Manoeuvre 2026: Irpef reductions, tax cuts and bonuses in pay packets for private and public workers

From the cut in the second Irpef rate, which goes from 35 to 33%, to the detaxation of contractual increases resulting from renewals signed between 2024 and 2026. From favourable taxation on productivity bonuses, night work and holidays, to the bonus for working mothers with two children, which rises from €40 a month to €60 a month.

As the Minister of the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, and the Minister of Labour, Marina Calderone, also recalled, the figure of the 2026 manoeuvre, definitively approved by the Chamber of Deputies, is the increase in workers' incomes and salaries. 'Something that both unions and employers were asking us for,' they both recalled.

Let us start with Irpef. From January, the two-point reduction of the second rate will be triggered: the intervention involves about 13.6 million taxpayers. For those with a total income, net of the main house, greater than 200,000 euro, the increase is sterilised by a reduction of 440 euro on some deductions.

A substitute tax at a rate of 5% is then introduced on salary increases paid to private sector employees in the year 2026, in implementation of contractual renewals signed from 1 January 2024 and by 31 December 2026. The provision applies to private sector employees with an income, in the year 2025, of no more than EUR 33,000.

According to the technical report to the manoeuvre, an estimated 3.8 million employees are affected by this measure. The substitute tax on productivity bonuses increases from 5 per cent to 1 per cent and is applied on amounts that rise from EUR 3,000 to EUR 5,000 (the measure also applies to employee profit-sharing shares). According to the technical report to the manoeuvre, the potential number of persons involved is assumed to be around 250 thousand.