Italy vs Poland: the same money under two tax systems (2026)

Every rule below is real and is left out on purpose. Modelling it would need information this form does not ask you for, or a mechanism we have not built yet. What matters is not that something is missing, but which way it moves your number, so that is what we tell you.

• May not apply to you: Italy: Five regions and their capital cities are covered: Lombardy (Milan), Lazio (Rome), Campania (Naples), Emilia-Romagna (Bologna) and Piedmont (Turin). The regional and municipal surcharges of whichever you pick are included in the figure. Italy has fifteen more regions and about eight thousand municipalities, each setting its own rate. Regions choose between 1.23% and 3.33%. Municipalities may add up to 0.8 percentage points (art. 1, comma 3, D.Lgs. 360/1998), but the capitals of metropolitan cities carrying a large per-head deficit are allowed by statute to go above that ceiling (art. 1, commi 567 and 572, lett. a, L. 234/2021), and three of the five cities here do: Rome charges 0.9%, Naples 1.0% and Turin up to 1.2%. So do not read 0.8% as a national maximum. Across the five, the combined surcharge runs from about 2.0% of taxable income (Milan, lower incomes) to about 4.5% (Turin, above EUR 50,000). If you live somewhere else, pick the closest of the five and read the two surcharge lines as an indication rather than as your own town's rate. Applies to: Residents of any other region or municipality.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Only the personal tax credits of a single employee with no dependants are applied: the employment credit of art. 13 TUIR (up to EUR 1,955 plus EUR 65), the extra employee credit of L. 207/2024 (up to EUR 1,000), and the two reliefs paid as tax-free cash rather than as credits - the EUR 1,200 trattamento integrativo and the low-income payment worth 4.8% to 7.1% of pay. Any other detrazione you are entitled to is not modelled, and every one of them would lower the tax further. Applies to: Anyone entitled to family or itemised credits.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Family tax credits are not modelled: EUR 950 per child aged 21 to 29, up to EUR 800 for a dependent spouse, EUR 750 per cohabiting dependent parent or grandparent, each tapering with income. We model a single taxpayer with no dependants. Applies to: Taxpayers with a dependent spouse, children aged 21 or over, or dependent ascendants.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Itemised credits and deductions are not modelled: the 19% credits for health costs, mortgage interest, education and similar expenses, complementary pension contributions deductible up to EUR 5,300, and building-renovation credits. Applies to: Anyone with deductible or creditable expenses.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The 2026 substitute taxes for employees are not modelled: 5% on pay increases from collective-agreement renewals for private-sector workers who earned up to EUR 33,000 in 2025, 15% on up to EUR 1,500 of night, holiday and shift allowances for those under EUR 40,000, and 1% on productivity bonuses up to EUR 5,000. Each replaces IRPEF and both surcharges on the amount concerned. Applies to: Private-sector employees receiving those specific payments.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The 10% surtax on variable pay in the financial sector is not modelled. Bonuses and stock options paid to employees with manager (dirigente) status in the financial sector, and to coordinated and continuous collaborators in that sector, carry an additional 10% tax on the amount exceeding the fixed component of their pay (art. 33, D.L. 31 maggio 2010, n. 78, text in force 1-1-2026 to 31-12-2026). This calculator has no input for sector, job status or the fixed/variable split of pay, so it never applies the surtax. It does not apply at all where the payer instead donates at least twice the surtax to a Third Sector entity (comma 2-ter). Applies to: Financial-sector managers and collaborators whose bonus exceeds their fixed pay.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The employee's 0.30% wage-guarantee (CIGS) contribution is not modelled. An employer that averaged more than fifteen employees owes an ordinary CIGS contribution of 0.90% of the social-security pay base, and 0.30 of those points are withheld from the worker, not from the employer (art. 23, commi 1 and 1-bis, D.Lgs. 148/2015). This calculator has no input for the size of your employer, so it leaves the 0.30% out altogether rather than charge it to the many employees of smaller firms who never owe it. If your employer is above that threshold, about 0.30% more of your gross pay goes to INPS than shown, and because that contribution is deductible your taxable income and your tax are slightly lower than shown. Applies to: Employees of employers averaging more than fifteen employees.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The pension contribution ceiling of EUR 122,295 applies only to workers with no Italian contribution record before 1 January 1996. Someone who was already insured in Italy before then pays contributions on the whole salary, so on a high salary their contributions are higher and their taxable income lower than shown. Applies to: High earners first insured in Italy before 1996.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The employer cost shown covers the pension contribution only. Unemployment, wage-guarantee, sickness, maternity and accident insurance take the real employer charge to roughly 30% of gross pay, varying by sector, company size and job category. Applies to: Employers (affects the employer-cost figure, not the employee's tax).
