Italy separates the year you earn from the year you pay. A first year of freelancing can pass with almost no income tax paid at all. Then the second year arrives carrying the first year's balance plus an advance on the second. Plan that gap deliberately.
Quick summary
- The saldo settles the year just declared. The acconto prepays the year you are in. You normally pay both, on the same F24, in the June window.
- An advance is calculated from the previous year's declared tax. A genuinely new activity has no previous year, so the first calendar year is usually payment-free on the income-tax side — not tax-free.
- The advance is due when the prior-year tax exceeds €51.65 after deductions, credits, withholdings and surpluses.
- Ordinary taxpayers pay 40% in June and 60% in November once the advance reaches €257.52. Taxpayers under the ISA regime and the regime forfettario do not use that split: they pay everything in November when the total due is €206 or less, and otherwise two equal instalments.
- Gestione Separata pension advances are a separate debt: 80% of the previous year's professional income at the current year's rate, in two equal instalments.
- Reserve from the month you start. In the illustrative example below, about 24% of cash receipts is set aside, even though the first payment is more than a year away.
Two clocks, and they never agree
Start with the distinction that causes almost every cash-flow surprise for foreign freelancers in Italy. There is a tax year and there is a payment year, and they are not the same year.
The tax year is the period in which you earned the income. In Italy that is normally the calendar year. If you invoiced a client in November 2026 and the payment arrived in your account in November 2026, that income belongs to tax year 2026.
The payment year is when the money for that income leaves your account. For 2026 income, the ordinary settlement window is June 2027, even though the return's filing deadline is later. By then you may have held the money for several months.
Italy uses a self-assessed advance system. Withholding can reduce what remains payable for some ordinary-regime professionals; the example below assumes none. Forfettario taxpayers generally do not suffer ordinary income-tax withholding on their business receipts.
The resulting pattern can be a quiet first year followed by much larger payments in the second. It is a timing effect, not a new tax charged because you have reached your second anniversary.
What "saldo e acconto" actually means
When you file your Italian income tax return, the return does not just calculate one number. It calculates two.
The saldo is the final balance of the year you are declaring. It is the tax actually due on that year's income, less whatever you already paid towards it as advances. In your first filing that balance is the whole tax, because you paid no advances. In later years it is smaller, and it can turn into a credit if your advances were too high.
The acconto is an advance towards the tax of the year you are currently sitting in. You pay it before you know what that year's income will be, which is why the system needs a default formula.
That default is the historical method: the advance equals 100% of the tax declared for the previous year. If your 2026 tax came to €4,000, your 2027 advance is €4,000, split across the payment windows. You may instead use the forecast method and pay an advance based on what you actually expect to owe for the current year — including paying nothing if you genuinely expect no tax. The Agenzia delle Entrate describes both in its page on how IRPEF is paid, which is the source for the thresholds below.
The thresholds and the windows
Two separate sets of thresholds matter, and mixing them up is a common error in otherwise careful guides.
First, is an advance due at all? The advance is due when the tax declared for the previous year exceeds €51.65, after subtracting deductions, tax credits, withholdings and surpluses. At or below that figure there is no advance.
Second, how is the advance split? Here the rules genuinely differ by taxpayer type.
| Taxpayer | Single-payment rule | Two-instalment rule |
|---|
| Ordinary IRPEF taxpayer | One payment by 30 November if the advance is below €257.52 | 40% by 30 June plus 60% by 30 November, if the advance is €257.52 or more |
| ISA taxpayers and regime forfettario | One payment by 30 November if the total due is €206 or less | Two equal instalments at the same IRPEF deadlines (30 June and 30 November) |
| Gestione Separata professional (pension) | Not applicable | Two equal instalments of the total advance, at the same IRPEF advance deadlines |
The 50/50 split for forfettario and ISA taxpayers comes from article 58 of D.L. 124/2019, clarified by Agenzia delle Entrate Risoluzione 93/E of 12 November 2019. If you are in the regime forfettario, your split threshold is €206, not €257.52 — the €257.52 figure belongs to the ordinary 40/60 mechanism and does not apply to you.
The June window covers the saldo and first income-tax advance; paying within the following 30 days ordinarily carries a 0.40% surcharge. Annual extensions and non-working days can change the actual deadline. These are planning windows, not promises about future dates: check the Agenzia's current calendar and applicable provisions. Our 2026 tax deadline guide explains the wider filing cycle.
