In Ruling No. 228/2025, the Italian Revenue Agency expressed its view on the applicability of the special regime for inbound workers under Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015 to unemployment benefits, specifically to NASpI (Nuova Assicurazione Sociale per l’Impiego – new social employment insurance benefit).
In order to properly understand the case, it is appropriate to briefly review the chronology of the events:
- 2016 – April 2022: the applicant (Mr. X), an Italian citizen, resides in Ireland for work reasons;
- April 2022 – September 2023: Mr. X returns to Italy, transferring his residence as an employee of a company and benefiting from the inbound workers’ regime under Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015;
- October 2023 – August 2024: Mr. X loses his job and begins to receive NASpI;
- 11 September 2024: Mr. X registers with AIRE and relocates (again) abroad.
In his ruling request, the applicant asked the Italian Revenue Agency whether the NASpI benefit received in 2024 could be considered eligible income under the inbound workers’ regime and therefore subject to Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015.
The inbound workers’ regime
The inbound workers’ regime, introduced by Legislative Decree No. 147/2015, was recently amended by Article 5 of Legislative Decree No. 209/2023 (in force since 1 January 2024). For all those who transferred their residence in Italy by 31 December 2023 (as in the case at hand), the previous regime continues to apply.
Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015 provides that, in order to access the special regime for inbound workers, three cumulative conditions must be met:
- not being resident in Italy for the two tax periods preceding the transfer;
- acquiring tax residence in Italy;
- remaining in the Italian territory for at least two years.
Accordingly, beneficiaries under Article 16 are Italian workers who return to Italy in order to carry out a work activity producing eligible income.
When such conditions are met, the individual is granted the possibility, with reference to certain categories of income, to benefit from a preferential tax regime. Specifically, the following types of income:
- employment income,
- income assimilated to employment income,
- self-employment income, and
- business income produced in Italy,
contribute to the overall taxable income at 30% of their amount.
The preferential regime takes effect from the tax period in which tax residence is transferred and continues for the following four tax periods.
For example: Mr. X (re)transfers to Italy in March 2021 (i.e., during the 2021 tax year) and benefits from the inbound workers’ regime for the entire year 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (until 31 December inclusive).
NASpI
NASpI – established by Legislative Decree No. 22/2015 – constitutes a monthly unemployment benefit “intended to provide income support protection to employees who have involuntarily lost their employment.”
As established by Article 6(2) of the Italian Income Tax Code (TUIR), “[i]ncome received in substitution of income […] shall be considered as income of the same category as the income replaced or lost.” As a substitute for employment income, NASpI is therefore subject to the same tax regime as the income it replaces.
In this regard, Ministerial Circular No. 326/1997 and Circular No. 9/E of 2014 classify unemployment benefits (including NASpI) among income received in substitution of employment income and, therefore, pursuant to Article 6 TUIR, belonging to the same category of employment income and subject to the same tax regime.
Compatibility of NASpI with the inbound workers’ regime
Circular No. 17/E of 2017 clarifies the purpose of the inbound workers’ regime, identifying its rationale in facilitating the return of Italian citizens who, after a period abroad, come back to Italy in order to carry out continuous work activity generating income.
Thus, although NASpI would formally fall within the category of substitute income eligible for the inbound workers’ regime, the Italian Revenue Agency has not recognized the applicability of the favourable treatment, since unemployment benefits are at odds with the rationale underlying Article 16.
Indeed, NASpI is paid (exclusively) following the termination of employment, and is therefore structurally incompatible with the receipt of employment income.
In the case of NASpI, the prerequisite for applying the inbound workers’ regime is therefore lacking, namely the production of employment income by the beneficiary. Put differently: if the worker has employment income, he does not receive NASpI, and vice versa.
The Revenue Agency has clarified a fundamental point in this ruling: the purpose of the inbound workers’ regime and the conditions for its application.
The purpose of the inbound workers’ regime is to attract Italian citizens who had previously emigrated, in order to bring them back to live and work (thus producing wealth) in Italy.
Put more directly, the inbound workers’ regime concretely aims to repatriate talent, know-how, productive capacity, and (presumably high) income, offering in return a significant tax incentive. If such productive or income contribution ceases (even for reasons not attributable to the worker), the very rationale of the incentive ceases as well.
NASpI is therefore teleologically incompatible with the object and purpose of the inbound workers’ regime, insofar as the prerequisite for the payment of the former is the cessation of work activity, which is instead an essential requirement of the latter.
Although unemployment benefits are generally classified as substitute income for employment income, in line with Article 6 TUIR, and therefore theoretically eligible as income under Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015, they are nevertheless incompatible with the prerequisite – as well as the purpose – of the preferential regime for inbound workers, conceived as an incentive to their return (and productive permanence) in Italy.
On the basis of these considerations, the Revenue Agency therefore did not recognize, in the case subject to the ruling request, the compatibility of NASpI with the inbound workers’ regime under Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 147/2015, with the consequence that NASpI contributes to taxable income at 100% (and not merely 30%) of its amount.
