IT · MILANLocal facts

Living in Milan.

Italy's business and tech capital, and the one city where English gets you through a professional day. It is also the most expensive place in the country to rent and sits in the Po Valley, whose winter air quality is among the worst in Western Europe.

Verified Jul 28, 2026

Population 1,362,863

ISTAT — Popolazione residente per età e sesso al 1° gennaio 2026 (POSAS), comune di Milano 015146

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Comune di Milano only; the metropolitan city holds roughly 3.2 million. ISTAT flags the 1 January 2026 figures as an estimate aligned with census results.

· Europe/Rome· Italy rules apply

IT · MILAN

At a glance

The headline numbers for Milan — each with its own source and freshness. A live official figure is not the same as a survey estimate or a 30-year climate normal.

Cost of living

7.2/10

$1,093/mo

Rent, 1–3 bed

3.8/10

$1,100–$3,349

/mo

Freelancer tax

6.0/10

24.9%

Safety

9.9/10

0.57/100k

Air quality

4.4/10

19 µg/m³

Internet

2.2/10

27 Mbps

English

5.0/10

Moderate

Private health

no verified data

What the tags meanofficial — live figure from a government or authorityopen data — open dataset (Eurostat, EEA, M-Lab, UdSC…)survey — survey or index estimatecurated — SettleMetric-assembled estimate — open the source for the method

What it costs you per month

A planning estimate: real asking rent plus a cost-of-living basket scaled to your household. Not a quote.

Household

Lifestyle

Location

Estimated total

$2,194/mo

≈ $26,328 / year

Where it goes

Rent (1-bed)$1,100
Food & non-alcoholic beverages$281
Housing (water, energy, maintenance — excl. rent)$160
Transport$157
Restaurants & accommodation$85
Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)$71
Furnishings & household equipment$61
Health (out-of-pocket)$61
Recreation, sport & culture$55
Clothing & footwear$54
Insurance & financial services$39
Information & communication$38
Alcoholic beverages & tobacco$23
Education$9
Living costs$1,094

Rent from the asking-rent matrix below. Living costs scale a one-person basket ($1,094/mo) by household size and lifestyle; the equivalence factors are our assumption. Schooling and one-off setup are excluded.

Cost of living

What a single person spends each month — food, utilities, transport, eating out and the rest — excluding rent.

Typical monthly spending (national average)

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, divisioni di spesa)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Each ISTAT 2024 spending division for all households, divided by the average household size 2.2, uplifted ×1.0164 (HICP 2024→2025) and converted at 1.1399 USD/EUR. The housing line is shown net of both imputed rent (€617.39/household) and actual rentals (€63.08, from the 2.951% HICP weight), leaving water, energy, maintenance and condominium charges. Items sum to $1,094 against the $1,093 headline; the €1 gap is rounding.
Notes: Food is the largest single line at a quarter of the basket — a high share for Western Europe, and one reason Italy's overall cost sits below France and Austria despite comparable incomes. Health is out-of-pocket only: the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale covers residents, with co-payments (ticket) and private consultations making up this line.

total1,094 USD/mo

01Food & non-alcoholic beverages281 USD

02Housing (water, energy, maintenance — excl. rent)160 USD

03Transport157 USD

04Restaurants & accommodation85 USD

05Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)71 USD

06Furnishings & household equipment61 USD

07Health (out-of-pocket)61 USD

08Recreation, sport & culture55 USD

09Clothing & footwear54 USD

10Insurance & financial services39 USD

11Information & communication38 USD

12Alcoholic beverages & tobacco23 USD

13Education9 USD

Italy's household-budget basket for a single person, excluding rent. Non-rent costs vary little between cities — the city-specific part is rent, shown under Housing below.

01Cost of living (single, excl. rent)country-level1,093USD/month, single person, excluding rent7.2

What this measures

Monthly cost of a defined single-person basket (food, transport, utilities, mobile+internet, modest leisure) excluding rent, curated from national statistics office price data and large local retailers' published prices, converted to USD at the ECB rate recorded in fx-rates. The method field of each value itemizes the basket inputs.

