Public CbCR in Italy: content, publication and deadlines
This page describes the Italian rules implementing public reporting of income tax information (Public Country-by-Country Reporting). It requires a structured report, an appropriate publication website and filing with the Italian Business Register. A guide to the obliged entities, required content and deadlines.
1. Public CbCR vs. confidential CbCR: two different obligations
Public Country-by-Country Reporting (Public CbCR) is a public transparency obligation: certain undertakings and branches must publish, on their own website and for five years, a document showing revenue, income tax and employee numbers broken down by tax jurisdiction. The Italian implementation is Chapter I-bis (Articles 5-bis to 5-novies) of Legislative Decree 139/2015, inserted by Legislative Decree 128/2024 to implement Directive (EU) 2021/2101. [1]
It is distinct from the confidential tax CbCR (country-by-country reporting under OECD BEPS Action 13, implemented in Italy by Article 1, paragraphs 145-146, of Law 208/2015 and the Ministerial Decree of 23 February 2017): that regime is a confidential data flow, filed with the Italian Revenue Agency and exchanged between tax authorities, never made public. Article 5-quinquies, paragraph 5, of Legislative Decree 139/2015 allows the methodology of that 2017 decree to be used when preparing the Public CbCR data, but this is a technical cross-reference: it does not make the confidential CbCR public, nor does it make the two obligations interchangeable. A group may be subject to one, the other, both or neither, with thresholds and scope that must be assessed separately. [1]
2. Who should assess the obligation
The following must prepare and publish the report if revenue exceeds EUR 750 million in each of the last two consecutive financial years (the obligation likewise ceases once revenue falls below the threshold for two consecutive years): [1]
- the ultimate parent undertaking, on a consolidated-revenue basis;
- the standalone undertaking (not part of a group), on its own revenue;
- an Italian subsidiary included in the consolidation scope of a third-country (non-EU) parent, based on that parent's consolidated revenue;
- an Italian branch (permanent establishment under Article 162 of the Italian income tax code, excluding branches below the revenue threshold of Article 2435-bis of the Civil Code) opened by a third-country parent or standalone undertaking above the threshold.
The following are not subject to the obligation, even as part of a large group: [1]
- entities supervised by the Bank of Italy under Article 67(1)(e) of Legislative Decree 385/1993 (the Italian Banking Act), which already publish equivalent information under Article 89 of Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD);
- a parent or standalone undertaking (including its branches) established solely in a single Member State and in no other tax jurisdiction.
Membership of a large group therefore does not automatically require every Italian entity to file: the threshold, the entity's role (parent/subsidiary/branch) and any exemptions must be assessed case by case.
3. What the report must contain
Article 5-quinquies, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree 139/2015 lists eight mandatory items of information (points a-h), not a free-form structure: [1]
| Point | Required information |
|---|---|
| a) | Name of the undertaking, the relevant financial year, the currency used. |
| b) | For ultimate parents only: a list of consolidated undertakings, separately showing those established in the EU and those in jurisdictions listed in Annexes I and II of the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. |
| c) | A brief description of the nature of the undertakings' activities. |
| d) | Number of employees on a full-time-equivalent basis (the decree does not provide its own technical definition). |
| e) | Total revenue, including related-party transactions, defined by reference to specific balance-sheet items (Article 2425 of the Civil Code) or international accounting standards. |
| f) | Profit or loss before income tax. |
| g) | For each tax jurisdiction: income tax accrued during the financial year (excluding deferred tax and provisions for uncertain tax liabilities) and income tax paid on a cash basis. |
| h) | Accumulated earnings at the end of the financial year. |
Paragraph 3 permits, but does not require, group-level reports to include explanations clarifying any material discrepancies between accrued and paid tax ("may be provided"): this is an option, not mandatory content. [1]
Italian law does not provide an option to temporarily omit commercially sensitive information, even though Directive (EU) 2021/2101 leaves this as a facultative option for Member States (Article 48-quater(6) of the Accounting Directive 2013/34/EU as amended): the Italian legislature has not exercised that option, and no provision of Chapter I-bis introduces it. This should not be confused with a different mechanism under Article 5-ter, paragraphs 3-4: where an Italian subsidiary or branch of a non-EU parent does not receive all necessary information from the parent, it must still publish the information it holds together with a statement that the parent failed to cooperate — a remedy for missing data, not a chosen omission. [1] [2]
4. Per-jurisdiction data and EU lists
Under Article 5-quinquies, paragraph 8, the information in Section 3 is presented: [1]
- separately for each EU Member State (aggregated at Member State level where a Member State comprises several tax jurisdictions);
- separately for each jurisdiction listed, as at 1 March of the financial year for which the report is prepared, in Annex I of the Council conclusions on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions;
- separately for each jurisdiction mentioned, both as at 1 March of the relevant financial year and as at 1 March of the preceding financial year, in Annex II of that same list (jurisdictions under monitoring);
- on an aggregated basis for all other jurisdictions.
