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A-Z guide to going freelance in Italy: opening a partita IVA, the regime forfettario, contributi, the fattura elettronica, when and how you pay tax, and what you give up versus a permanent job.
Going freelance in Italy means becoming a lavoratore autonomo with your own partita IVA: you stop being an employee on a busta paga and start invoicing clients, running your own tax and pension, and carrying risks an employer used to absorb. This guide walks the whole path from A to Z — how to open a partita IVA, the regime forfettario, your contributi, how invoicing works, exactly when and how you pay, what accounting you need, and what you give up compared with a permanent contratto a tempo indeterminato.
Weighing an employee offer against going freelance? Our free Italian salary calculator shows the net of a RAL, and the working-in-Italy pay & tax guide explains the employee side in full.
A dipendente works under a subordinate contract: the employer pays a fixed busta paga, withholds the tax, pays most of the contributi, and carries the risk. A freelancer is a lavoratore autonomo with a partita IVA: you invoice clients, set your own rates, and take on the tax, the pension and the risk yourself. Everything good and bad about freelancing flows from that one shift.
| Dipendente (tempo indeterminato) | Freelancer (partita IVA) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you're paid | A fixed monthly busta paga | You issue a fattura; income varies and clients can pay late |
| Contributi | Employer pays ~24–30%, you pay 9.19% | You pay 100% yourself (INPS Gestione Separata or your cassa) |
| Income tax | IRPEF withheld every month by the employer | You pay it yourself in acconti — imposta sostitutiva (forfettario) or IRPEF |
| TFR & tredicesima | Yes | No — neither exists |
| Ferie, permessi, malattia | Paid | Unpaid: no work, no income (only minimal INPS cover) |
| If the work ends | NASpI unemployment | No NASpI — only the limited ISCRO |
| Protections | CCNL minimums, notice, severance | Only your contract with the client |
Before the upside, be clear on what disappears the day you leave a contratto a tempo indeterminato:
Getting started is quick — often a few days — and mostly done by a commercialista:
A commercialista costs roughly a few hundred euro a year for a forfettario and takes the tax and contributi filings off your plate — for most people, worth it from day one.
Most new freelancers use the regime forfettario, a simplified flat-tax regime for anyone invoicing up to €85,000 a year (prorated if you open mid-year; you stay in for the current year up to €100,000, then leave the next year, and exit immediately above €100,000). How it works:
| Example — €40,000 of compensi, 78% coefficiente | Amount |
|---|---|
| Compensi invoiced | €40,000 |
| Reddito imponibile (× 78%) | €31,200 |
| Contributi INPS Gestione Separata (~26%) | ≈ €8,100 |
| Base for the imposta (reddito − contributi) | ≈ €23,100 |
| Imposta sostitutiva (15%) | ≈ €3,460 · start-up 5% ≈ €1,155 |
| Roughly what you keep | ≈ €28,400 · first years ≈ €30,700 |
The exact numbers depend on your ATECO coefficiente and the precise Gestione Separata rate, so a commercialista runs your real figures — but the shape is always: compensi, minus contributi, minus a small flat imposta.
If you go over €85,000, earned more than €35,000 as an employee last year, or need to deduct large real costs, you use the regime ordinario instead: you charge IVA on invoices, pay IRPEF on the 23 / 33 / 43% scaglioni with your real costs deducted, plus the addizionali. It's more paperwork, and it's where a commercialista really earns their fee.
As a freelancer you pay all of your social-security contributi yourself — there is no employer half. Professionals without a cassa pay INPS Gestione Separata, about 26% of income (the 2025 rate; INPS sets the exact 2026 figure); regulated professions pay their cassa; artigiani and commercianti pay a fixed minimum plus a percentage, with an optional 35% reduction under forfettario. The good news: it's deductible, and it builds the same sistema contributivo pension an employee accrues — estimate yours with our Italian pension calculator.
Every invoice is a fattura elettronica sent through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) — since January 2024 this is mandatory even for forfettari. You create it in invoicing software or the Agenzia delle Entrate's free Fatture e Corrispettivi portal, and the SdI delivers it to your client and to the tax office automatically.
Nobody withholds tax for you, so you pay it yourself — through an F24, on the national saldo e acconto schedule. In broad terms:
| When | What you pay |
|---|---|
| By 30 June (or 30 July, +0.40%) | The saldo of last year's imposta + contributi, plus the 1st acconto for this year |
| By 30 November | The 2nd acconto for this year |
| By the end of October | File your Modello Redditi PF for the previous year |
Set money aside as you invoice. Roughly 35–40% of what you bill will leave again as contributi + imposta, and because of the acconto you pay part of *next* year's tax in advance — the first full year can feel like paying twice, so build the buffer early.
Legally you can file everything yourself, but in practice almost every freelancer uses a commercialista or an online accounting service. They open the partita IVA, pick the regime, watch your €85,000 soglia, compute the imposta and contributi, prepare the F24s and file your Modello Redditi PF. Budget a few hundred euro up to about €1,000 a year — forfettario bookkeeping is light, since you mainly keep your fatture.
Log in with SPID, CIE or CNS: in the Agenzia delle Entrate cassetto fiscale you can see your filed returns and your F24 payments, and on inps.it your Gestione Separata contributions and estratto conto contributivo feed the very same pension estimate an employee gets.
Freelancing trades the safety net of a tempo indeterminato — fixed pay, TFR, paid Ferie and malattia, NASpI — for flexibility, higher day rates and control over your work. The way to decide is to run both sides: the net of an employee RAL with our salary calculator, your freelance net from the example above, and the pension each path builds with the pension calculator. For the full employee comparison, read the working-in-Italy pay & tax guide.
For ongoing self-employed work, yes. A partita IVA is required once the activity is habitual and continuous. Truly one-off work can sometimes use a prestazione occasionale with a ritenuta d'acconto, but that is a narrow exception (broadly under €5,000 a year from a single client and genuinely occasional), not a way to run a freelance business.
A single imposta sostitutiva of 15% (just 5% for the first five years of a genuinely new activity) on your reddito imponibile — your compensi multiplied by the ATECO coefficiente di redditività, minus your deductible contributi. It replaces IRPEF, the addizionali and IVA. On top you pay your contributi (about 26% to INPS Gestione Separata for professionals without a cassa).
Twice a year with an F24: the saldo of last year plus the first acconto for this year by 30 June (or 30 July with a 0.40% surcharge), and the second acconto by 30 November. You file the Modello Redditi PF for the previous year by the end of October. Gestione Separata contributi follow the same June/November dates.
No. TFR, tredicesima and quattordicesima don't exist for a partita IVA, and Ferie, permessi and malattia are unpaid — if you don't work, you don't earn. These are exactly the protections you give up by leaving a contratto a tempo indeterminato.
No. NASpI is only for employees. A partita IVA can apply for ISCRO, a limited income support when your freelance income drops significantly, paid for up to six months at a modest amount — far less than NASpI.
Not legally, but practically almost everyone uses one. They open the partita IVA, choose the regime, compute your imposta and contributi, prepare the F24s and file your Modello Redditi PF. For a forfettario it costs roughly a few hundred euro a year because the bookkeeping is light.
As a fattura elettronica through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI), which has been mandatory even for forfettari since January 2024. You create it in invoicing software or the Agenzia delle Entrate's free Fatture e Corrispettivi portal. A forfettario invoice charges no IVA and needs a €2 marca da bollo when it's over €77.47.
Zubair Baqai is an AI engineer and the founder of Prezumi. He started it after researching what gets candidates interviews at companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon. He writes Prezumi's guides on resumes, ATS screening and CV formats. About Prezumi
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