Lower is betterUSD/month, single person, excluding rentre-verified every 365 days

Curated by SettleMetric

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Housing

What it costs to rent, by apartment type and location.

Asking rent by apartment type & location

Immobiliare.it — Mercato immobiliare Milano, canoni di locazione richiesti per zona (giugno 2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jun 30, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Two per-m² rates derived from the 32 zone quotations of June 2026: central = mean of the priciest quartile (8 zones) = €26.71/m²; outside the centre = mean of the cheapest quartile (8 zones, Bisceglie/Baggio to Affori/Bovisa) = €17.54/m². Applied to assumed floor areas — studio 35 m², 1BR 55 m², 2BR 80 m², 3BR 110 m² — and converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02).
Notes: Milan's centre-to-periphery spread is only 1.5×, much flatter than Rome's 1.8×: even the cheapest quarter of Milan costs more per square metre than the average Roman zone, which is what makes the city expensive across the board rather than just in the centre.

Milan's centre-to-periphery spread is only 1.5×, much flatter than Rome's 1.8×: even the cheapest quarter of Milan costs more per square metre than the average Roman zone, which is what makes the city expensive across the board rather than just in the centre.

Apartment	Central	Outside centre
Studio	1,066 USD/mo	700 USD/mo
1-bedroom	1,675 USD/mo	1,100 USD/mo
2-bedroom	2,436 USD/mo	1,599 USD/mo
3-bedroom	3,349 USD/mo	2,199 USD/mo

Climate

Temperature and rainfall through the year, plus air quality.

Monthly normals — Milan

NOAA/WMO Climatological Standard Normals 1991–2020 — Milano Linate (WMO 16080)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Linate, the in-city airport, rather than Malpensa 50km away, whose 1991–2020 precipitation series also has gaps. A continental Po Valley climate, not a Mediterranean one: freezing January nights, 30°C July afternoons, and the winter fog and stagnant air that drive the city's PM2.5 problem.

Daytime high °CNighttime low °CRainfall mm

Average day/night temperature (lines, left axis) and total rainfall (bars, right axis) for each month — 1991–2020 normals. Hover a month for exact figures.

Month by month
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Daytime high °C	7.3°	10.2°	15.5°	19.3°	23.9°	28.1°	30.7°	29.9°	25.5°	18.9°	12.4°	7.5°
Nighttime low °C	-0.4°	0.6°	4.4°	8.4°	12.8°	17.2°	19.3°	18.8°	14.9°	10.2°	5.2°	0.6°
Rainfall mm	37	38	42	58	70	67	44	59	74	82	104	46

01Climate comfort5pleasant months/year5.0

What this measures

Number of months whose 1991–2020 climate normals satisfy: mean daily maximum between 15°C and 28°C and monthly precipitation under 150mm. Computed from the city's climate-normals indicator; the raw normals are stored alongside so users can judge by their own taste.

Higher is betterpleasant months/yearre-verified every 3650 days

Curated by SettleMetric

SettleMetric — computed from the Milano Linate 1991–2020 WMO normals

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Months whose 1991–2020 normals have a mean daily maximum of 15–28°C and under 150mm of precipitation: March, April, May, June, September = 5. July and August exceed 28°C; October to February stay below 15°C.

02Air quality (PM2.5)19µg/m³, annual mean PM2.54.4

What this measures

Annual mean fine-particulate (PM2.5) concentration for the city, latest available year. Anchors follow the WHO 2021 guideline (5 µg/m³ → 10) through the EU limit value territory (25 µg/m³ → 2). Preferred source: European Environment Agency city-level air quality data; outside Europe: WHO Ambient Air Quality Database or the national monitoring network.

