Italy's €1 Houses: What One Really Costs Once the Deposit, Deadlines and Taxes Are Added

By Patrick · 2026-10-22

A €1 house in Italy costs far more than €1. Expect at least €1,100 in deed taxes, a notary, a guarantee of €1,000 to €5,000 that the comune keeps if you miss a deadline, design and permit costs, and a renovation that the schemes require you to finish in about three years. The price is symbolic; the obligations are real.

Since the first schemes made headlines, dozens of small towns have offered empty houses for a euro. The idea is simple: the comune wants the house restored and lived in, and the buyer gets a building for almost nothing. What the stories leave out is in the small print of each scheme. We read the official documents of four comuni and the Italian tax agency's guides so you can see what one really costs.

There is no national €1 scheme

Each comune writes its own rules, usually a council regulation plus a public notice (avviso or bando). Some houses belong to the comune; others belong to private owners willing to give them up, with the comune only putting buyer and seller in touch. In that case, as Zungoli's form says, the comune has no say in the private negotiation. Every scheme has its own dates, so check what is open on the comune's own website (the albo pretorio or the "Bandi e avvisi" page).

Four examples from the comuni's own documents:

• Zungoli (Avellino), 2025: eleven comune-owned houses in the historic centre at €1. Applications closed in March 2025.
• Sambuca di Sicilia (Agrigento), 2024: not €1 but €3, by sealed-bid auction, with a €5,000 deposit. Closed in October 2024.
• Mussomeli (Caltanissetta): a standing scheme under rules from 2015, with a €5,000 guarantee. Whether it is taking applications now is not stated on the comune's site.
• Ollolai (Nuoro), 2016: houses transferred free of charge, with a €1,000 guarantee. Reported closed in 2018.

The guarantee and the deadlines

Every scheme we read ties a guarantee to a timetable. The guarantee is usually a surety policy (polizza fideiussoria) in the comune's favour, valid for three years: €1,000 in Ollolai, €2,000 in Zungoli, €5,000 in Mussomeli. Sambuca asked for a €5,000 deposit by bank transfer instead. Miss a deadline and the comune can keep it, and in some schemes take the house back.

The timetables are short:

• Zungoli: sign the deed within 2 months of the award, file the project within 3 months of the deed, start work within 2 months of the permit, finish within 3 years.
• Mussomeli: deed within 6 months, project with all approvals within 1 year, start within 6 months of the permit.
• Sambuca: technical documents within 90 days, works completed within 36 months of the award.

In Sambuca the final deed is signed only after the comune certifies the works, so you renovate a house you do not yet fully own, under a preliminary contract. And in Zungoli the buyer pays every cost of the transfer, including any overdue inheritance filing and any planning amnesty the house needs.

The taxes on a €1 deed

For a house that will not be your main home, the Agenzia delle Entrate's guide to buying a home sets registration tax at 9% with a minimum of €1,000, plus €50 mortgage tax and €50 cadastral tax. So a €1 deed costs at least €1,100 in taxes.

In practice it is often more. Under the price-value rule (prezzo-valore), a private buyer can have the deed taxed on the property's cadastral value instead of the price, which also cuts the notary's fee by 30%. On a €1 price the cadastral value is almost always the larger figure, so budget on it. An example: with a rendita catastale (cadastral income) of €200, the cadastral value is €200 × 1.05 × 120 = €25,200, and 9% of that is €2,268. Only below a rendita of about €88 does the €1,000 minimum apply.

Two more points. If you move your residence to the comune within 18 months, the first-home rate of 2% applies instead, still with the €1,000 minimum. And a free transfer drafted as a gift rather than a sale is taxed as a donation: 8% for a non-relative, plus 2% and 1% for the mortgage and cadastral taxes, all on the property's value. Ask the notaio which form the deed will take. Our guide to the real cost of buying a house in Italy covers the rest of the purchase costs.

The notary and the professionals

There is no official notary tariff in Italy; the fee is agreed freely, and the notary must give you a written quote on request, according to the Italian notaries' guide. Even a €1 deed is a full deed, so do not expect it to be cheap: Trovara's own planning estimate is a minimum of around €1,500 plus VAT.

