Buy in Italy where you holiday: rent it 11 months, live there 1 month (worked numbers)

In brief (October 2026): a one-bedroom flat bought for €150,000 on the Italian coast costs about €166,800 with purchase costs. On our illustrative assumptions it earns about €13,100 a year if let for twelve months and about €4,000 net (2.4% on the outlay) after manager, running costs, property taxes and the 21% flat tax. Giving yourself August costs about €1,400 of that net, giving yourself November about €130. The model works as a way to pay for a holiday base, not as an investment that beats a deposit.

The idea and who it suits

You already come to the same part of Italy every year. Instead of renting each time, you buy a flat there, let it through the year and keep one month for yourself. The case for it is simple: a booked-out summer pays for the rest. The case against it is just as simple: the month you want is usually the month everyone wants, and that month earns the most.

This article puts numbers on that trade for Italy. It does not replace the general guide to the model (the overview) or the method for choosing the month (owner month against rental income). It applies them to Italian resorts, Italian rules and Italian taxes.

It suits a buyer who would spend at least two to four weeks a year in the flat anyway, accepts a net return of a few percent and is happy to hand the keys to a local manager. It does not suit a buyer who wants the flat free all summer and also expects it to pay for itself.

Seasonality of Italian resorts

No source we found gives a clean month-by-month table for Italian holiday lets, so treat what follows as a direction, not a forecast.

• Lake Garda: one travel site lists February as the low month and August as the high month. A rental-data site (BnbCalc) shows average occupancy of about 33% at about €187 a night, while AirDNA's page for the town of Garda shows about 59% occupancy. The two disagree because of sample and method.
• Lake Como: an Airbtics estimate for 2025 gives about 67% average occupancy with very strong July and August (our yield guide for Italy).
• Puglia (Salento): AirDNA town pages show wide differences: Salve about 61% occupancy at about $184 a night, Salice Salentino about 38% at about $235, Bagnolo del Salento about 32% at about $101. The pages cover different twelve-month windows and small numbers of listings.
• Liguria, Sicily, Sardinia: we found no usable 2025 or 2026 occupancy or rate data for them.

The pattern that holds across sources is that July and August carry the year and that the winter months are thin. That is the pattern the model below uses.

Three resort areas and what a flat costs

• Puglia (Ostuni, Monopoli, Valle d'Itria, Salento). Agent and press reports talk of up to 8% gross in high season from short lets; that is a seasonal peak claim, not a yearly average. Our files hold no sourced price per square metre for Puglia, so the €150,000 flat in the model is our assumption, not a quote. For the wider south, a Casa.it survey of Blue Flag coast in Calabria put the average at about €1,052 per m² and an average flat at about €107,301.
• The lakes (Como, Garda). Como city averages about €2,740 per m² and the province is just under €2,000 (Immobiliare.it figures in our yield guide). Premium and strongly seasonal, with the shortest "empty" window in winter.
• Liguria. Idealista's Q3 2026 regional average is about €2,658 per m², which at a €200,000 to €350,000 budget is roughly 75 to 132 m² (our estimate). Italian press (a Codacons survey, seen only in search summaries) named Liguria the most expensive region for summer 2025 holidays, with rises of up to 20%; that is hotel and holiday pricing in general, not rental rates, so do not read it as a yield.

By budget: at €100,000 to €200,000 you look at a flat in a coastal southern town; at €200,000 to €350,000 you reach Ligurian and lake towns of modest size. Details are in what you can buy in Italy for €50,000 to €350,000 and the best areas to buy in Italy.

The maths: eleven months of letting against twelve

Everything in this section is our own illustrative arithmetic, not market data. The assumptions:

• Flat: one bedroom, 40 to 55 m², coastal southern Italy, price €150,000.
• Purchase costs: 11.2% for a second home (€16,800), from the worked example in our Italy budget article, so the outlay is €166,800.
• Occupancy by month, January to December: 20%, 20%, 25%, 40%, 50%, 65%, 80%, 85%, 65%, 40%, 20%, 25%.
• Average nightly rate by month, in euro: 45, 45, 50, 60, 70, 85, 105, 115, 85, 60, 45, 50.
• Manager 20% of revenue (inside the 15% to 25% range in our guide to short-term versus long-term lets) plus 12% of revenue for cleaning, linen, utilities and platform fees.
• Fixed costs of €2,190 a year: IMU €700, TARI €340, condominium and maintenance €1,000, insurance €150.
• Tax: the 21% flat tax (cedolare secca) on revenue. Our sources do not confirm that a non-resident owner can use it, so ask an Italian accountant.

Monthly revenue on these assumptions, January to December, in euro: 279, 252, 388, 720, 1,085, 1,658, 2,604, 3,030, 1,658, 744, 270, 388.

Result for a full twelve months of letting:

• Revenue €13,076 (163 booked nights, 44.8% occupancy, average rate about €80).
• Manager and running costs €4,184; fixed costs €2,190; flat tax €2,746.
• Net about €3,956, or 2.4% of the €166,800 outlay. Gross revenue is 8.7% of the price, which sits at the top of the range agents quote for Puglia, so this is not a pessimistic case.

