Italian Fiscal Code Number: How is it made up? For whom is it mandatory?

ITALIAN FISCAL CODE NUMBER: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

What is the fiscal code in Italy needed for and how to obtain it

The Fiscal Code in Italy is necessary to all the foreign individuals (and companies) that come to Italy and need to deal with the Italian Tax Offices for the reasons we will specify below.

This is nothing more than the Italian Tax Code that identifies all the subjects under a taxation point of view and. The Italian Fiscal Code is also used as the Italian taxpayer identification number (called TIN).

To all the persons born in Italy, the Fiscal Code is given automatically by the Italian Revenue Office.

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Why you need a Codice Fiscale in Italy?

Having an Italian Fiscal Code is necessary to:

• Deal with an Italian Bank to open a personal account.
• Sign a Rental Agreement in Italy (since these agreements must be registered at the Italian Tax Office) and both the parties (landlord and tenant) must be identified by the Office.
• Sign any kind of agreement/contract that must be registered. For instance, an insurance policy agreement, a public application, a work contract, and others.
• Invest in Italy. If you want to incorporate a company in Italy or you want to purchase an Italian property, you need to obtain the Fiscal Code since all the agreements (purchase deed or incorporation act), must be registered in the Italian Public Files.
• File an Italian Tax Declaration or become part of the Italian Tax System.
• Register yourself (also temporarily) with the Italian Sanitary System and be able to use the Public Italian Hospitals when you reside in Italy.
• Have the possibility to recognize your foreign documents in Italy (such as foreign driver’s license) and to purchase and register a car in Italy.
• File an application to work in Italy or to obtain an Italian VISA.

How Italian Fiscal Code is composed?

Italian Fiscal Code number for individuals

The tax code number of individuals consists of an alphanumeric expression of sixteen characters.

The first fifteen characters are indicative of the personal data of each individual in the following order:

• three alphabetical characters for the surname;
• three alphabetic characters for the first name;
• two alphabetic characters for the year of birth;
• one alphabetic character for the month of birth;
• two numeric characters for the day of birth and sex;
• four characters, one alphabetic and three numeric for the Italian municipality or foreign State of birth.

The sixteenth character, alphabetical, serves as a control.

Surname indicative characters

Surnames that are made up of more than one part or in any case separated or interrupted, are considered as if they were written according to a single, uninterrupted succession of characters.

For married female subjects, only the maiden name is taken into account.

If the surname contains three or more consonants, the three characters to be recorded are, in order, the first, second, and third consonants.

If the surname contains two consonants, the three characters to be recorded are, in order, the first and second consonants and the first vowel.

If the surname contains one consonant and two vowels, the characters to be detected are, in order, the consonant and then the first and second vowels.

If the surname contains a consonant and a vowel, the consonant and the vowel are taken, in order, and the letter x (ICS) is taken as the third character.

If the name consists of only two vowels, they are taken in order, and the letter x (ICS) is taken as the third character.

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Date, gender and place of birth

The two numeric characters indicating the year of birth are, in order, the tens digit and the units digit of the year itself.

The alphabetical character corresponding to the month of birth is that established for each month in the following table:

Table A – Conversion of the month of birth

• January = A May = E September = P
• February = B June = H October = R
• March = C July = L November = S
• April = D August = M December = T

The two numerical characters indicating the day of birth and sex are determined as follows:

• For male subjects, the day of birth appears unchanged, with the numbers one to thirty-one, with the days of the month from one to nine preceded by the figure zero.
• For female subjects, the day of birth is increased by forty, so that it appears with the numbers forty-one to seventy-one.

The four alphanumeric characters indicating the Italian municipality or foreign state of birth are made up of an alphabetic character followed by three numeric characters, according to the coding established by the Italian Revenue Office.

Alphabetic control character

The sixteenth character serves as a check on the exact transcription of the first fifteen characters and is determined as follows:

1. each of the aforementioned fifteen characters, depending on whether it occupies an even-order position or an odd-order position, is converted into a numerical value, according to the correspondence tables below.