Then come the people who make the renovation possible: a geometra, architect or engineer for the project, the building permit, a structural survey and an energy certificate. Which permit you need depends on the works, and your geometra decides that.

Earthquakes: many €1 towns are in high-hazard zones

Italy classifies every comune from Zone 1, the highest seismic hazard, to Zone 4, the lowest. According to the national classification, Zungoli and Salemi are in Zone 1; Sambuca di Sicilia, Cammarata, Troina and Biccari in Zone 2. Mussomeli is Zone 3 and Ollolai Zone 4. Of the 26 towns with €1 schemes we checked, 17 are in Zone 1 or 2.

This matters for the renovation. In the highest-hazard areas, structural works on an existing building, including seismic upgrading, need a prior authorisation from the regional technical office on top of the building permit (art. 94-bis DPR 380/2001). A house that has stood empty for decades often needs exactly that kind of work.

What the renovation costs

We found no official national price per square metre for a full renovation; the figures online come from commercial sites and disagree. The honest answer is a quote from a geometra after a survey, and on a house that has stood empty for decades it is usually the largest number in the whole project, far larger than the price.

Ask your geometra to check the things that rarely show in photographs: whether water, power and sewer connections still exist, whether the roof contains asbestos (eternit), what the rubble will cost to remove, and whether the structure needs reinforcing.

The renovation bonus: smaller than you think

Italy's renovation relief is a deduction from Italian income tax, spread over ten years. According to the Agenzia delle Entrate, for a house that is not your main home it is 36% of the spending in 2026 and 30% in 2027, on up to €96,000 per unit; from 2028 the rate is 30% and the cap halves to €48,000. That schedule is already law, though a future law could change it.

Because it is a deduction, not a grant, it only helps if you pay income tax in Italy. A buyer who lives abroad with no Italian income has nothing to deduct it from. And a three-year renovation started now runs into 2027 and 2028, when the rate is lower.

Other pitfalls in the small print

• Heirs. Many empty houses belong to several heirs, and the inheritance was never registered. Everyone has to sign, and in Zungoli the buyer pays for any late filing.
• Planning compliance. The house must match its permits, or be regularised first. Mussomeli's form asks buyers to verify planning compliance. The notaio checks that the deed cites a valid permit, not that the house matches it; that is the geometra's job, as our guide to planning compliance explains.
• Heritage rules. Houses in a historic centre may fall under the heritage authority (Soprintendenza), as Zungoli's do, which limits what you may change.
• Out-of-date portals. Some third-party sites still list closed rounds or point to dead links. Rely on the comune's own documents.

A different route: grants in exchange for living there

Some regions pay towards a home if you actually move. Sardinia's 2026 round offered a grant of 50% of the cost, up to €15,000, for buying or renovating a first home in small comuni, run through each comune's own bando. In the bando of Urzulei, for example, buyers had to move their residence there, keep it for five years and not sell or let the house in that time. The 2026 round is closed; the regional rules allow comuni to publish a new bando until 30 September each year.

Another route: court auctions

Cheap houses also come up at court auctions (aste giudiziarie), with catches of their own: no warranty for defects, homes that may still be occupied, condominium arrears and a deposit you lose if you pay late. Our guide to Italian court auctions explains what to check before you bid.

Where Trovara fits

Before you commit to a renovation deadline, it helps to know what you are taking on. The Trovara Individual Property Report (€109) checks a specific house: its seismic zone, flood and landslide exposure, heritage and landscape constraints, a renovation estimate and the all-in budget. You can see the format in our sample report.

Prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by the Trovara team. This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Scheme details are taken from the comuni's own documents (Zungoli 2025, Sambuca di Sicilia 2024, Mussomeli 2015 rules, Ollolai 2016) and tax rules from the Agenzia delle Entrate's guides, checked in October 2026; the notary figure is Trovara's planning estimate. Rules differ in every comune. Always read the current bando and verify with a notaio and a geometra before you apply.