Lower is betterµg/m³, annual mean PM2.5re-verified every 730 days

Open data

European Environment Agency verified air-quality data for Milan (greater city), 2024 — via the EU Air Quality Tracker

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Annual mean of 19.0 µg/m³ across five verified monitoring stations in 2024 — 3.8× the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³ and among the worst readings in Western Europe, though still under the EU's current 25 µg/m³ limit value. The cause is geography as much as traffic: the Po Valley is ringed by the Alps and Apennines, so winter inversions trap particulate matter for weeks. The EU's 2030 target is 10 µg/m³.

Safety

How safe daily life is, from official crime statistics.

01Homicide ratecountry-level0.6intentional homicides per 100,000/year9.9

What this measures

Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 population, latest available year. Country level: UNODC national series. City level: official municipal/police statistics where published; otherwise null (country value shown as country-level).

Lower is betterintentional homicides per 100,000/yearre-verified every 730 days

Open data

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Crime by offence typecountry-levelpolice-recorded per 100,000 · 2024

Eurostat — police-recorded offences by category (crim_off_cat, ICCS, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary of private residential premises 05012, drug offences 0601, robbery 0401, sexual violence 0301, serious assault 020111. Italy's profile is the mirror image of its low homicide rate: property crime is high (theft above 1,550 per 100k, concentrated in tourist cities) while violent offences are low — serious assault is recorded at 2.04 per 100k, but Italy defines that category far more narrowly than France or Poland do, so cross-country comparison of that line is meaningless. Fraud, not shown here, was recorded at 732.67 per 100k.

01Theft1,552per 100k

02Burglary264per 100k

03Drug offences54per 100k

04Robbery49.8per 100k

05Sexual violence12.6per 100k

06Serious assault2per 100k

ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary of private residential premises 05012, drug offences 0601, robbery 0401, sexual violence 0301, serious assault 020111. Italy's profile is the mirror image of its low homicide rate: property crime is high (theft above 1,550 per 100k, concentrated in tourist cities) while violent offences are low — serious assault is recorded at 2.04 per 100k, but Italy defines that category far more narrowly than France or Poland do, so cross-country comparison of that line is meaningless. Fraud, not shown here, was recorded at 732.67 per 100k.

Hate crime (police-recorded)country-levelpolice-recorded · 2024

OSCE ODIHR Hate Crime Reporting — Italy (official police-recorded)

Official source

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: OSCE ODIHR 2024: 893 alleged criminal offences recorded as hate crimes, drawn from the police database (SDI) and OSCAD, the interior ministry's observatory on discrimination. Italy does not break out a racist/xenophobic subtotal in the data it submits, so that field is left empty rather than guessed. Counts are not comparable across countries — a higher number often reflects better recording, and Italy's total is far below France's 6,096 largely because of how bias motivation is flagged and how willing victims are to report.

893

recorded by police

OSCE ODIHR 2024: 893 alleged criminal offences recorded as hate crimes, drawn from the police database (SDI) and OSCAD, the interior ministry's observatory on discrimination. Italy does not break out a racist/xenophobic subtotal in the data it submits, so that field is left empty rather than guessed. Counts are not comparable across countries — a higher number often reflects better recording, and Italy's total is far below France's 6,096 largely because of how bias motivation is flagged and how willing victims are to report.

Infrastructure

Internet speed and how parcels get to your door.

01Domestic delivery qualitycountry-levelGood7.0

What this measures

Quality of in-country parcel delivery. excellent = nationwide next-day widely available, dense parcel-locker network, real-time tracking standard; good = 1–3 day delivery, lockers in major cities; basic = reliable but slow (3–7 days), mostly to-door or post-office pickup; poor = unreliable delivery, street addresses often unusable, informal workarounds common. Classified from official service/coverage data of the national postal operator and the two largest private carriers; inputs itemized in each value's method field.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Curated by SettleMetric

Poste Italiane — Rete Punto Poste (punti di ritiro e Locker)