For the seven characters with even-order position:

Table B – conversion of characters with even-order position

• A or 0 = 0; F or 5 = 5; K = 10; P = 15; U = 20
• B or 1 = 1; G or 6 = 6; L = 11; Q = 16; V = 21
• C or 2 = 2; H or 7 = 7 M = 12 R = 17 W = 22
• D o 3 = 3 I o 8 = 8 N = 13 S = 18 X = 23
• E o 4 = 4 J o 9 = 9 O = 14 T = 19 Y = 24 Z = 25

For the eight characters with odd-order position:

Table C – conversion of characters with odd-order position

A or 0 = 1 F or 5 = 13 K = 2 P = 3 U = 16

B or 1 = 0 G or 6 = 15 L = 4 Q = 6 V = 10

C o 2 = 5 H o 7 = 17 M = 18 R = 8 W = 22

D o 3 = 7 I o 8 = 19 N = 20 S = 12 X = 25

E o 4 = 9 J o 9 = 21 O = 11 T = 14 Y = 24 Z = 23

2. The numerical values thus determined are added together and the sum is divided by the number 26. The check-d character is obtained by converting the remainder of this division into the alphabetic character corresponding to it in the table below:

Table E – determination of the check-digit

0 = A 5 = F 10 = K 15 = P 20 = U

1 = B 6 = G 11 = L 16 = Q 21 = V

2 = C 7 = H 12 = M 17 = R 22 = W

3 = D 8 = I 13 = N 18 = S 23 = X

4 = E 9 = J 14 = O 19 = T 24 = Y 25 = Z

Provisional Fiscal Code in Italy

The tax authorities may assign individuals a provisional tax number.

The provisional tax number for natural persons consists of an eleven-digit numerical expression. The first seven digits represent the individual’s registration number; the eighth to tenth digits identify the office assigning the provisional tax code number and the eleventh digit is the check digit.

Check numeric character

The numerical check character is determined as follows:

• the values of each of the five odd-order digits, starting from the left, are added together;
• each even-order digit is doubled and, if the result is a two-digit number, it is reduced to one by adding the tens digit and the unit digit; all the previous results are then added together;
• the total of the two sums above is determined;
• the figure relating to units in the previous total is subtracted from ten. The check character is the unit digit of the result.

Fiscal Code for companies established in Italy

The tax code is also assigned to legal persons, i.e. to all entities other than natural persons such as companies or bodies. For these taxpayers, the tax code is a numerical code consisting of 11 digits.

Partnerships and corporations that carry out a tax-relevant economic activity and are therefore required to open a VAT number, will have a tax code that in most cases coincides with the VAT number itself. With a few exceptions (described below).

Entities that are not required to declare the start of their VAT activity (such as associations, consortia, foundations, cooperatives, condominiums, parishes, etc.) or entities that do not engage in tax-relevant economic activities but must still have their own tax code in order to submit official documents, may request the code from the Revenue Agency using form AA5/6 (application for allocation of tax code, communication of data variation, merger, concentration, transformation and extinction).

The tax code of a company or entity has a structure consisting of:

• the first 7 numbers identify the taxpayer through a progressive number;
• the next 3 numbers identify the office code;
• the last number has a control function.

Company Italian tax code structure

Difference between tax code and VAT number

In the Companies Register, at national level, each company is uniquely identified by a tax code and a VAT number, which will always be the same for companies (with some exceptions) and always different for sole proprietorships.

Freelancers and sole traders, although they have a VAT number, will retain a 16-digit tax code that coincides with that of the natural person and therefore differs from the one assigned by the VAT office.

There are also some cases of partnerships and corporations where the company’s tax code does not coincide with the VAT number, e.g. in the case of re-allocation of the VAT office of competence or where a company has transferred its tax domicile from one province to another: in this case, a new VAT number is assigned, while the tax code will remain the same.