a flat 26% tax. | Taxed On the whole gain, though the US home sale exclusion can cover a former main home |
| A sale of shares or funds | Not taxed Article 13(4), unless the company mainly owns Italian property | Taxed From your original cost, with no step-up |
| An INPS (Italian social security) pension from private-sector work | Not taxed Article 18(2) | Taxed Taxed like a foreign pension, with no Social Security exclusion |
| Severance (TFR) paid after you move | Taxed Article 18(3) | Generally taxed Through the saving clause, with a credit |
Where an Italian payer withholds more than the treaty allows, the US will not credit the excess (Treas. Reg. § 1.901-2(e)(5)). Italy refunds it on a claim backed by a US residency certificate.
Where do Italian funds, pensions, homes and employers cost a new US resident money?
Funds bought in Italy
Investment funds sold in Italy, such as Sicav shares, fondo comune units and UCITS ETFs, normally count as PFICs for a US resident. Each fund generally needs its own Form 8621 every year. Without a QEF or mark-to-market election, a gain on a fund held for years is spread back over them. The years you held it as a US resident before the sale are taxed at the top rate, with interest.
Leaving INPS withholding in place
INPS withholds Italian tax from your pension until you ask the office that pays it to apply the treaty. You do that on form EP-I, with Form 6166, the IRS certificate of US residency. The Revenue Agency’s office in Pescara refunds tax already withheld on a claim made within 48 months of each withholding.
IMU on the home you keep
Once you register with AIRE, your Italian home may lose the main-home exemption from IMU, Italy’s municipal property tax. A home without the exemption pays a base rate of 0.86%. Towns can set the rate anywhere from 0% to 1.06%, and some go up to 1.14%. The US allows no deduction for IMU on a home kept for your own use, only against rent from one you let.
Working in the US for an Italian employer
An Italian national working here for an Italian employer, or for a company an Italian firm controls, stays in Italian social security. That rule comes from the US-Italy totalization agreement, effective November 1, 1978. It is the only US agreement with no special rule for workers sent here on temporary assignment. Your Italian employer proves the US exemption with certificate IT/USA 4 from INPS. With a US employer, US Social Security generally applies.
We report your INPS pension and TFR on your US returns, and credit the Italian tax the treaty allows.
After a move from Italy, one of our licensed CPAs prepares and signs your US returns. Your Italian accountant (commercialista) keeps any Italian filing.
- We prepare every federal and state return from your first US year on. That first return is dual-status if your residency starts partway through the year.
- On Form 1116, we claim a US credit for the Italian tax on your TFR, rent or a property sale, within US limits.
- Your Italian bank, postal and brokerage accounts go on the FBAR once they total over $10,000, and on Form 8938 above its thresholds. We also file a Form 8621 for each Italian fund. Form 3520 follows once gifts from one foreign giver and their relatives pass $100,000 in a year. An Italian company that requires Form 5471 gets one from us. Each account, each fund and each company in which you hold over 20% has its own price in the instant quote.
- Before you leave, we compare the US tax on cashing out your fondo pensione or Italian funds with the tax on keeping them. After you arrive, we plan your quarterly estimated payments on Italian rent or an INPS pension.
- We answer IRS or state letters about any return we prepared, such as a query on your INPS pension, at no added cost.
- Individual return
- from $195
- Business return
- from $495
We quote a flat fee before work starts. We do not bill hourly.
What people moving from Italy ask about US and Italian tax.
Do I have to pay US taxes if I live in Italy?
US citizens and green card holders do, on their worldwide income, even while living in Italy. The US gives a foreign tax credit for Italian income tax under Article 23 of the treaty. A green card keeps that duty until it is rescinded or administratively or judicially found abandoned. Under Article 18(2), Italy alone taxes US Social Security paid to an Italian resident. The exception is a US citizen who is not also Italian.
Is there double taxation between Italy and the USA?
The US-Italy tax treaty, signed in 1999, prevents most double taxation between Italy and the USA. It gives each kind of income to one country or caps the tax where it arises, and the US credits Italian income tax. Its saving clause applies both ways, so the US taxes a TFR paid after you arrive by its own rules, apart from listed exceptions. IMU, Italy’s property tax, is not an income tax, so the US gives no credit for it. A separate 1955 convention covers estate and inheritance taxes, but not gift tax.