Why year one looks cheap
For a genuinely new activity starting in 2026, with no previous professional or business income, there is no prior-year activity tax on which to base a historical advance. Opening a partita IVA does not, however, cancel liabilities from employment, rental income or an earlier activity.
A new Gestione Separata professional in the regime forfettario, with no other relevant liabilities, can therefore have no income-tax or contribution payments in 2026. An artisan or trader may already owe fixed INPS instalments. VAT, stamp duty and other obligations are separate and are not included in this illustration.
This is routinely misread as an exemption, or as proof that the Italian system is generous to new freelancers. It is neither. The tax and the contributions on your 2026 income are still owed. They are merely collected at the settlement of that year, which lands in the following June, and that June simultaneously contains the advance for the year you have just started.
That is the trap: year one feels free, and year two carries two years.
Do not confuse "partial first year" with "two calendar years"
If you start in September 2026, you have roughly four months of 2026 income and a full 2027. That is two tax years, not twenty-four months of activity — and the money you will pay in 2027 is not "two years of tax". It is the tax on four months of 2026 income, plus an advance on a full year of 2027 income.
Getting this wrong in either direction is expensive. Assume "first year is free" and you will not reserve. Assume "twenty-four months of double tax" and you will over-reserve and under-invest. The right answer depends on the split between those two components, and it is why the planner below asks for your start month and your first- and second-year receipts separately.
Worked example: a Gestione Separata professional, illustrated
The figures below are illustrative, not a client case and not a prediction about anyone's tax position. The example deliberately holds the 2026 parameters constant across both years and treats the 2027 windows as if they repeated the 2026 pattern. That is an assumption used to show the mechanism, not enacted law for 2027 or 2028: contributions rates, thresholds and the payment calendar are all set by provisions that were still to be confirmed when this was written. Confirm the actual figures for your year before relying on any of these numbers.
Assumptions: activity starts 1 January 2026; regime forfettario with the 5% new-activity substitute tax rate; profitability coefficient 78%; Gestione Separata professional with no other compulsory pension cover, so 26.07% (INPS Circular 8/2026 confirms this rate for 2026); receipts of €30,000 in each tax year; no other income, costs, credits or reliefs; the 2026 rules and thresholds applied unchanged to 2027.
Deemed income each year: €30,000 × 78% = €23,400.
Pension contribution on that income: €23,400 × 26.07% = €6,100.38.
| Event | Income tax (substitute tax) | Pension (Gestione Separata) | When |
|---|
| Tax year 2026 settlement | €1,170.00 | €6,100.38 | June 2027 |
| 2027 advance, first instalment | €585.00 | €2,440.15 | June 2027 |
| 2027 advance, second instalment | €585.00 | €2,440.15 | November 2027 |
| Tax year 2027 settlement | credit of €549.03 | €1,220.08 | June 2028 |
| 2028 advance, first instalment | €310.49 | €2,440.15 | June 2028 |
Read the two June windows rather than the rows.
June 2027 asks for €1,755.00 of income tax (the €1,170.00 balance for 2026 plus the €585.00 first instalment for 2027) and €8,540.53 of contributions (the €6,100.38 balance for 2026 plus €2,440.15). Cash out of the account that month: roughly €10,300 — for an activity whose total 2026 receipts were €30,000.
November 2027 asks for a further €585.00 and €2,440.15.
Then the second-year arithmetic produces the twist. In 2027 the contributions actually paid during 2027 are €8,540.53 plus €2,440.15 = €10,980.68. Under the regime forfettario, compulsory contributions are deducted from the flat-rate income when paid in the tax period (art. 1, comma 64, L. 190/2014). So the 2027 taxable base is €23,400.00 − €10,980.68 = €12,419.32, and the 5% substitute tax is €620.97.
Against that, €1,170.00 of tax was already advanced for 2027. The result is a tax credit of €549.03 — not a further payment. But the pension side is untouched: 2027 contributions of €6,100.38 less the €4,880.30 advanced during 2027 leaves a balance of €1,220.08 due at the June 2028 settlement.
At June 2028, the pension balance plus first 2028 pension advance total €3,660.23. The historical income-tax method also generates a €310.49 first advance for 2028, despite the separate €549.03 credit for 2027. Without applying that credit, the combined projected June payment is €3,970.72.
The planner retains the €1,220.08 settlement of 2027 in its two-year reserve target. Advances financing new 2028 activity are disclosed separately, not included in that target. A tax credit is not automatically treated as cash available to pay INPS.
