How to open a bank account in Italy

What do you need to open a bank account in Italy?

Four things: your codice fiscale, an identity document, clear answers about the account and your work, and a signed statement of where you are tax resident.

• Your codice fiscale. This is step one, and it has its own guide on this site, How to get a codice fiscale in Italy. Banks are required to record it for the people they hold accounts for. If the Sportello Unico per l'Immigrazione gave you a provisional numeric code, to be replaced once your permesso di soggiorno is issued, that is a legitimate document, and Banca d'Italia expects banks' systems to accept it for the basic account.
• A valid identity document. A passport works for everyone, and EU citizens can also use a national identity card. Non-EU citizens should bring their permesso di soggiorno too, or the receipt for the application. The bank checks the documents and keeps copies.
• Answers about what the account is for and what work you do. The bank has to find out both. Depending on the risk it sees, it can also ask where your money comes from, and want a document such as a tax return or a statement from your employer.
• A self-certification of your tax residence, normally signed when you open the account. If you are tax resident in another country, you also give that country's tax identification number. US citizens give more, covered below.

If you are not resident in Italy and have never been given a codice fiscale, the law lets the bank identify you with your personal details instead. If you are moving here, get the code first anyway.

Give full and true answers. A bank that cannot complete these checks must not open the account, and giving false information at this stage is a crime.

Do you need Italian residency to open a bank account?

Not for the basic account. The right to a conto di base belongs to every consumer legally staying in the EU, whatever their place of residence. For any payment account, EU law also bars banks from discriminating against people legally resident in the EU because of their nationality or where they live.

Where residente or non residente does show up is the tax paperwork. Every new account holder signs a self-certification of tax residence, and a non-resident also gives the tax identification number of the country they live in, where that country issues one. Since 2024, Italy treats you as tax resident if, for most of the year (183 days, part days included), you have your residence, domicile or physical presence here. For tax, being registered with the anagrafe, the population register, for most of the year is presumed to make you resident unless shown otherwise.

What is the conto di base, and who has a right to it?

It is the basic account that Italian law requires banks, Poste Italiane and other payment providers to offer. Every consumer legally staying in the EU has a right to one. The law names people with no fixed address and asylum seekers, and Banca d'Italia names people waiting for a permesso di soggiorno as eligible too.

It covers everyday banking: transfers in and out, your salary or pension paid in, and a debit card for payments and cash withdrawals. Each service comes with a set number of operations a year. There is no overdraft, and usually no chequebook.

• It is free, stamp duty included, if your ISEE, the household means-test figure, is below €11,600. To keep it free, give the bank a valid ISEE by 31 May every year.
• People with a gross pension up to €18,000 a year can have it free too, though the usual stamp duty applies if their average balance is above €5,000.
• For everyone else there is a yearly fee, which the law caps: no higher than the median the same bank charged for those services over the previous six months.
• The bank cannot make it conditional on buying other services or its shares, unless it asks that of every customer.
• You can close it at any time without closing costs.

A bank can refuse it only if you are not eligible, because you want it for business or are not legally staying in the EU; if you already hold a payment account in Italy with the same basic services and are not moving it; or on anti-money-laundering grounds. Those checks must be case by case. A bank cannot turn you down just for belonging to a group it sees as higher risk, and a precarious financial situation is not a reason to refuse.

In August 2026 Banca d'Italia reported that some banks were resisting these requests without good reason, and asked them to remove the obstacles: to advertise the account, offer it to people legally staying anywhere in the EU, not only in Italy, and accept documents such as a provisional numeric codice fiscale or the receipt for a permesso di soggiorno application. Banks have until 30 November 2026 to check that they comply.

What can you do if a bank refuses you a basic account?

Get the refusal in writing. The bank must give it to you free of charge, within ten working days of your request, and say exactly why. It can leave the reasons out only in narrow cases, such as security or money-laundering concerns. It must also tell you how to complain. You then have three routes.