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Under the inbound-worker regime we model the standard 50% exemption. Workers who move with a minor child, or who have or adopt a child while in the regime, get a 60% exemption instead, and some 2024 arrivals who bought a home in Italy get three extra years. Applies to: Inbound workers with a minor child, and 2024 arrivals who bought an Italian home by the end of 2023.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Under the teachers and researchers regime we model the basic six tax periods. The 90% exemption runs for eight tax periods instead if you have one minor or dependent child, or if you become the owner of a residential property in Italy after the move or in the twelve months before it; for eleven with at least two children; for thirteen with at least three. A child born or adopted while you are in the regime extends it the same way, so someone in year seven or later may still be paying the reduced tax while this calculator already shows the full one. Applies to: Teachers and researchers with dependent children, or who buy a home in Italy.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The teachers and researchers exemption covers only the pay for the teaching or research activity carried out in Italy, not everything you earn. This calculator takes a single salary figure and exempts 90% of all of it, so if part of your pay is for something other than teaching or research, your real tax is higher than shown. Applies to: Teachers and researchers whose pay is not entirely for teaching or research.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The flat-rate regime is shown as available up to EUR 100,000 of revenue, because that is the point at which the law throws you out in the middle of the year. The entry test is stricter and looks backwards: you may only be in the regime this year if last year's revenue was at most EUR 85,000 and staff costs at most EUR 20,000. Between EUR 85,000 and EUR 100,000 the regime still applies for the year shown, but ends on 1 January. Applies to: Freelancers with revenue between EUR 85,000 and EUR 100,000.
• May not apply to you: Italy: Professionals enrolled in a cassa professionale (lawyers, architects and engineers, doctors, accountants, notaries, journalists and other regulated professions) do not pay into the Gestione separata at all. Their own fund sets its own rates, its own minimum contributions and its own ceiling, and often adds a percentage charged on top of every invoice. None of that is modelled: the contribution line shown is simply not theirs. Applies to: Members of a regulated profession with a compulsory professional pension fund.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Artisans and traders in the flat-rate regime may apply for a 35% cut in their INPS contributions. It is optional, has to be claimed by 28 February, and buys the lower bill at the price of a proportionally smaller pension credit. We show the full contribution. Applies to: Registered artisans and traders in the regime forfettario who claim the regime contributivo agevolato.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Artisans and traders who registered with INPS for the first time at any point during 2025 can claim a separate 50% cut in their contributions, running for 36 months from the start of the activity and therefore still alive through most of 2026 (art. 1, comma 186, legge 30 dicembre 2024, n. 207). It has to be applied for, and it is an alternative to the 35% forfettario reduction, not an addition to it. We show the full contribution. Applies to: Artisans and traders whose first INPS registration fell in the 2025 calendar year.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The EUR 0.62 monthly maternity contribution of the artisan and trader schemes (EUR 7.44 a year) is not included. Applies to: Registered artisans and traders.
• May not apply to you: Italy: Royalties for copyright or intellectual property connected with the activity are taxed inside the flat-rate regime, but they do not go through the activity coefficient: they enter the base after an abatement of 25%, or 40% if you are under 35. We treat every euro of turnover as an ordinary fee, so for a 67% activity we understate this income and for a 78% one we slightly overstate it. Applies to: Freelancers part of whose income is copyright or intellectual-property royalties.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The reduced Gestione separata rate of 24%, which applies to people already covered by another compulsory pension scheme or drawing a pension, is not modelled: everyone is charged the full 26.07%. Applies to: Freelancers who also have an employed job, or who are already retired.