Contributions paid are not contributions accrued
The single most common modelling error among foreign freelancers — and among simple online calculators — is treating the contribution figure as a deduction in the year it relates to rather than the year it is paid.
The forfettario rule is a cash rule. Article 1, comma 64, of Law 190/2014 lets you deduct compulsory social-security contributions actually paid in the tax period. Contributions relating to 2026 but paid in June 2027 do not reduce 2026's taxable base. They reduce 2027's.
In the example above this matters enormously. Suppose you naively deducted the €6,100.38 of 2026 contributions from 2026 income: you would compute a base of €17,299.62 and a tax of €864.98, and conclude that the first year costs €865. The correct first-year tax is €1,170, because nothing was paid in 2026 and therefore nothing could be deducted. The error is €305 in year one alone, and it compounds because every later advance is built from that declared figure.
This is why our own freelance tax calculator should be read carefully in a first year. It models a settled year, deducting contributions on a same-year basis. That is a reasonable simplification for someone already in a steady state, and it is the wrong input for a freelancer whose contributions paid in the year are still zero. If your paid contributions are nil, your deduction for that year is nil, whatever has accrued.
Historical versus forecast: the real risk
The historical method uses the past to prepay the future. A strong year can generate a large advance even if your pipeline has since contracted. A change out of the forfettario regime adds a separate calculation and is outside the planner's unchanged-regime model.
The forecast method exists precisely for this. You pay an advance based on the amount you expect to owe for the current year, which can legitimately be less than the historical figure — or zero.
If the estimate is too high, the resulting credit has to be reconciled through the return. If it is too low, an insufficient advance can attract interest and penalties. Their timing and correction process are separate from the ordinary balance; do not assume a penalty is simply added to next June's F24.
Use the forecast method only with a supportable current-year calculation. Tax forecasts and contribution advances are not interchangeable: check the rules for each obligation with your adviser. The planner deliberately uses the historical method rather than suggesting an automatic reduction when next year's receipts fall. Request a cash-flow review if that distinction materially affects your reserve.
Nothing above is universal, because the pension side depends on which INPS scheme applies to you. The three common positions for a self-employed foreigner are genuinely different mechanisms.
Gestione Separata has a 2026 rate of 26.07% for the professionals modelled here without other compulsory cover, or 24% for those covered elsewhere or receiving a pension. There is no fixed minimum contribution. Advances are paid in two equal instalments, using the 80% historical basis and the applicable year's rate and ceiling. Redditi PF 2026, Fascicolo 2, explains this in its INPS appendix. The planner uses 80% of the contribution calculated on prior-year income within the annual ceiling, with 2026 parameters held constant. For the example's €23,400 income, that is €4,880.30 in total.
Artigiani and commercianti use 2026 rates of 24% and 24.48% on the first income band, up to €56,224, then 25% and 25.48% above it, within the relevant ceiling. Standard full-year minimum contributions are €4,521.36 and €4,611.64, respectively. The minimum is billed separately; the two advances cover contributions on income above the current year's minimum, using the previous year's business income.
For a partial first year, minimum contributions are prorated to registration months. The ceiling depends on contribution history: Circular 14/2026 expressly says the €122,295 ceiling for people without pre-1996 contribution history is not prorated by month. This is the category modelled by the planner. Reduced-contribution schemes, older contribution histories and businesses exempt from the minimum need a separate calculation.
Professional funds (Casse), such as those for lawyers, engineers or accountants, have their own rules entirely, and if you are enrolled in one you generally are not in Gestione Separata for that activity at all.
Do not carry figures between schemes. An artisan can owe minimum contributions even with no receipts, while Gestione Separata has no such fixed payment. Our guide to opening a partita IVA as a foreigner explains registration, and the regime forfettario guide covers eligibility for the substitute tax.
The monthly reserve rule
A receipts-based reserve is a useful budgeting rule, not a statutory percentage. The liability also depends on your regime, costs where deductible, pension scheme and payments made during the year. Begin with an estimate of those liabilities, then check whether the reserve is available before each payment window.
For a full-year activity, dividing the annual estimate by twelve gives a starting monthly target. A late start to saving, uneven receipts or a short first tax year can require a higher target or an immediate top-up.