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Poste Italiane's Punto Poste network lists over 18,000 pickup points and lockers, and more than 30,000 proximity points counting post offices, alongside private networks — BRT, GLS, SDA, DHL, UPS and InPost Italia. Home delivery is nationwide with next-day options in the north and centre. Rated 'good' rather than 'excellent': locker density is far below Poland's or France's (Poste's own locker estate is in the low thousands, against ~26,000 InPost lockers in Poland), and delivery reliability is noticeably weaker in the south and on the islands.
Notes: Cash on delivery (contrassegno) is still a mainstream consumer option in Italy, unlike in France — a legacy of lower card penetration that remains useful for anyone without an Italian bank card yet.

02International delivery easecountry-levelMinor friction7.0

What this measures

Ease of receiving goods from abroad. seamless = major international carriers deliver door-to-door, meaningful duty-free de-minimis threshold, customs clearance predictable in days; minor-friction = carriers present but low de-minimis, extra paperwork or routine delays; significant-friction = frequent customs holds, high brokerage fees, some marketplaces refuse to ship; unreliable = parcels regularly lost or blocked, informal import channels dominate. De-minimis thresholds and clearance rules from the national customs authority (official source, cite the regulation); carrier presence from carriers' official pages.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Official source

European Commission — removal of the €150 customs duty exemption threshold for e-commerce imports (from 1 July 2026)

Data as of: Jul 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Intra-EU shipping is frictionless under the single market — a parcel from Germany or Spain arrives like a domestic one. For non-EU imports the EU removed the €150 duty-free threshold and from 1 July 2026 applies a temporary flat customs duty per item on consignments up to €150, with VAT already collected at checkout through IOSS. The same EU-wide regime as every member state; Italian customs handling of non-EU parcels is slower than northern Europe's, which is the 'minor friction' in practice.

03Internet speedcountry-level27.4Mbps, median fixed download2.2

What this measures

Median fixed-broadband download speed over the trailing 6 months from M-Lab NDT open data (CC0), aggregated at country or city level. Not comparable with Ookla figures (different test methodology) — do not mix sources within this criterion.

Higher is betterMbps, median fixed downloadre-verified every 365 days

Open data

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Italy

Data as of: Dec 31, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for IT in 2023 (17.42M download tests; daily medians ranged 8.6–29.9 Mbps). M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API.
Notes: Low by Western European standards on this metric: Italy's copper legacy is long and FTTH rollout, while accelerating under the national broadband plan, still lags France and Spain. Fibre is available in the three modelled cities; rural and southern coverage is where the national median is lost.

Healthcare

What comprehensive private medical cover costs.

01Private healthcare costcountry-levelno verified data—

What this measures

Median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private medical insurance (outpatient + inpatient, ~$100k coverage, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old resident foreigner, from local and international insurers. Method field lists the insurers quoted.

Lower is betterUSD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-oldre-verified every 365 days

No verified premium. Italian insurers do not publish individual health-policy tariffs the way French mutuelle comparators do, and the figures circulating on broker blogs (roughly €300–500 a year for a basic individual policy at 35) are not traceable to a named tariff table, so they are not recorded here. What is certain is the structure: residents — including foreigners with a residence permit — enrol in the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which covers GP care, hospital treatment and subsidised specialist care against a co-payment (ticket). Private policies in Italy are supplementary, bought mainly to skip public waiting lists, not a replacement. Non-residents on a digital-nomad or elective-residence visa must instead hold private travel/health insurance for the visa itself.

Money & crypto

Crypto rules and how freely personal money moves.

01Crypto regulationcountry-levelLegal regulated8.0

What this measures

Own classification of the legal status of holding, trading and cashing out cryptocurrency for individuals: legal-friendly (legal with clear, favourable rules or explicit tax exemptions), legal-regulated (legal under standard licensing/AML and taxation), restricted (partial bans: payments or banking access prohibited), banned (holding/trading prohibited). Classified from national regulators' and central banks' official positions.

