Italy is a country in Europe bordered by France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and the enclaved states of Vatican City and San Marino. The country consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps, as well as several islands surrounding it. Italy is considered one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries in the world, ranking very highly in life expectancy, quality of life, healthcare, and education.
There are no restrictions on part-time contracts, but the employee must work a minimum of 16 hours per week.
No C-level titles (CEO/CFO, etc.) with the Employer of Record (EOR) employment model.
In Italy, the standard working hours are 40 hours a week and is typically spread over five days.
Employees who work overtime will be paid the following rates:
There is no mandatory national minimum wage in Italy that applies to all workers. Instead, the minimum wage is set by collective bargaining agreements by sectors, in combination with employment laws.
Minimum wage, therefore, varies by industry, location and level of experience. For more information on job title classifications, see the government website here.
Probation periods in Italy are typically 3 months, with a maximum duration of 6 months.
Employees in Italy must get a pre-employment medical check and certificate from a doctor before starting work, which will be reimbursed by the employer. For office-based workers, this is normally just an eye test.
Additionally, employees must get Health and Safety training on a regular basis, which should be organized and paid for by the employer.
In Italy, workers are typically entitled to a 13th salary, usually paid in December. In addition to this, salaried workers are entitled to a 14th salary, which is usually paid in June.
Employees in Italy pay income tax according to the following tax bands of taxable income:
Employees must also make social security contributions at the following rate: 9%
Employers in Italy must make the following contributions in addition to the employee’s gross salary:
Employers must also make contributions to:
Employees are entitled to a minimum of 20 days paid leave per year. However, most Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) include a minimum of 22 days.
Additionally, it is very common for CBAs to entitle the employees to an additional number of Paid Time Off (PTO) hours per year, with the following as a common standard based on length of service:
Employees are entitled to 180 days of paid sick leave per year.
Employees on a permanent or fixed-term contract typically receive 100% of their salary (paid by the employer) for the first 3 days of sick leave. Additionally, they are also paid for the first 2 instances of sickness absence in a year.
Following this, the employee is entitled to a reduction in pay to the following amounts:
Female employees in Italy are entitled to a minimum of 5 months of paid maternity leave, at 100% of their salary.
2 months of the maternity leave must be taken prior to childbirth, and the remaining 3 months must be taken afterwards.
Male employees are given 10 days of paid paternity leave which can be taken anytime within 5 months of the child's birth.
Employees who are parents or legal guardians of children under the age of 12 are entitled to up to 6 months of paid parental leave. This leave can be taken in full or in part, and can be shared by both parents.
This leave can be taken anytime up to the time the child turns 12.
There are 13 national holidays in Italy that are paid days off for employees:
Employers in Italy can typically offer the following benefits:
The minimum notice period depends on the length of service and employment seniority level. Notices can range from 30 to 180 days.
Payment in lieu of notice is possible. Employers can choose to pay an employee the salary for the months they would have worked notice for, and the relationship ends with no notice period.
Duration probation, employment contracts may be terminated with no notice or severance pay.
Severance pay comes from the TFR severance fund that employers pay into each month. It’s calculated according to the year’s overall salary divided by 13.5, plus 1.50% for each year of work plus accounting for inflation.
At minimum, employees terminated without cause would be entitled to 3 months of severance, though in practice this can range from 3 to 36 months, depending on the nature of the termination.
Employees in Italy are entitled to a 13th month bonus equal to 1 month of salary, usually paid out in December. Some employers also choose to pay a 14th month salary in June. Italy has their own "lavoratori impatriati" tax scheme, which is a program that offers tax incentives to qualified individuals to encourage the movement of "human capital" to Italy.
★ 30.5%-32% - Social Security
★ 1% - Accident Insurance
★ 7.4% - TRF Severance
★ EUR 60 - Other Social Contributions
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You've sourced a full-time employee or contractor located in a country where your company is not incorporated.
Pass us the details of your candidate and we will let you know exactly what it costs to employ your candidate in that country.
Sit back and relax as we onboard your new team member and take care of all the local compliances and admin work.
It can be prohibitively expensive to establish an entity in every country you want to hire talent in, so Remofirst will hire and pay your employee on your behalf while you manage their daily duties. Remofirst will handle formal HR procedures and employment contracts that adhere to local laws, so that you can simply approve invoices via our platform. When you work with an Employer of Record (EOR) you can compliantly hire the best employees around the world.
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