For the illustrative example, the total 2026 accrual is €1,170.00 of substitute tax plus €6,100.38 of contributions = €7,270.38 on €30,000 of receipts. That is 24.2% of turnover. On receipts averaging €2,500 a month, the reserve is about €606 a month, held from the first month of activity rather than started in November when the invoices have already been spent.
Three refinements to that baseline:
- Reserve the tax on the pre-deduction base in year one. Nothing has been paid yet, so nothing is deducted yet. In the example, reserving 5% of €17,300 rather than of €23,400 under-reserves by €305.
- Do not reduce the later years' reserve because of a prior credit. In the example, 2027 shows a €549.03 tax credit, and it is tempting to spend it. That credit belongs to the tax column of a return that settles in 2028. The €1,220.08 pension balance arrives in the same window, from a different account line, with different F24 codes.
- Keep the reserve identifiable and available. A separate account can help prevent accidental spending, but the important test is whether liquid funds cover each payment window.
Track the reserve against the actual liability monthly, not annually. An annual review in December is a post-mortem: by then the cash is either there or it is not, and the June window does not negotiate. Our freelance cash-flow planner is built for exactly this — it tracks the month-by-month reserve against the scheduled payment events rather than producing a single annual figure.
Why the third year's settlement still needs a reserve
Reaching year three does not remove the need for a reserve. Lower income or a different tax position can reduce liabilities, but the balance-and-advance pattern still has to be reconciled.
In a stable activity the annual pension cash out equals the annual contribution accrual, in the long run. The advances plus the balance always add up to the definitive contribution for the year. So the cash-flow problem is not a growing total; it is the timing and the pairing.
Look at the June 2028 window again. The 2027 balance (€1,220.08) arrives glued to the first advance for 2028 (€2,440.15). That first advance is calculated on 2027's professional income, which is a year you have already been paid for. So the June and November windows in a steady state together equal that year's contribution — but each window contains money for two different years, and the June window is the bigger one.
And the pairing is what breaks budgets: a credit in one column and a debt in another, in the same F24, on the same day. Tax credits and contribution debits are separate items. They must be dealt with deliberately and via the correct payment channels — they are not netted automatically, and assuming they will cancel is how a freelancer ends up with a pension balance and a penalty instead of a credit.
That is the structural point of reserving per year rather than per bill: every tax year funds itself. The 2027 reserve pays the 2027 contribution, wherever and whenever it happens to be invoiced. The 2028 reserve pays the 2028 contribution. If you keep those mentally separate, the calendar's lumpiness stops being a threat and becomes a schedule.
Paying when you have no Italian bank account — and paying correctly
A non-resident or recently arrived freelancer may be paying these amounts before having an ordinary Italian account and home banking set up. There are workable routes, and we cover them in paying Italian taxes by F24 without an Italian bank account.
Two operational points that belong with the reserve rule. First, the F24 must be filed with the correct codes and the correct tax year reference; a payment made into the wrong year is not credited where you intended and generates a notice even though the money left your account. Second, the instalment structure is not cosmetic — if you use the forfettario/ISA regime and pay a single November amount when two equal instalments were due, you are late, not prepaid.
Mistakes that cost foreign freelancers real money
- Treating year one as free. Do not wait for an assessment notice: ordinary saldo and acconti are self-assessed payments.
- Counting months instead of tax years. A September start gives you a short first year, not a doubled one — reserve for the four months, then for the full year that follows.
- Deducting contributions that have not been paid. The forfettario deduction is a cash deduction. Accrued but unpaid contributions do not reduce the base.
- Using the ordinary €257.52 split threshold in the regime forfettario. The correct threshold for the single November payment is €206, and the split is 50/50, not 40/60.
- Assuming the calendar is fixed. June and November are the ordinary windows and both have been subject to deferrals in recent years.
- Choosing the forecast method to relieve pressure rather than to state the truth. The under-advanced amount is collected later with interest and penalties.
- Mixing pension schemes. Gestione Separata has no minimum contribution and an 80% advance; artigiani and commercianti have a monthly-pro-rated minimum and a different instalment pattern.
- Letting a credit on one tax disguise a debt on another. Keep the income-tax and contribution columns separate in the reserve.
Building the first two years into a plan
The mechanics above are stable and well documented. What is not stable is the amount, because it depends on your coefficient, your rate, your scheme, your start month and whether your second year repeats your first. That is a modelling problem, not a research problem, and it is why the numbers should be run for your situation rather than borrowed from someone else's.