If those numbers look low, compare them with our yield guide, which puts a prudent net for a foreign buyer at 3% to 4% of total outlay for an ordinary city flat. A small seasonal flat with a manager and a 21% tax on gross revenue lands below that.

Which month to take for yourself

What you give up is the net the month would have earned. On the same assumptions, taking one month out of the year costs:

• January €131, February €118, March €182, November €127, December €182.
• April €338, October €350, May €510.
• June and September €779 each, July €1,224, August €1,424.

With an owner month in November the year still nets about €3,829 (2.3% on the outlay); with July it nets €2,732 (1.6%) and with August €2,532 (1.5%). August takes about 36% of the whole year's net, November about 3%.

Two points follow. First, an owner month in winter or early spring is almost free in lost income; the cost is that Italy is cold, dark and half-closed on the coast then. Second, an owner month in August is the most expensive way to use the flat; it works only if the flat is cheap to buy and the other eleven months are strong. Consider splitting the month into two weeks in June and two in September: on these numbers that costs about €780 in total, against €1,424 for August.

Sensitivity

• Occupancy ten points lower in every month (annual occupancy 34.8%): net about €2,787, or 1.7%. Giving yourself August then leaves about €1,530.
• Rates ten percent lower: net about €3,341, or 2.0%.
• Net income falls to zero at roughly 16% annual occupancy, if every month scales down together. That ignores the cost of the capital you tied up.

Licence and registration when you also live there

Italy requires every short-term rental to be in the national database and to carry a CIN code, shown at the entrance and in every online listing. Penalties for missing or wrong display are €500 to €5,000. Guests must be registered on the Alloggiati Web portal within 24 hours, or within 6 hours for stays under 24 hours, and identification must be in person or by an approved video call. A fully unattended self-check-in does not meet that rule, which matters for an owner who lives abroad for eleven months.

Safety equipment is also required: a carbon monoxide detector (EN 50291), a gas detector (EN 50194) and a 6 kg extinguisher, with fines of €600 to €6,000 per violation. Cities add their own layers: Florence restricts unverified key-box check-in in the historic centre, Milan requires a regional CIR code on top of the CIN, and Venice and Rome combine zoning with minimum stays. Read short-term rental rules in Italy and, for condominium bans and insurance, licences, condo rules and insurance.

For your own month, nothing needs registering; the practical issue is the calendar. Block it in the manager's system and the platforms early, and write the owner stay into the management contract (managing the flat from abroad).

Taxes and running costs in short

• The 21% flat tax applies to the first short-let property and 26% to the second; three or more properties are treated as a business with VAT.
• IMU on a second home: base rate 0.86%, municipalities up to about 1.06% on a cadastral-based value. TARI: about €340 for a typical family in 2025.
• City tourist tax, usually per guest per night, for example €3 to €10 in Rome and Milan; the host stays responsible for checking it is collected.
• How the days you use the flat yourself change the tax is not confirmed in our sources; see taxes on personal-use days and rental income and ask a commercialista. A later sale is covered in capital gains tax on selling in Italy.

What the purchase costs

A second home pays 9% registration tax on the cadastral value, not the price, against 2% for a main home, plus notary, agent and lawyer. In our worked example the total is about 11.2% on top when the tax base is 55% of the price, and about 15.2% when the base equals the full price. Read property prices and buying costs in Italy. Non-EU buyers are subject to reciprocity under article 16 of the Civil Code and need a codice fiscale; non-resident mortgages usually cover 50% to 70% of the value.

Common mistakes

• Pricing the owner month at the average month instead of the month you will really take.
• Counting gross revenue as income and forgetting that the manager, running costs, fixed costs and the 21% tax take about 70% of revenue on these assumptions.
• Buying a flat in a building or a city district that restricts short lets, or that requires a regional code you have not checked.
• Relying on self-check-in in Italy without a local person who can do the guest identification.
• Taking occupancy numbers from one site; our sources give 33% and 59% for the same lake.
• Forgetting the CO and gas detectors and the 6 kg extinguisher.

Checklist before you buy

• Is the building allowed to host short lets, and does the condominium vote on it?
• Is there a CIN, and a regional code if the city requires one?
• Who in Italy does the guest identification?
• What do three managers charge, and what is in it?
• Which month do you take, and what does it cost on your own numbers?
• What happens to the tax if you spend more than a month there?

FAQ

Is an eleven-month let with one owner month realistic in Italy? Yes, if the owner month is outside July and August; in August it takes about a third of the year's net on our assumptions.

Do I need a licence to let only part of the year? Yes. The CIN applies to every short-term rental, however many nights it is let.

Can I use the 21% flat tax as a non-resident? Our sources do not confirm it; ask an Italian accountant.

What return should I plan for? Our illustration gives about 2.4% net on the outlay for a small seasonal flat; our general guide gives 3% to 4% as prudent for ordinary city flats.

Does buying a flat give me residence? No; see the golden visa guide.

How we help

We shortlist coastal and lake towns against your budget and your month, check whether the building and the city allow tourist lets, and connect you with a local manager and an accountant. Informational only, not legal or tax advice; figures are illustrative and change.