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Codice fiscale, notary proxy, and the real tax breakdown Brazilian buyers cannot find in one place
Thirty days from now, you could be legally bound by a preliminary sale contract (compromesso) you signed without a valid Italian tax code, without understanding the deposit terms, and without knowing that the agreed price is not the basis on which your taxes are assessed. Each of those gaps costs money. The preliminary contract is a binding document under the Italian Civil Code: if you pull out, your deposit — typically 10–20% of the agreed price — is forfeit. That is the immediate consequence of proceeding without preparation.
Yes. Italian law does not impose a residency requirement on foreign buyers. A Brazilian national can purchase residential property in Italy and hold it indefinitely without establishing residency. There is no government approval, no investment-screening threshold for private residential purchases, and no restriction tied to nationality. The reciprocità principle — which once required Italian courts to verify that Brazil would grant equivalent rights to Italians — has long been satisfied for property ownership purposes.
What you cannot access, as a pure investor based in Brazil, is the prima casa reduced tax rate. That benefit requires you to transfer your official residence to the Italian municipality where the property sits within 18 months of the notarial deed of sale (rogito notarile). For a Brazilian buyer who will not be relocating to Italy, this condition is not realistic, and any calculation that applies the reduced rate to your purchase is wrong from the outset.
The Italian tax code (codice fiscale), the alphanumeric identifier issued by the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate), is not optional and is not something you obtain on the day of the notarial deed. The Italian notary will not proceed without it. More importantly, the preliminary sale contract (compromesso) — which is signed weeks or months before the notarial deed — also requires your tax code, because it must be registered with the Italian Revenue Agency within 20 days of signing. Missing that registration exposes the seller to penalties and can jeopardise / unwind the transaction.
You can obtain your tax code in two ways from Brazil. First, through the Italian consulate that has jurisdiction over your place of residence in Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, and Recife all have Italian consular posts. Bring your passport, a Brazilian identity document, and proof of residential address. The consulate transmits the application to the Agenzia delle Entrate and issues you a certificate of the assigned code, usually within a few working days. Second, if you have a trusted representative already in Italy, they can apply at a local Agenzia delle Entrate office on your behalf with a copy of your identity documents. Either route works; the consulate route is preferable because it eliminates the risk of original documents being lost in transit.
Do this before you sign anything.
No. Italian law permits a buyer to authorise a representative to sign both the preliminary sale contract and the final notarial deed of sale through a special proxy (procura speciale). This is a formal legal instrument, not a simple power of attorney letter. To be valid in Italy, a proxy notarised in Brazil must follow a precise chain of authentication that many buyers — and some Brazilian agents — get wrong.
The authentication chain is as follows. A Brazilian notary (tabelião) authenticates the document. The National Council of Justice (CNJ) then issues an apostille under the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, to which Brazil has been a party since 2016. The apostilled proxy then requires a sworn Italian translation: a sworn translator recognised by an Italian court must produce the translation, which is attached to the original. The Italian notary handling the rogito will verify the entire chain — the notarisation, the apostille, and the translation — before accepting the proxy. A missing link at any stage means the deed cannot proceed.
Unlike in most common-law jurisdictions, where a simple notarised power of attorney is broadly sufficient for real estate transactions and a solicitor's firm can manage the process informally, Italian notarial practice is governed by strict public-law rules. The notaio is a public officer appointed by the state, not a lawyer acting for either party. Their function is to verify the legality of the transaction and record the transfer in the public registers. They will refuse to proceed if the proxy documentation is incomplete. Build at least three weeks into your timetable for the Brazilian notarisation, the CNJ apostille, and the translation.
This is where standard guides consistently fail. The tax bill depends on who is selling.
When you buy a resale property from a private individual, three taxes apply. The land registration tax (imposta di registro) is 9% calculated on the cadastral value (valore catastale) — not the agreed purchase price. The cadastral value is an official figure derived from the land registry and is typically 30–50% below market value, so the tax base is lower than the price you negotiate. The minimum payment is €1,000 regardless of cadastral value. Two further fixed taxes also apply: the mortgage registration tax (imposta ipotecaria) at €50 and the cadastral tax (imposta catastale) at €50. Total fixed elements: €100.
When you buy a new-build or a recently converted property from a VAT-registered developer, the structure is entirely different and more expensive for most buyers. VAT (IVA) applies at 10% for standard residential properties. For properties classified as luxury under ministerial classification, the rate rises to 22%. On top of IVA, three fixed taxes apply: €200 each for the imposta di registro, imposta ipotecaria, and imposta catastale. The IVA is calculated on the agreed contract price, not the cadastral value. On a €400,000 new-build apartment, the IVA alone is €40,000. That figure rarely appears in the summary bullet points of generic guides.
As a practical example: on a resale property agreed at €300,000 with a cadastral value of €150,000, the imposta di registro would be approximately €13,500 (9% of €150,000), plus €100 in fixed taxes. On a new-build at the same price, the IVA is €30,000 plus €600 in fixed taxes. The difference is €16,000 — large enough to affect your financing plan entirely.
The prima casa reduced rate would bring the imposta di registro down to 2% (or IVA to 4% on new-builds) but, as noted, this requires Italian residency within 18 months. A Brazilian investor who will not relocate should plan on the standard rate from day one.