• A reclamo: a written complaint to the bank itself. It has 60 days to answer, less for payment services.
• An esposto to Banca d'Italia: free, no lawyer needed, sent through its Servizi Online portal or by post. Banca d'Italia passes it to the bank and replies to you, but it does not rule on the dispute.
• A claim to the Arbitro Bancario Finanziario, the ABF, if the answer to your reclamo was late or unsatisfactory, within 12 months of the reclamo. You file it online, without a lawyer. It costs a €20 contribution, which the bank refunds if you win even in part, and a decision takes about four months on average.

What does a bank account in Italy cost?

The main fee is the canone, the charge for keeping the account, listed on the official cost documents as tenuta del conto. Accounts are either a consumo, where you pay for each operation, or a pacchetto, where the canone covers a set number of operations or unlimited ones.

For scale, Banca d'Italia's survey for 2024 found that running an account cost €101.10 a year on average at a traditional bank, €30.60 online and €71.60 for a postal account, before stamp duty. Only 38% of online customers paid a base canone at all, against 66% of other bank customers. Online is cheaper on average, not automatically free.

Check these before you sign:

• The canone, or tenuta del conto.
• The fee for the debit card.
• Charges for each transfer or other operation, on an a consumo account or beyond a package's limit.
• The imposta di bollo, a stamp duty of €34.20 a year for individuals. It is due only when your average balance over the statement period is above €5,000, counting all your accounts at that bank together, and it is charged in proportion to the period each statement covers: €8.55 for a quarter.
• The ICC, indicatore dei costi complessivi: an estimate of the yearly cost for typical patterns of use. It replaced the older ISC in 2020, and it leaves out the cost of any overdraft.

Two documents carry all of this. The foglio informativo lists every cost, and the bank must keep it up to date in the branch and on its website. The documento informativo sulle spese is the EU standard summary that shows the ICC, and the bank must give it to you before you sign. You can take both home free, with a copy of the contract, and with no commitment. Once you are a customer, the bank sends you a free riepilogo delle spese at least once a year, listing what you actually paid.

Is your money protected if an Italian bank fails?

Yes, up to €100,000 per person at each bank. Bank deposits are covered by the Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi, the FITD, which pays out within seven working days, without you having to file a claim. On a joint account the balance is split equally between the holders, and each share counts toward that holder's own €100,000.

Postal accounts work differently. Deposits with Poste Italiane are not covered by the FITD; Banca d'Italia says they are backed by a State guarantee instead.

What is an IBAN, and how do you avoid sending money to the wrong one?

The IBAN identifies your account for every transfer in or out. An Italian one has 27 characters. It starts with IT, then two digits and a letter that act as a check, then five digits for the bank (the ABI code), five for the branch (the CAB code), and a 12-character account number.

Banks execute a transfer on the IBAN, not the name. If the IBAN is valid, the money goes through even when the name is wrong or incomplete. Since 9 October 2025, before you send a euro transfer, your bank checks for free whether the name matches the IBAN. If the check wrongly says the name matches and the money goes to someone else's account, the bank must refund you. If it warns of a mismatch and you go ahead, the risk is yours.

Can an employer or landlord refuse a non-Italian IBAN?

Not if the account is in the EU. Under an EU regulation, an employer paying you by transfer cannot decide which EU country your account must be in, as long as the account can receive the payment. The same goes for a landlord, a utility or any business collecting from you by transfer or direct debit: it cannot insist on an Italian account. The rule covers accounts located in the EU. An account in the US, for example, is not covered.

In Italy the authority that sanctions employers and businesses for this is the AGCM, the competition authority. Its online reporting form is free and needs no lawyer. In February 2026 it announced an €800,000 fine on a company that, from 2014 to 2023, refused to take payments from non-Italian SEPA IBANs or allowed them only through a costlier procedure.

In practice, your salary can go to an account you already hold in another EU country while you set up an Italian one.

How do the debit card and bank transfers work?

The debit card is the carta di debito, and in everyday Italian it is il bancomat. Some are co-badge cards that run on two circuits, the Italian one and an international one. At the till, saying «bancomat» sends the payment through PagoBancomat, the Italian circuit, and saying «carta» sends it through the international one.