The reference date is therefore fixed by law at 1 March: the EU list in force on that date must be used for the relevant financial year (and, for Annex II, the preceding year's list as well), not simply the most recent version available when the report is drafted.
5. Where to publish: general rule and the equivalence case
General rule (Article 5-sexies(1)(b)): the report is published on the website of the undertaking required to prepare it, with free access. Nothing in the text examined prescribes an Italian domain or servers located in Italy or the EU: what matters is that the website is genuinely attributable to the obliged undertaking. This is a reading of the provisions examined, not an exemption from other obligations (privacy, hosting, corporate transparency), which remain distinct. [1]
Equivalence case (Article 5-quater(d) and (e)): an Italian subsidiary or branch of a non-EU parent is exempt from preparing its own report only if the third-country parent (or standalone undertaking) prepares an equivalent report and all of the following conditions are met: the report is made freely accessible, in a machine-readable electronic format, on both the parent's website and the website of the Italian subsidiary or branch, within 12 months of the balance-sheet date; it is drawn up in at least one official EU language; it states the name and registered office of the subsidiary or branch; and the local directors remain responsible for compliance with the publication obligations. Publication must therefore be ensured on both websites, not on one or the other. [1]
| Situation | Website and assessment |
|---|---|
| Italian ultimate parent / obliged standalone undertaking | Publish on its own website, generally without domain or server-location constraints. |
| Ultimate parent in another EU Member State | Assess the parent's obligations in the relevant Member State (which implements the same EU directive). An Italian subsidiary is not automatically obliged merely because it belongs to the group. |
| Italian subsidiary of a non-EU parent, with equivalence | Publication on both the parent's website and the Italian subsidiary's website — a cumulative, not alternative, condition. |
| Italian subsidiary or branch of a non-EU parent, without equivalence | The subsidiary/branch itself prepares and publishes, on its own website, the report covering the parent (Article 5-ter, paragraphs 3-4). |
| An adviser's portal, or Fenice53.it | Technical and editorial support is possible, but no provision was found that treats a third party's website as equivalent to the obliged undertaking's own website: hosting solely on a third-party site should not be treated as automatically replacing the required company website. |
Accessibility and duration: the report is made available in Italian or in a language customarily used in the sphere of international finance, with free access, and remains publicly available for five consecutive years from its first publication (Article 5-sexies(1)(b)). The filing with the Business Register must record that publication on the website has taken place. [1]
6. Publication and filing deadlines
The ordinary deadline is twelve months from the balance-sheet date of the financial year for which the report is prepared (Article 5-sexies(1)). There is no dedicated transitional rule for the very first deadline: the dates often quoted simply follow from combining the obligation's commencement date with this general rule. [1]
Two different commencement dates must be kept distinct: the Italian reporting obligation applies to financial years starting on or after 22 June 2024 (Article 3 of Legislative Decree 128/2024); the common template and electronic format required by Regulation (EU) 2024/2952 apply instead to financial years starting on or after 1 January 2025. [1] [3]
| Financial year | Ordinary deadline, where required |
|---|---|
| 01/01/2024–31/12/2024 | Outside the first Italian commencement date (starts before 22/6/2024). |
| 01/07/2024–30/06/2025 | 30/06/2026, for the substantive reporting obligation. |
| 01/01/2025–31/12/2025 | 31/12/2026, applying the EU common template/format. |
| 01/07/2025–30/06/2026 | 30/06/2027, applying the EU common template/format. |
7. Electronic format and filing
For reports subject to Regulation (EU) 2024/2952, the format is XHTML with Inline XBRL (iXBRL) tagging, following the template and taxonomy published by the European Commission: a plain PDF does not satisfy this requirement. Equivalent reports from non-EU parents require a specific assessment of the permitted format, which is not necessarily the same. [3] [4]
For Italian electronic filing, the MIMIT directorial decree of 20 May 2026 (Fedra technical specifications) prescribes: base form S2, sections A, B and 33; a mandatory attachment coded CCR; submission formats .html.p7m or .xhtml.p7m. The public copy intended for the website must remain directly readable; the digitally signed copy (.p7m) is the one required for filing with the Business Register: these are two versions with different purposes, not duplicate copies of the same file. Filing uses the DIRE/ComUnica channel or equivalent updated software. [5] [6]
Note on other 2026 Fedra updates: two further MIMIT directorial decrees referencing Fedra specification updates were published after the May decree — on 28 September 2026 (effective 29 October 2026) and on 23 September 2026 — but they concern, respectively, gender-neutral terminology for corporate offices / cross-border operations under Legislative Decree 19/2023, and beneficial-ownership specifications: neither introduces any change to Public CbCR. Readers who come across these Fedra version numbers in another context should not attribute them to the obligation described here.