The 1978 Italy–Brazil double taxation convention covers income and capital gains taxes, not property transfer taxes. It gives you no relief on imposta di registro or IVA. The EU–Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement, provisionally applied since 1 May 2026, covers trade in goods and certain services between the EU and Mercosur member states. Its investment-protection chapter does not extend preferential treatment to individual residential property purchases by Brazilian nationals in Italy. The domestic Italian tax regime applies in full.
Ubi emolumentum ibi onus — where the benefit lies, there lies the burden. The benefit of Italian property ownership comes with Italian transfer taxes. There is no workaround for a non-resident buyer.
The legal authority for this framework is found in Article 1 of the Tariff, Part A, attached to Presidential Decree No. 131 of 26 April 1986 (D.P.R. 26 aprile 1986, n. 131), which governs the imposta di registro, together with the Testo Unico dell'IVA, Presidential Decree No. 633 of 26 October 1972 (D.P.R. 26 ottobre 1972, n. 633), for the VAT treatment of developer sales.
On the notarial fee itself: Italian notary fees are partially regulated by ministerial tariff and partially subject to agreement, but on a €300,000 residential purchase you should budget approximately €2,500 to €4,000 for the notary, depending on the transaction's complexity and the notary's practice. The Italian National Council of Notaries publishes indicative tables. Estate agent fees (mediazione immobiliare) are typically 2–4% of the agreed price, shared between buyer and seller, though this is negotiated.
Brazilian-side financing and the Central Bank of Brazil registration of your outward remittance are matters for your Brazilian bank and Brazilian counsel; your Brazilian lawyer will confirm the current foreign-exchange rules under Lei n. 14.286/2021, which governs international capital movements. On the Italian side, what matters is this: the deposit paid under the preliminary sale contract is a confirmatory deposit (caparra confirmatoria) under Article 1385 of the Italian Civil Code (art. 1385 del codice civile italiano). If you withdraw without legal justification, the deposit is forfeit. If the seller withdraws, they must return double the deposit. This rule is automatic and does not require you to go to court to enforce it, but recovering double requires a formal demand and often litigation. The deposit is not a booking fee that can be refunded if plans change.
Brazilian buyers sometimes negotiate the preliminary contract in Portuguese through a Brazilian estate agent acting as intermediary. That negotiation, however informal it feels, produces a binding Italian contract the moment it is reduced to writing and signed in Italy. An Italian court will apply Italian law regardless of the language of the correspondence that preceded it: see, for context, the Italian Court of Cassation, Second Civil Division, judgment no. 9358 of 11 April 2024 (Cass. civ., Sez. II, sent. 11 aprile 2024, n. 9358), which confirmed that a written preliminary contract signed by both parties binds them under Article 1351 of the Italian Civil Code even when preceded only by informal correspondence.
The land registry search (visura catastale) and the mortgage search (ispezione ipotecaria) at the land registry (Conservatoria dei Registri Immobiliari) are the Italian notary's responsibility before the rogito, but you should obtain copies independently before signing the preliminary contract. They tell you whether the property carries undisclosed mortgages, whether the seller is the registered owner, and whether the cadastral data matches the physical building. A building irregularity discovered after the preliminary contract has been signed is a serious problem: resolving it delays completion and may require planning regularisation (sanatoria) at additional cost.
In our files, the most common mistake is signing the preliminary contract — or worse, paying the deposit — before the codice fiscale has been issued and before the proxy has been notarised in Brazil and apostilled by the CNJ. Buyers assume these are formalities that can be sorted later. They cannot: without the tax code the contract registration is impossible, and without a valid proxy the notary will not proceed to the rogito. The result is a transaction in limbo, a deposit at risk, and a seller who has every legal right to consider the buyer in default.
Start the codice fiscale application the week you decide seriously to proceed. Commission the proxy in Brazil before you sign the preliminary contract, not after.
Does the EU–Mercosur trade agreement give Brazilian buyers lower property taxes in Italy?
No. The EU–Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement, provisionally applied since May 2026, covers trade in goods, services, and investment in commercial sectors. It does not affect the Italian transfer taxes — imposta di registro, imposta ipotecaria, imposta catastale, or IVA — that apply to private residential purchases. Brazilian buyers pay exactly the same taxes as any other non-EU national.
Can I use the Brazilian codice fiscale equivalent to avoid getting an Italian one?
No. The Italian codice fiscale is a unique identifier in the Italian tax and registry system. Your Brazilian CPF (Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas) is not accepted as a substitute by Italian notaries or the Agenzia delle Entrate. You must apply separately for the Italian tax code. The process takes a few working days at an Italian consulate in Brazil and costs nothing.
If I buy through an Italian company rather than personally, do the same taxes apply?
Not exactly. An Italian company purchasing property pays different taxes depending on whether the acquisition is a business asset. However, establishing and holding an Italian company has its own tax and compliance costs — including corporate income tax on any rental income and potential complications on eventual resale. This is a separate analysis. An Italian lawyer experienced in real estate and corporate structuring should review whether the added complexity is justified for your investment size before you commit to that route.
HREFLANG BLOCK:
Editorial Team — Panato Law Firm Staff
