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Who can opt out of paying the Italian TV licence fee?

Italy’s TV licence fee is based on an automatic billing system, which means you could be paying it unnecessarily. But who has the right to cancel it?

Published: 5 January 2024 09:51 CET
TV licence fee, Italy
Italy's TV licence fee is based on an opt-out rather than opt-in system, meaning you could be paying it unnecessarily. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Whether you’re an Italian resident or a foreign national owning property in the country, if your Italian house has one or more television sets in it, you’ll have to pay the national TV licence fee (often referred to as canone), currently standing at 70 euros a year after a change in the 2024 budget.

Paying the charge is straightforward as it’s automatically added to a household’s electricity bill (usually in the form of a monthly charge on bills from January to October).

READ ALSO: Who needs to pay the Italian TV licence fee – and how to opt out

But this complicates things for people who don’t have to pay, as they are in most cases required to opt out by January 31st of each year to claim a full one-year payment exemption.

Who has the right to opt out?

Three categories are exempt from payment of Italy’s TV licence fee, meaning that they can legally opt out of it:

  • People who don’t own a television
  • TV owners aged over 75 with an annual household income of 8,000 euros or lower
  • TV owners who are foreign diplomats or foreign military personnel 

While the scope of the latter two categories is fairly clear-cut, there’s often confusion among homeowners as to which types of devices legally qualify as TV sets. This is partly due to a lack of specific regulation on the matter. 

Guidance from state broadcaster RAI states that the fee applies to “devices that can receive or be adapted to receive audio/video signals through terrestrial or satellite platforms”. 

This means that computers which allow for the viewing of TV programs via a normal internet connection are not subject to the charge unless they are fitted with TV tuners or cable boxes, in which case they are subject to the charge.

For clarification as to whether or not your computer qualifies as a TV set, you’ll need to contact the Agenzia delle Entrate (Italy’s tax agency) or a qualified tax expert.

If you’re sure you are entitled to claim this type of exemption, claiming it is fairly straightforward.

In order to claim a non-TV-owner exemption for the whole year, you must complete and submit this form (Modello di dichiarazione sostitutiva relativa al canone di abbonamento) from Italy’s Agenzia delle Entrate by January 31st. 

See more details about how to claim your exemption in a separate article here.

Claiming a non-TV-owner exemption when you actually don’t have the right to one may land you with a fine of up to €516 as well as make you liable for the payment of up to ten years’ worth of unpaid fees.

This type of exemption must be requested annually, meaning you’ll have to resubmit the form at the start of every year.

Missing the end-of-January deadline is costly as it means you’ll need to pay the licence fee for the following six months, after which you’ll be able to claim an exemption for the second half of the year (the deadline is June 30th).

Claiming the other two exemptions 

The process to claim any one of the other two exemptions (people aged over 75s and foreign diplomats or military personnel) is pretty much the same as that for those who don’t own a TV, save for one major difference: these exemptions don’t have to be renewed annually.

The forms for both exemptions can be downloaded from the Italian tax agency website.

Please note that The Local cannot advise on individual cases. For more details about paying the canone and exemptions, see the Agenzie delle Entrate website.

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POLITICS

Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

The year 2024 is a bumper one for elections, among them the European elections in June. Italy is of course a member of the EU - so can foreign residents vote in the elections that will almost certainly affect their daily lives?

Published: 3 May 2024 15:25 CEST
Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy. 

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote? 

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels. 

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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