8. Responsibility, statutory auditor and penalties
Responsibility for ensuring the report is correctly prepared and published rests with the directors, who must act with professional skill and diligence; the board of statutory auditors oversees compliance and reports on it in its annual report to the shareholders' meeting (Article 5-septies). The statutory auditor must check whether the obligation applies and whether the report has been prepared and published, recording this attestation in its own report (Article 5-octies). [1]
Penalties (Article 5-novies) fall on the directors, not on the company as such: an administrative pecuniary penalty for failure to file (at the level set by Article 1(145) of Law 208/2015); a penalty reduced by half where filing occurs within 60 days of the deadline (beyond that, late filing is treated as non-filing); and a doubled penalty where the filed report contains untrue material facts or omits material facts that should have been disclosed. Unioncamere may enter into a free-of-charge agreement with the Italian Revenue Agency to verify the accuracy of the information filed. [1]
9. Practical checklist
A suggested operational sequence, to be adapted to the circumstances:
- Check the EUR 750 million threshold for each of the last two consecutive financial years and the Italian entity's role (parent, standalone, subsidiary or branch of a non-EU group).
- Check applicable exemptions (banking supervision, single-Member-State presence) and any equivalence route for non-EU groups.
- Determine the relevant financial year and the applicable commencement dates (Italian obligation from 22/6/2024, EU common format from financial years starting 1/1/2025).
- Collect, for each relevant tax jurisdiction: revenue, profit/loss before tax, accrued tax, tax paid on a cash basis, accumulated earnings, full-time-equivalent employees, the list of consolidated undertakings and a description of activities.
- Identify the jurisdictions in Annexes I and II of the EU list as at the relevant 1 March reference dates.
- Prepare the report in the required format (iXBRL/XHTML if subject to the EU Regulation) and language.
- Publish it on the obliged undertaking's website (or on both websites, in an equivalence case) and retain evidence of the URL, date and accessibility.
- File the signed copy with the Business Register within 12 months of the financial year-end, using the MIMIT technical specifications in force at the time of submission.
- Have the statutory auditor verify compliance, for the attestation required in its own report.
This guide describes Italian rules for informational purposes. The classification of the group, equivalence cases and tax conclusions require specific professional assessment.
Disclaimer
This page is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Fenice 53 S.r.l. does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness or currency of this content with respect to legislative, interpretive or administrative-practice changes occurring after the verification date shown on the page, and accepts no liability for direct or indirect damages arising from the use of this information. This article is not Fenice 53 S.r.l.'s own Public CbCR report and does not represent that any software for preparing one is available. To assess the obligation in a specific case, the equivalence of a non-EU report, or the applicable format, consult your accountant or tax adviser.
Official sources
- Legislative Decree 4 September 2024, no. 128, Official Gazette, General Series no. 214 of 12/9/2024, Articles 1 (inserting Chapter I-bis, Articles 5-bis to 5-novies, into Legislative Decree 139/2015) and 3 (application/commencement). Consolidated text also on Normattiva (Italian official legislation database).
- Directive (EU) 2021/2101 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2021 amending Directive 2013/34/EU; in particular Article 48-quater (content and optional omission) and Article 48-ter (publication and equivalence).
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2952, Articles 3-5 and Annexes I-IV (template, taxonomy and commencement of the common electronic format).
- European Commission, iXBRL Reporting Manual for Public CbCR.
- MIMIT, directorial decree of 20 May 2026, Fedra technical specifications v. 7.09, Article 1 and Annex A, points C, D.1 and E (form S2, sections A/B/33, CCR attachment, .html.p7m/.xhtml.p7m formats).
- Unioncamere, Public CbCR Operational Manual v. 1.1, Chapters 1-7 (filing procedure via ComUnica/DIRE).
- European Commission, Public CbCR taxonomy and official generator.
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