VAT payers, three out of ten flat-rate tax payers pay the 5% flat tax

The flat tax of VAT numbers is paid at the super discounted rate of 5% (instead of 15%) in three out of ten cases. In the last tax returns, in fact, 29.6 per cent of the taxpayers who chose the flat-rate regime applied the lower substitute tax, which is provided for the first five years for the 'start-up of new activities'.

The figure - elaborated by Il Sole 24 Ore from the Finance statistics - once again explains the great success of the flat tax, which closed 2025 with a record number of 242,529 registrations among new VAT numbers. The possibility of paying only 5 per cent on the taxable income calculated as a flat rate, and further reduced by compulsory social security contributions, often makes the convenience of this super-privileged regime unbeatable, for those who meet the requirements (e.g. not having already worked as a self-employed person in the previous three years and not continuing an activity already carried out before, even as an employee).

The share of flat-rate taxpayers applying the 5% flat tax is highest in sectors with a higher turnover (45.9% among restaurants and bars) or in those that have experienceda recent peak of openings (43.3% in construction). It is much lower, on the other hand, among professionals (23.9%), which suggests a more stable audience. As if to say that in the field of professional activities, including non-ordained ones, three quarters of those who applied the flat rate in the 2024 declarations had been in the regime for more than five years or, in any case, when they started they did not qualify for the 5 per cent rate.

Since 2016, i.e. since it completely replaced the old minimum regime, the forfait has been chosen by 2.2 million natural persons. It is a trend that only apparently contradicts the greater structuring of businesses found by analysing the InfoCamere database. First of all, because the two sets do not coincide. In addition, it may happen that those who operate under the flat-rate regime have among their clients more structured companies that have chosen to outsource certain services.

The subject was also raised by a report by Inapp in January, which highlighted the phenomenon of "dependent contractors" or "false self-employed", i.e. self-employed persons without staff who "depend almost exclusively on a single client from an economic point of view and do not have control over central elements of their activity, such as rates, working time or tools used". According to the Inapp-Plus 2024 survey, there are 494,000 of them in Italy, mostly young and with low incomes.