Rated by category—re-verified every 180 days

Official source

Agenzia delle Entrate — Quadro RT, sezioni V-A1/V-B1: imposta sostitutiva 33% sulle plusvalenze da cripto-attività realizzate dal 1° gennaio 2026

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Legal and fully regulated, but taxed harder than most of Europe from 2026: the substitute tax on crypto capital gains (art. 67(1)(c-sexies) TUIR) rose from 26% to 33% on gains realised from 1 January 2026, and the previous €2,000 annual exemption threshold was abolished from 2025 — so the first euro of gain is taxable. Euro-denominated e-money tokens stay at 26%. Service providers operate under the EU MiCA regime, supervised by CONSOB and the Bank of Italy. Note that the regime forfettario's substitute tax does not cover capital gains: crypto is declared separately in quadro RT whatever your business regime.

02Financial control levelcountry-levelLow10.0

What this measures

Own composite of state control over personal money flows: currency/capital controls (IMF AREAER), restrictions on foreign accounts and transfers, mandatory income declaration scope for residents, cash payment limits, banking access for foreigners. Low = free movement of personal funds and easy non-resident banking; very-high = strict capital controls and pervasive reporting. Method field on each value lists the inputs used.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Official source

Agenzia delle Entrate — Limitazione all'uso del contante e deroga per cittadini stranieri non residenti

Data as of: Jan 1, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Composite: Italy uses the euro, with EU free movement of capital and no exchange or capital controls. The binding constraints are ordinary anti-money-laundering rules — a ceiling on cash transfers between parties (art. 49 of D.Lgs. 231/2007), a reporting duty on large cash tourism sales, and the RW section of the tax return, in which residents must declare foreign accounts and assets including crypto. Non-resident banking is available with standard KYC. None of this restricts moving your own money, so the classification is 'low', the same as France and Spain.
Notes: Two official sources disagree on the general cash ceiling and we flag rather than hide it: the 2023 Budget Law (law 197/2022) raised it from €1,000 to €5,000 from 1 January 2023, and this Agenzia delle Entrate page tracks that by setting the tourism cash-sale reporting threshold at €5,000 ('previously €1,000 until 2025'), while the Treasury's own prevention-of-financial-crime FAQ still displays €1,000 as the limit in force since 2022. Either figure lands Italy in the same band. Worth knowing separately: Italy's declaration duty for foreign-held assets is broad, and penalties for undeclared foreign accounts are real.

Language

How far English gets you in daily life and services.

01English proficiencycountry-levelModerate5.0

What this measures

Own banding of how far English gets a resident in daily life (government offices, healthcare, housing, services). Informed by EF EPI band (research source, cited with attribution, not republished) plus official language status and service-sector realities. Values are our bands, not EF scores.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Research

EF EPI 2025 — Italy (score 513, rank 59/123, Moderate band)

Data as of: Nov 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Italy score 513, global rank 59, 'Moderate' band (EF cutoffs: Moderate 500–549), down 15 points on the previous edition. Reading scores highest (534) and speaking lowest (417), which matches the lived experience: written and technical English is workable in Milan's professional world, but Italian is required for administration, healthcare and most daily life, and proficiency falls sharply from north to south.

Education

International schooling options for families.

01International schoolsno verified data—

What this measures

Count of international schools in the metro area accredited by or member of IB, CIS, COBIS, or an equivalent national-curriculum-abroad body (verified against the accreditor's public registry, not aggregator sites).

Higher is betteraccredited international schools, countre-verified every 730 days

No verified data yet

Demographics

Who else lives here — the share of foreign residents and the largest national communities, from official statistics.

