Transitional lease in Trieste: length, valid reasons and how much you can ask

When it can be used

The transitional lease is provided for by the law on residential leases (art. 5 of Law 431/1998). The rules are set by the ministerial decree of 16 January 2017: the lease lasts at most eighteen months and serves the “particular needs of owners or tenants”. In Trieste the 2025 agreement also sets a minimum: one month.

The needs are not chosen by whoever signs: the local rent agreement lists them. In Trieste two agreements are in force today, with different lists. As we read the texts, for a new lease you choose which one to use, on two conditions: you use it in full (needs, rent, increases), and the certificate of compliance (attestazione di rispondenza) is issued by an association that signed it or has adhered to it. We explain this, with the risks, in 2022 or 2025 agreement. The lease is written on the decree’s standard contract, Annex B, and names the agreement chosen.

Leases of up to 30 days are a separate case: under the decree, rent and service charges are freely agreed, and the documents for the need do not have to be attached. If the landlord is a private individual acting outside a business, for tax purposes they are “short lets” (locazioni brevi): see the article from short lets to regulated rent. Here we deal with longer transitional leases.

The needs that qualify

Under the 2025 agreement

Article 3 lists fifteen needs: five of the landlord, ten of the tenant. The fifth and the fifteenth leave room for cases that are not listed, within two limits: a certain event and a precise date, written and documented in the lease.

Under the 2022 agreement

The 2022 agreement has a different list. In short, the landlord may need the home for:

• a temporary transfer of their place of work, or a return from abroad or from another city;
• marriage or civil union; separation, divorce or the end of a civil union or cohabitation;
• renovation, demolition or extension;
• their own medical treatment or care for family members;
• living there themselves or for their children; a move for study;
• the end of a job that came with staff accommodation;
• any other need linked to a certain event and a precise date, written in the lease.

The tenant may need a home for:

• fixed-term work, an assignment or a contract in another municipality; a move for work, planned or temporary;
• medical treatment or care;
• a home they have bought that will be available within 18 months, or housing they have been allocated;
• separation, divorce or the end of a civil union;
• works that make their own home unusable;
• an election campaign; a move for study;
• any other need linked to a certain event and a precise date, written in the lease.

For a need the list does not cover, or one that is hard to document, each party is assisted by its own association that signed the agreement: the landlord by a landlords’ association, the tenant by a tenants’ association. The associations certify the need and the support given, and the lease records it (Title B, point 12). Here too one need is enough, of just one party.

How it is documented

The need is written precisely into the lease and proved with documents attached to it. The right document depends on the need: a fixed-term employment contract, enrolment on a course, the application for the building permit for the works.

Under the 2025 agreement a self-declaration (dichiarazione sostitutiva, arts. 46 and 47 of Presidential Decree 445/2000) can be used instead of documents: a signed statement for which the signatory is answerable. It is mandatory when the documents would reveal health or other sensitive data, for example for medical treatment.

The rent: in Trieste, within the bands

In municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants the rent for a transitional lease is not free. The decree says so (art. 2, paragraph 2): the parties set it within the minimum and maximum values of the bands in the local rent agreement. Trieste is above that threshold, as the 2025 agreement points out. The calculation is the same as for the 3+2: zone, weighted floor area, band, increases (see the tables and the worked example).

Then there is the transitional lease’s own increase. The decree allows agreements to vary the values by up to 20%, and Trieste’s two agreements use this option differently:

• 2025 agreement: up to 20% more (art. 9.3). It is added to the increases that apply to all leases (furnishing, special value, the energy class shown in the APE, that is the energy performance certificate) and to the mandatory 10% reduction for class G. The total is applied once only, to the minimum and to the maximum.
• 2022 agreement: up to 5% more (Title B, point 3), on top of furnishing, up to 15%, and special value, up to 20%.

Taxes: the 10% flat tax yes, the rest no

The flat-rate tax (cedolare secca) is a tax at a fixed rate on the rent. It replaces income tax (IRPEF, the personal income tax), the local surcharges, the registration tax and the stamp duty on the lease. In municipalities with high housing pressure, and Trieste is one, it is 10% instead of 21% on regulated-rent leases. The Agenzia delle Entrate (the Italian Revenue Agency) also grants it to transitional leases at regulated rent (circular 8/E of 2017).

Landlords who stay under ordinary income tax do not get, on a transitional lease, the two discounts of the 3+2: the 30% reduction of the income on which tax is paid, and the registration tax calculated on 70% of the rent. The law excludes them for transitional leases (art. 8, paragraph 3 of Law 431/1998; from 2027 art. 39, paragraph 8 of the new Consolidated Income Tax Act).

In Friuli Venezia Giulia owners pay ILIA instead of IMU: the regional local property tax (imposta locale immobiliare autonoma). For regulated rent it is reduced to 75%, and in Trieste the reduction also applies to transitional leases, but only if the certificate of compliance is attached to the ILIA declaration (municipal regulation, art. 17).

If the lease is drawn up without the assistance of the associations, the 10% flat tax requires the certificate of compliance; for the reduced ILIA, Trieste’s regulation requires it without distinguishing between assisted and non-assisted leases. The detailed sums are in cedolare secca and ILIA.

Expiry and risks

A transitional lease ends on the date written in it, with no need for notice (art. 1 of the standard contract). The tenant can leave early only for serious reasons, by registered letter and with the notice period stated in the lease.

The standard contract adds a rule for the landlord. If at expiry they take the home back saying they want to use it in a certain way and then, without a justified reason, do not do so within six months, the tenant is entitled to come back on a 4+4, or to compensation of thirty-six months of the last rent.

A need written down only to make a short lease possible is the most delicate case: if the tenant challenges it, a judge decides. What a conversion means for taxes already paid we do not say here, because it depends on the case: ask an accountant.

The transitional lease with TriesteAffitti

Our transitional lease is called Flex. If you like, we can talk it through: we look with you at whether there really is a temporary need, whose it is, how to document it and which of the two agreements to use. We calculate the rent from the home’s documents. If you prefer to start from a draft, there is the contract generator.