Do I have to register with AIRE when I move to the US?
Italian citizens moving to the US for more than 12 months must register with AIRE. Within 90 days of arriving, you notify the consulate covering where you live, free of charge, through the Fast It portal. Registration takes you off your town’s resident registry, which would otherwise make Italy presume you still live there. Each year you stay unregistered can cost a fine of €200 to €1,000. AIRE alone does not end Italian residence if your family life, or a home you keep using, stays in Italy.
What happens to my TFR and Italian pension fund when I move to the US?
Italy taxes your TFR, the severance your employer sets aside, apart from your other income. The US leaves alone a TFR paid before your US residency starts, but generally taxes one paid later, with a credit for Italy’s tax. Moving abroad alone does not let you cash out a fondo pensione, an Italian supplementary pension fund. You can usually cash one out when you leave the employer whose collective fund you joined, at a final 23% Italian tax. The treaty gives no US deferral on the fund’s growth, and the IRS has issued no guidance on such funds.
Sources
- US-Italy income tax convention (1999), with protocol
- Treasury, Technical explanation of the US-Italy convention
- IRS, Italy tax treaty documents
- US Department of State, Treaties in Force (2025)
- Italy, TUIR art. 2, Soggetti passivi (tax residence), 2026 text
- Agenzia delle Entrate, Circular 20/E of November 4, 2024 (English translation)
- Italy, Law 470/1988, art. 6 (registration with AIRE)
- Italy, Law 1228/1954, art. 11 (fines)
- Consulate General of Italy in New York, AIRE
- Italy, TUIR art. 166, Imposizione in uscita (exit tax), 2026 text
- Italy, TUIR art. 23, Applicazione dell’imposta ai non residenti, 2026 text
- Italy, TUIR art. 67, Redditi diversi (property gains), 2026 text
- Agenzia delle Entrate, Tassazione delle plusvalenze immobiliari
- Italy, Civil Code art. 2120, Disciplina del trattamento di fine rapporto
- Italy, TUIR art. 17, Tassazione separata (TFR), 2026 text
- Italy, D.Lgs. 252/2005, art. 14 (leaving a pension fund), 2026 text
- COVIP, answer on redeeming a pension fund position
- Italy, D.Lgs. 346/1990, art. 2, Territorialità dell’imposta, 2026 text
- Italy, D.Lgs. 346/1990, art. 56, Determinazione dell’imposta, 2026 text
- Italy, D.Lgs. 346/1990, art. 57, Donazioni anteriori, 2026 text
- Ministry of Economy and Finance, IMU rate table
- Comune di Torino, IMU for residents abroad
- INPS, Normativa fiscale per i residenti all’estero
- Social Security Administration, Totalization Agreement with Italy
- Social Security Administration, U.S. International Social Security Agreements
- IRS, Publication 915, Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits
- IRS, Publication 519 (2025), U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens
- 26 C.F.R. § 301.7701(b)-1, Resident alien
- 26 U.S.C. § 901, Taxes of foreign countries and of possessions of United States
- 26 C.F.R. § 1.901-2, Income, war profits, or excess profits tax paid or accrued
- IRS, Form 6166, Certification of U.S. Tax Residency
- 26 U.S.C. § 164, Taxes
- 26 U.S.C. § 121, Exclusion of gain from sale of principal residence
- 26 U.S.C. § 1012, Basis of property: cost
- 26 U.S.C. § 1297, Passive foreign investment company
- 26 U.S.C. § 1291, Interest on tax deferral
- 26 C.F.R. § 1.1298-1, Section 1298(f) annual reporting for PFIC shareholders (Form 8621)
- 31 C.F.R. § 1010.350, Reports of foreign financial accounts
- IRS, Instructions for Form 8938
- IRS, Instructions for Form 3520 (Rev. December 2025)
- 26 U.S.C. § 102, Gifts and inheritances
Reviewed and updated October 2026. General information, not advice for your situation.