• May not apply to you: Italy: Contributions are really paid in instalments during the year, on the previous year's figures, with two payments on account and a balancing payment. We compute an annual figure from the income you enter, so the individual bills will not match this line even when the yearly total is right. Applies to: Everyone paying INPS as a self-employed worker.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The five-year limit on the 5% start-up rate, and its conditions (no self-employment in the three previous years, no continuation of what you did as an employee) are shown but not checked. If you do not meet them, your rate is 15%. Applies to: Anyone selecting the 5% start-up rate.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The coefficients are keyed to the ATECO 2007 groups named in the law. Italy moved to the ATECO 2025 classification without rewriting that table, and art. 1 of d.lgs. 12 giugno 2025, n. 81 expressly keeps Allegato 4 and its ATECO 2007 codes in force until new coefficients are approved, so your new-style code has to be mapped back onto these groups. Where a business spans two groups, the law requires separate records per group and we compute a single one. Applies to: Anyone whose activity spans more than one ATECO group, or whose ATECO 2025 code maps ambiguously.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: IRAP is charged on a different base from corporate income tax: the value of production, from which interest expense, provisions, write-downs, temporary labour and directors' fees paid under a coordinated-collaboration mandate cannot be deducted. This calculator applies the regional IRAP rate to the same taxable profit it uses for IRES, so for a founder company that pays itself through director's fees the real IRAP base, and the real IRAP bill, is higher than what is shown here. Applies to: Every company shown an IRAP line, and most of all owner-managed companies that pay the founder as a director rather than as an employee.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The IRAP attributable to permanent staff costs is fully deductible from the corporate income tax base, and a further flat 10% of IRAP is deductible as the part referable to interest. This calculator does not reduce the IRES base by either amount, so the IRES figure is slightly higher than the amount actually due. Applies to: Any company that pays IRAP, and especially companies with payroll.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: IRAP deductions for labour are ignored: EUR 1,850 per employee other than an open-ended one, for up to five employees, where positive components of production do not exceed EUR 400,000; the lump-sum deductions for small production values; and the deduction of the residual cost of employees on open-ended contracts. A company with staff pays less IRAP than shown. Applies to: Companies with employees, and small companies close to the lump-sum deduction thresholds.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Regions grant sector and situation reliefs that this page cannot ask about: reduced or zero IRAP rates for new businesses in small or marginal municipalities, for third-sector entities, social cooperatives, cultural activities and local publishing, among others. Where one applies the regional rate can fall to 2.98%, or to zero. Applies to: Companies qualifying for a regional IRAP relief in Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio or Campania.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: Regions may also move the rate the other way for chosen sectors, and one of the five listed here has: Emilia-Romagna raised its IRAP by 0.30 percentage points, from 3.90% to 4.20%, with effect from 2026, for businesses whose activity falls in a list of ATECO codes annexed to regional law 1 of 31 March 2025. The 3.90% shown for Emilia-Romagna is the ordinary rate, which is what a company outside that list pays; this page has no activity input and cannot tell the two apart. Applies to: Companies producing in Emilia-Romagna whose activity is on the ATECO list annexed to regional law 1/2025.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: Businesses whose main activity is in the energy sector (oil and gas extraction and support services, refining, electricity generation, transmission and distribution, gas production and distribution, energy brokerage, gas pipeline transport) pay IRAP two percentage points higher for 2026 and 2027. This page has no activity input and applies the ordinary regional rate to everyone. Applies to: Companies whose prevailing ATECO activity is 06, 09.1, 19.2, 35.1, 35.2, 35.4 or 49.50.1.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: Banks, other financial intermediaries and insurance undertakings pay corporate income tax at 27.5% instead of 24% and IRAP at materially higher rates, raised by a further two points for 2026-2028. This page models an ordinary trading company only. Applies to: Banks, financial intermediaries and insurance undertakings.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: A company that fails the non-operating-company test pays corporate income tax with a surcharge of 10.5 percentage points, 34.5% instead of 24%, on a minimum income deemed from the value of its assets rather than on its actual profit. The deemed base cannot be derived from the figure entered here, so the rule is not applied. Applies to: Asset-heavy or dormant companies that fail the operativity test of art. 30 of Law 724/1994.
• May not apply to you: Italy: An S.r.l. with no more than ten individual shareholders and revenues below the statutory threshold may elect fiscal transparency: the company then pays no corporate income tax and the profit is taxed directly on each shareholder's personal income tax, with no further tax when it is distributed. This page models the default arrangement (corporate income tax at company level, then a dividend tax), not the transparency election. Applies to: Small S.r.l. companies that elect transparency under art. 116 of the TUIR.
• May not apply to you: Italy: Only five regions are offered: Lombardy, Lazio, Campania, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont. Companies producing in more than one region must split the value of production between them, and each region taxes its own share at its own rate; the calculator taxes the whole profit at one regional rate. Applies to: Companies with establishments in more than one Italian region, or in a region not listed here.