Two tools on this site are relevant and they answer different questions. The freelance tax calculator estimates an annual settled position — useful once your contributions are actually being paid, and deliberately simplified in the way described above. The freelance cash-flow planner works on the timeline rather than the year: it takes your start month, your first- and second-year receipts, your coefficient, the month you begin reserving, and any amount already set aside, and it lays out the expected payments on the ordinary schedule alongside the reserve you should be holding at each point. Its month windows are planning windows, not the legal due date of any particular year, and its output is an estimate — not advice.
If the shape of your first two years is unclear because your activity, your residence status or your pension scheme is unclear, that ambiguity is worth resolving before you file, not after. Contact YourBusinessInItaly to work through the setup and the cash-flow plan together.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between saldo and acconto in Italy?
The saldo is the balance still owed for the tax year that has just been declared. The acconto is an advance towards the tax of the year you are currently in. Both are normally paid in the same F24 in June, with the second instalment of the advance falling in November.
Do I pay tax in my first year of freelancing in Italy?
A genuinely new Gestione Separata activity with no other liabilities may have no income-tax or contribution payments during its first calendar year. The first year's liability is normally settled the following year. Fixed INPS contributions for artisans and traders, VAT and other obligations can already be payable in year one.
Why does the second year cost so much?
In the second calendar year you pay the first year's balance plus the first instalment of the current year's advance, and separately the pension balance plus the current pension advance. Two years of liabilities meet in one F24 window.
How is the IRPEF or substitute-tax advance calculated?
By default the advance is 100% of the tax declared for the previous year, or a lower figure you expect to owe for the current year. It is payable in a single November payment below the statutory threshold, otherwise in two instalments.
How much is the INPS Gestione Separata advance?
There are two equal instalments on the 80% historical basis, using the relevant contribution rate and annual ceiling. In this article's example, the contribution calculated on €23,400 of income is €6,100.38, so the total advance is €4,880.30, split into €2,440.15 and €2,440.15.
Can I reduce the advance if I expect to earn less?
You can use the forecast method and pay an advance based on what you expect to owe. If the forecast is too low, the shortfall is still collected later with interest and penalties, so reducing the advance is a cash-flow decision with a real cost if you are wrong.
Are my INPS contributions deductible from the flat-rate income?
Under the regime forfettario, compulsory social-security contributions are deducted from the flat-rate income when they are actually paid in the tax period (art. 1, comma 64, L. 190/2014). Contributions merely accrued but not yet paid do not reduce the taxable base for that year.
Do I have to reserve money in year three as well?
Yes. At the June settlement of the second year the pension balance arrives together with the first advance for the third year. A tax credit on the income-tax side does not cancel that pension bill, and the two are not offset automatically.
Official sources
- Agenzia delle Entrate, "Come si paga l'Irpef" (page updated 12 March 2026): the €51.65 advance threshold, the ordinary €257.52 single-payment threshold with the 40%/60% split, the €206 and 50/50 rule for ISA and regime forfettario taxpayers, the June/November windows and the 0.40% surcharge for the 30-day deferral.
- Agenzia delle Entrate, Redditi Persone Fisiche 2026 — Istruzioni, Fascicolo 2: appendix on calculating INPS advances, including two equal instalments, the Gestione Separata 80% historical basis and the artisan/trader method.
- Agenzia delle Entrate, Risoluzione 93/E of 12 November 2019: article 58 of D.L. 124/2019 — the advance for ISA taxpayers and forfettario taxpayers is paid in two instalments each of 50%, instead of 40% and 60%.
- INPS, Circolare n. 62 of 27 May 2026: operational instructions for the RR section of the return, settlement of the previous year and advances for the current year, including the treatment of credits and compensation via F24.
- INPS, Circolare n. 14 of 9 February 2026: current artisan/trader rates, minimum contributions, payment windows and the post-1995 ceiling.
- INPS, Circolare n. 8 of 3 February 2026: 2026 contribution rates for the Gestione Separata, including the 24% rate where another compulsory pension scheme applies.
- Law 23 December 2014, n. 190, article 1, comma 64 (Normattiva): the flat-rate income calculation and the deduction of compulsory social-security contributions paid in the tax period.
This guide explains the mechanics of the Italian advance-payment system and is not individual tax advice. All figures in the worked example are illustrative, assume the 2026 rules and thresholds, and are not a forecast of any future year's rates or calendar. Confirm the applicable figures for your own tax year with a Dottore Commercialista.
Giovanni Emmi|September 24, 2026