A transfer is a bonifico. An ordinary one reaches the other bank by the end of the next business day after your bank receives the order, and a paper order at the counter can take one day more. A bonifico istantaneo arrives in under ten seconds, at any hour on any day of the year, and since January 2025 it cannot cost more than an ordinary transfer. You can set your own limit on how much it sends. It cannot be called back once ordered, so check the IBAN first. Within the EU, a euro transfer to another country costs the same as one at home.

What changes if you are a US citizen?

More paperwork at opening. Under Italian law, the bank must collect your US taxpayer identification number, often your Social Security number, a declaration of US tax residence and proof of citizenship. This applies wherever you live: for this purpose a US citizen counts as US resident even when also tax resident in Italy. The form may be the IRS Form W-9. People who are US residents for tax without being citizens count as US persons too, and foreign banks are asked to collect the same form from them.

Italy has a FATCA agreement with the US. For a reportable account, the bank sends your name, address, US tax number, account number and year-end balance to the Italian tax authority, which passes them to the IRS. The IRS warns that if you decline to give your tax number, a foreign bank may close the account or withhold on payments to you. Separately, you report the account yourself: on the FBAR, FinCEN Form 114, once your accounts outside the US together pass $10,000 at any point in the year, and on IRS Form 8938 above higher thresholds.

What do you say at the bank?

Use lei, the formal you, throughout, and «vorrei», I would like, to ask for things. The account itself is il conto corrente, or just il conto.

What mistakes do newcomers make with an Italian bank account?

• Waiting for Italian residency before trying. The basic account depends on legal stay in the EU, not on where you are resident.
• Assuming an online account is free. Online accounts averaged €30.60 a year in 2024, before stamp duty.
• Signing before reading the foglio informativo and the documento informativo sulle spese. Both are free to take home.
• Accepting a spoken no. A refusal of the conto di base has to come in writing, with the reasons.
• Buying something else to get the conto di base. The bank cannot require other services unless it requires them of every customer.
• Thinking your salary needs an Italian account. An employer cannot insist on one if your account is in another EU country.
• Going ahead with a transfer after a name-mismatch warning. If the money goes astray, the risk is yours, and an instant transfer cannot be called back.
• Letting your passport or permesso expire without telling the bank. Checks continue after opening, and the bank will ask for the new document.
• Keeping an account that costs too much. You can close a current account at any time, normally at no cost, and moving your payments to another bank is free and takes at most 12 working days.

What does a real conversation with the bank advisor sound like?

1. ConsulenteBuongiorno, si accomodi. Come posso aiutarla?Good morning, please have a seat. How can I help you?
2. YouBuongiorno. Vorrei aprire un conto corrente. Mi sono trasferito in Italia da poco.Good morning. I'd like to open a current account. I moved to Italy recently.
3. ConsulenteBenissimo. Ha un documento d'identità e il codice fiscale?Very good. Do you have an identity document and your codice fiscale?
4. YouSì, ho il passaporto e il codice fiscale. Per aprire il conto serve la residenza?Yes, I have my passport and my codice fiscale. Do I need residency to open the account?
5. ConsulentePer il conto di base, no. Però le devo chiedere a cosa le serve il conto e che lavoro fa.Not for the basic account. But I do have to ask what you need the account for and what work you do.
6. YouMi serve per lo stipendio e per pagare l'affitto. Lavoro come insegnante.I need it for my salary and to pay the rent. I work as a teacher.
7. ConsulentePerfetto. Le chiedo anche di firmare una dichiarazione sulla residenza fiscale.Perfect. I'll also ask you to sign a declaration of your tax residence.
8. YouVa bene. Quanto costa la tenuta del conto? E la carta di debito è inclusa?All right. How much is the account-keeping fee? And is the debit card included?
9. ConsulenteLe do il foglio informativo con tutti i costi, così lo legge con calma.I'll give you the information sheet with all the costs, so you can read it at your own pace.
10. YouGrazie. Una volta aperto il conto, mi può scrivere l'IBAN?Thank you. Once the account is open, could you write down the IBAN for me?
11. ConsulenteCerto, glielo stampo.Of course, I'll print it for you.