Openness to foreignerscountry-levelOpenGallup MAI 6.49/9 · 2016

What this measures

How accepting the resident population is of migrants and foreigners — the inverse of xenophobia, a real concern for someone relocating. Our own five-band reading (very-open / open / moderate / reserved / low) informed primarily by the Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index (0–9 scale: three questions on migrants living in the country, becoming neighbours, and marrying into the family; 2019 wave), cross-checked where available with the World Values Survey wave 7 / European Values Study 2017 question on whether people would not want immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours (a higher share = more hostile). Banding guide against the Gallup 0–9 score: ≥7.0 very-open, 5.5–7.0 open, 4.0–5.5 moderate, 2.5–4.0 reserved, below 2.5 low (the 2019 global average of 5.21 sits in 'moderate'). Country level only: no credible city-level survey of attitudes to foreigners exists, so on city pages the country reading is shown as country context. Gallup is a research source cited with attribution, not republished in bulk; the raw index score/year and any cross-check figure are carried inside each value. Value shape: { band, gallupMai?, gallupYear?, unwantedNeighborPct?, unwantedNeighborSource? }. Display-only: attitudinal, survey-based and ~2019 vintage, so it is shown as honest context and never folded into the composite score.

Reference data—re-verified every 1825 days

Research

Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index, first wave (2016–2017 Gallup World Poll) — full 139-country table (research, attribution)

Data as of: Aug 23, 2017
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Gallup MAI 6.49/9 (2016/2017 wave), well above the global average of 5.29 and just ahead of France (6.46) — a result that sits oddly against Italy's loud political debate on immigration, and a reminder that the index measures personal acceptance (migrants as neighbours, family) rather than support for immigration policy. Vintage 2019 or earlier: honest context, never scored.

Who lives therecountry-levelforeign residents 9.1%

Eurostat — Population on 1 January by age, sex and citizenship (migr_pop1ctz), Italy

Open data

Data as of: Jan 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: 5,371,251 foreign nationals and stateless residents out of 58,943,464 people on 1 January 2025 = 9.1%. Of those, 1.37 million hold another EU citizenship and 4.0 million are non-EU. The share understates settled diversity: Italy naturalises tens of thousands of residents a year, and their children born in Italy are counted as Italian.

Largest communities of foreign residents5,371,251 total

Eurostat — Population on 1 January by citizenship (migr_pop1ctz), Italy

Open data

Data as of: Jan 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Counts are Eurostat's as published; shares are those counts over the 5,371,251 foreign residents. These ten citizenships account for about 63% of all foreign nationals. Romanians alone are almost a fifth — a legacy of free movement after 2007 — and the Ukrainian figure includes those under temporary protection.

01Romania19.6%1,053,042

02Albania7.7%414,622

03Morocco7.7%412,457

04China5.8%311,250

05Ukraine5.3%287,187

06Bangladesh4%213,622

07Egypt3.2%174,141

08India3.2%171,429

09Pakistan3.2%171,179

10Philippines2.9%153,455

Counts are Eurostat's as published; shares are those counts over the 5,371,251 foreign residents. These ten citizenships account for about 63% of all foreign nationals. Romanians alone are almost a fifth — a legacy of free movement after 2007 — and the Ukrainian figure includes those under temporary protection.

How you can stay

How you can legally enter and stay. These apply across Italy.

All requirements & citizenship filter

What you'd pay in taxes

The tax schemes a freelancer can choose from. Rules are national, the same in Milan as anywhere in Italy.

Full schemes & calculator

See what you would keep

Your income against Italy's real tax schemes — the same engine as the full calculator.

Annual gross incomeCurrencyper monthBusiness expenses: 0%

1 Regime forfettario — IT and other services (67% coefficient)
45,062 EURnet/year
24.9% burden
Is this a genuinely new activity in its first five years (no business or professional activity in the previous three years, and not a continuation of previous employment)?
2 Regime forfettario — professional and technical activities (78% coefficient)
42,609 EURnet/year
29.0% burden
Is this a genuinely new activity in its first five years (no business or professional activity in the previous three years, and not a continuation of previous employment)?
3 Impatriati regime — 50% income exemption for new residents
41,056 EURnet/year
31.6% burden
4 Ordinary self-employment (lavoro autonomo) — IRPEF 23/33/43% + INPS
32,520 EURnet/year
45.8% burden

Who is Milan for?

