From EUR 5,200 for housing to EUR 1,600 for bills and fuel, the obligatory expenses of households rise to 42.2%.

These are the expenses related to goods and services that households cannot do without, such as housing, energy, bills, health, transport and insurance. Well, in 2025 the so-called 'compulsory expenditure' will continue to erode increasing shares of family budgets, coming to represent 42.2% of total expenditure, an increase of 5.2 points compared to 1995. This is what an analysis by the Study Office of Confcommercio, which takes into consideration the period 1995-2025, highlights.

The data that emerges from the long-term analysis, also confirmed by the estimates for 2025, does not differ in substance from what has been found in previous analyses: compulsory consumption has progressively absorbed an increasing share of household expenditure, making the share left over for marketable goods and services less and less. In thirty years, in fact, the share of consumption allocated to them has risen from 37% to 42.2%.

"For Italian families, the constant increase in obligatory expenses is a strong obstacle to the recovery of consumption. It is necessary to act on tariffs and taxation to strengthen purchasing power and relaunch the economic growth of our country," stressed Confcommercio president Carlo Sangalli.

In 'monetary' terms, against a total per capita expenditure of EUR 22,114 in 2025, more than EUR 9,300 will be absorbed by non-compressible expenses. Among these, housing is confirmed as the main chapter, with an annual average of 5,171 euros (+109 euros compared to 2024), followed by insurance and fuel (2,151 euros) and energy (1,651 euros).

Making the burden of compulsory expenditure ever heavier is the dynamic of prices: since 1995, their index has grown by 132%, more than double that of marketable goods (+55%). In particular, energy - despite the 2025 slowdown - has seen its prices rise 178% in thirty years. On the other hand, on the marketable side, if on the one hand services (such as catering, tourism, leisure) show signs of recovery (+134 euro per capita), on the other hand traditional goods (including foodstuffs) show a further decline (-57 euro). A trend that, together with the demographic reduction and the change in consumption habits, requires attention: in order to relaunch domestic demand, Confcommercio observes, it is necessary to remove the obstacles that compress the freedom to spend, starting with the containment of fixed costs and the protection of purchasing power.