The cedolare secca is the flat-rate substitute tax a private owner can elect on short-let income — contracts of up to thirty days — instead of IRPEF income tax and the regional and municipal surcharges. On the first property used for short lets the rate is 21%; from the second to the fourth it rises to 26%. Beyond four properties the law presumes a business, with a VAT number and an entirely different regime. These are the rates in force as we write, September 2026: check them with your accountant before filing, because budget laws touch this point often.
The election is made in the annual tax return, year by year and per property, and can be changed. In practice it nearly always pays for anyone whose marginal IRPEF rate is above 23%, which is most villa owners. The honest comparison covers everything, though: under the ordinary regime 95% of the rent is taxed, under the flat rate 100% — but with no brackets, no surcharges, and without that income pushing your rate up on everything else.
Whoever collects on your behalf — a portal, an intermediary, a management company — withholds 21% of the rent at source and certifies it by March of the following year. If you elected the flat rate, that withholding is tax already paid; if you have two or more properties taxed at 26%, the difference is settled in the return. If you did not elect, the withholding is an advance on IRPEF. Either way, the certificate is the document to keep.
What the flat rate does not cover: the tourist tax, which you collect for the municipality and which is not income; IMU property tax, still due; the administrative obligations — CIN, guest registration, ISTAT — which have a guide of their own. And it does not apply if you provide hotel-type services in a structured way, such as breakfast or daily cleaning: at that point you are no longer a private owner letting a house, you are a hospitality business.
How we handle it for the owners we manage: a monthly statement with gross rent, withholdings, commissions and costs in separate columns, so the accountant fills in the return without reconstructing anything; the withholding certificate ready in February; and, before starting, a simulation with the house’s real numbers — how many weeks, at what rate, what is left net under the flat rate and under IRPEF. If you own a villa in Tuscany and want that simulation, write to us: the address and the number of bedrooms are enough.