The same place reads differently depending on why you move. Each lens pulls the facts that matter most for that plan — with sources, and the trade-offs stated plainly.

Contract or freelance in tech, billing clients abroad.

Works in your favour

Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$1,093/mo

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Domestic delivery qualityGood

Poste Italiane — Rete Punto Poste (punti di ritiro e Locker)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Poste Italiane's Punto Poste network lists over 18,000 pickup points and lockers, and more than 30,000 proximity points counting post offices, alongside private networks — BRT, GLS, SDA, DHL, UPS and InPost Italia. Home delivery is nationwide with next-day options in the north and centre. Rated 'good' rather than 'excellent': locker density is far below Poland's or France's (Poste's own locker estate is in the low thousands, against ~26,000 InPost lockers in Poland), and delivery reliability is noticeably weaker in the south and on the islands.
Notes: Cash on delivery (contrassegno) is still a mainstream consumer option in Italy, unlike in France — a legacy of lower card penetration that remains useful for anyone without an Italian bank card yet.

Watch-outs

Freelancer tax burden24.9%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Agenzia delle Entrate regime forfetario; INPS circolare 8/2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Best eligible scheme at €60,000 revenue for an IT freelancer = it-forfettario-it-67. Taxable base 67% × 60,000 = 40,200 (ATECO group 9 coefficient; expenses never reduce the base). INPS Gestione Separata 26.07% = 10,480.14, deducted from the forfeitary income → 29,719.86. Imposta sostitutiva 15% = 4,457.98. Levies 14,938.12 → 24.9%. The first five years of a new activity run at 5% instead (19.9%); the ordinary IRPEF route on the same profile is near 41%.

Internet speed27 Mbps

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Italy

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for IT in 2023 (17.42M download tests; daily medians ranged 8.6–29.9 Mbps). M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API.
Notes: Low by Western European standards on this metric: Italy's copper legacy is long and FTTH rollout, while accelerating under the national broadband plan, still lags France and Spain. Fibre is available in the three modelled cities; rural and southern coverage is where the national median is lost.

English proficiencyModerate

EF EPI 2025 — Italy (score 513, rank 59/123, Moderate band)

Research

Data as of: Nov 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Italy score 513, global rank 59, 'Moderate' band (EF cutoffs: Moderate 500–549), down 15 points on the previous edition. Reading scores highest (534) and speaking lowest (417), which matches the lived experience: written and technical English is workable in Milan's professional world, but Italian is required for administration, healthcare and most daily life, and proficiency falls sharply from north to south.

Relocating with a partner and school-age children.

Works in your favour

Homicide rate0.57/100k

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Watch-outs

Air quality (PM2.5)19 µg/m³

European Environment Agency verified air-quality data for Milan (greater city), 2024 — via the EU Air Quality Tracker

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Annual mean of 19.0 µg/m³ across five verified monitoring stations in 2024 — 3.8× the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³ and among the worst readings in Western Europe, though still under the EU's current 25 µg/m³ limit value. The cause is geography as much as traffic: the Po Valley is ringed by the Alps and Apennines, so winter inversions trap particulate matter for weeks. The EU's 2030 target is 10 µg/m³.

Private healthcare costno verified data

Ministero della Salute — Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (iscrizione e assistenza)

Official source

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: No verified premium. Italian insurers do not publish individual health-policy tariffs the way French mutuelle comparators do, and the figures circulating on broker blogs (roughly €300–500 a year for a basic individual policy at 35) are not traceable to a named tariff table, so they are not recorded here. What is certain is the structure: residents — including foreigners with a residence permit — enrol in the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which covers GP care, hospital treatment and subsidised specialist care against a co-payment (ticket). Private policies in Italy are supplementary, bought mainly to skip public waiting lists, not a replacement. Non-residents on a digital-nomad or elective-residence visa must instead hold private travel/health insurance for the visa itself.