• May not apply to you: Italy: If the shares are held in a business capacity (booked among the business assets of a sole trader, or held by a partnership), the 26% final withholding does not apply. Instead 58.14% of the dividend goes into the progressive personal income tax base on top of the recipient's other income, which for a high earner costs more than 26% and for a low earner costs less. This page assumes shares held privately. Applies to: Individuals whose shareholding is recorded among the assets of their own business, and partners of an Italian partnership.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: Dividends paid out of profits of companies resident in a low-tax jurisdiction are taxed in full on the progressive scale rather than at the flat 26%. This page assumes an ordinary Italian company. Applies to: Shareholders of companies resident or located in a privileged tax regime under art. 47-bis of the TUIR.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The calculation shows the dividend tax on its own and, in the founder chain, on top of corporate tax computed on the same profit figure. It does not model an S.r.l. that has elected fiscal transparency, where the company pays no corporate income tax and the member is taxed directly on the personal income tax scale with nothing further due on distribution. Applies to: Members of a small S.r.l. that has elected transparency under art. 116 of the TUIR.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Campania grants two credits against the regional surcharge, neither applied here. (1) Having at least two dependent children is the ELIGIBILITY CONDITION; the credit itself is 30 EUR for EACH dependent child counted from the first, so a taxpayer with two children gets 60 EUR, not 30 EUR. (2) Separately, 40 EUR for each dependent child with a disability under art. 3 legge 104/1992, with no two-child condition. Both require taxable income of at most 28 000 EUR for surcharge purposes, are apportioned by percentage and months of dependency under art. 12 TUIR, and cannot produce a refund. Applies to: Campania residents earning up to 28 000 EUR with at least two dependent children, or with a dependent child with a disability.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Campania or to Naples during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Emilia-Romagna or to Bologna during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Lazio or to Rome during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Lombardy or to Milan during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Piedmont grants 100 EUR per dependent child to taxpayers with more than two dependent children, and 500 EUR per dependent child with a disability, against the regional surcharge. These credits are not applied here. Applies to: Piedmont residents with three or more dependent children, or with a dependent child with a disability.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Piedmont or to Turin during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Poland: The 9% health insurance contribution is charged on gross pay minus your social security contributions, not on gross pay. Until the calculator applies that reduced base, the health contribution shown is slightly too high and the net take-home slightly too low. Your income tax is unaffected, because the health contribution is not deductible from it. Applies to: All employees (affects the net-pay figure, not the tax).
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: Married couples and single parents may elect joint or single-parent taxation, which can lower total tax when incomes are unequal. We model a single taxpayer only. Applies to: Couples and single parents filing jointly.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: The child relief (ulga na dzieci) is a tax credit of at least PLN 1,112.04 per child, higher for a third and further child, and is partly refundable. We do not model it, so families pay less than shown. Applies to: Taxpayers with dependent children.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: For a taxpayer under 26 earning above the PLN 85,528 exemption, the standard employee costs and social contributions attributable to the exempt income are not deductible in reality. We apply the full amounts to the remaining taxable income, so the tax just above the cap is slightly understated. Applies to: Under-26s earning more than PLN 85,528 who claim the relief for young.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: The health insurance contribution is modelled as fully deductible under the flat 19% tax, but the law caps that deduction at PLN 14,100 per year (2026). A flat-tax freelancer with income above roughly PLN 288,000 deducts more here than the law allows, so their real tax is slightly higher than shown. Applies to: Flat-tax (podatek liniowy) freelancers with annual profit above ~PLN 288,000.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: Voluntary sickness insurance (ubezpieczenie chorobowe, 2.45%) is included in the ZUS total. A freelancer who does not opt into it pays about PLN 138 per month less than shown. Applies to: Anyone who declines voluntary sickness insurance.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: Start-up reliefs are not modelled: 'ulga na start' waives all social contributions (health only) for the first 6 months, and the preferential 'mały ZUS'/'mały ZUS plus' bases (from PLN 1,441.80/month) apply for up to the next few years. A new or low-income freelancer pays far less ZUS than the full 'duży ZUS' shown here. Applies to: Freelancers in their first months/years of activity, or with prior-year revenue below PLN 120,000 (mały ZUS plus).
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: IP Box (a 5% rate on income from qualified intellectual property, e.g. copyright to software the freelancer creates in R&D) is not modelled under the scale and flat regimes. A software developer who qualifies pays less than shown on the part of income that is qualified IP. Applies to: Software and R&D freelancers on the general scale or flat tax who own qualifying IP.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: The 9% rate also requires that revenues in the CURRENT tax year do not exceed the PLN equivalent of EUR 2,000,000. This calculator only checks last year's turnover, so a company that qualified as a small taxpayer last year but earns more than EUR 2,000,000 this year is shown 9% when it actually owes 19%. Applies to: Small taxpayers whose current-year revenue crosses EUR 2,000,000.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: The reduced 9% rate never applies to income from capital gains (zyski kapitałowe), which is always taxed at 19%. This calculator applies the qualifying rate to the whole profit, so it understates tax on any capital-gains component. Applies to: Companies with capital-gains income (e.g. from selling shares) taxed at the 9% rate.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: A minimum income tax of 10% on a deemed base (podatek minimalny, art. 24ca) can apply to companies that report a tax loss or a profitability ratio of 2% or less on ordinary activity. It is charged on an estimated base rather than on the profit figure this form uses, so it cannot be derived here and is not applied. Applies to: Loss-making or very-low-margin companies (profitability 2% or less).
• May not apply to you: Poland: Poland also offers the Estonian CIT (ryczałt od dochodów spółek), an optional regime where corporate tax is paid only when profits are distributed, at 10% for small or new companies and 20% otherwise. This calculator models the default classical CIT charged on annual profit, not the Estonian regime. Applies to: Companies that elect the Estonian CIT (ryczałt od dochodów spółek).