Optimising tax, banking and crypto rules.

Works in your favour

Crypto regulationLegal regulated

Agenzia delle Entrate — Quadro RT, sezioni V-A1/V-B1: imposta sostitutiva 33% sulle plusvalenze da cripto-attività realizzate dal 1° gennaio 2026

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Legal and fully regulated, but taxed harder than most of Europe from 2026: the substitute tax on crypto capital gains (art. 67(1)(c-sexies) TUIR) rose from 26% to 33% on gains realised from 1 January 2026, and the previous €2,000 annual exemption threshold was abolished from 2025 — so the first euro of gain is taxable. Euro-denominated e-money tokens stay at 26%. Service providers operate under the EU MiCA regime, supervised by CONSOB and the Bank of Italy. Note that the regime forfettario's substitute tax does not cover capital gains: crypto is declared separately in quadro RT whatever your business regime.

Financial control levelLow

Agenzia delle Entrate — Limitazione all'uso del contante e deroga per cittadini stranieri non residenti

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Composite: Italy uses the euro, with EU free movement of capital and no exchange or capital controls. The binding constraints are ordinary anti-money-laundering rules — a ceiling on cash transfers between parties (art. 49 of D.Lgs. 231/2007), a reporting duty on large cash tourism sales, and the RW section of the tax return, in which residents must declare foreign accounts and assets including crypto. Non-resident banking is available with standard KYC. None of this restricts moving your own money, so the classification is 'low', the same as France and Spain.
Notes: Two official sources disagree on the general cash ceiling and we flag rather than hide it: the 2023 Budget Law (law 197/2022) raised it from €1,000 to €5,000 from 1 January 2023, and this Agenzia delle Entrate page tracks that by setting the tourism cash-sale reporting threshold at €5,000 ('previously €1,000 until 2025'), while the Treasury's own prevention-of-financial-crime FAQ still displays €1,000 as the limit in force since 2022. Either figure lands Italy in the same band. Worth knowing separately: Italy's declaration duty for foreign-held assets is broad, and penalties for undeclared foreign accounts are real.

Watch-outs

Freelancer tax burden24.9%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Agenzia delle Entrate regime forfetario; INPS circolare 8/2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Best eligible scheme at €60,000 revenue for an IT freelancer = it-forfettario-it-67. Taxable base 67% × 60,000 = 40,200 (ATECO group 9 coefficient; expenses never reduce the base). INPS Gestione Separata 26.07% = 10,480.14, deducted from the forfeitary income → 29,719.86. Imposta sostitutiva 15% = 4,457.98. Levies 14,938.12 → 24.9%. The first five years of a new activity run at 5% instead (19.9%); the ordinary IRPEF route on the same profile is near 41%.

Prioritising safety, air, and an easy daily life.

Works in your favour

Homicide rate0.57/100k

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$1,093/mo

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Watch-outs

Air quality (PM2.5)19 µg/m³

European Environment Agency verified air-quality data for Milan (greater city), 2024 — via the EU Air Quality Tracker

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Annual mean of 19.0 µg/m³ across five verified monitoring stations in 2024 — 3.8× the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³ and among the worst readings in Western Europe, though still under the EU's current 25 µg/m³ limit value. The cause is geography as much as traffic: the Po Valley is ringed by the Alps and Apennines, so winter inversions trap particulate matter for weeks. The EU's 2030 target is 10 µg/m³.

Climate comfort5/12 mo

SettleMetric — computed from the Milano Linate 1991–2020 WMO normals

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Months whose 1991–2020 normals have a mean daily maximum of 15–28°C and under 150mm of precipitation: March, April, May, June, September = 5. July and August exceed 28°C; October to February stay below 15°C.

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