Buying a Hotel in Italy: Process, Taxes and Due Diligence

28 August 2026

A hotel purchase in Italy runs on a different track from a residential one: the cadastral classification changes the tax due, the operating licence has to be checked separately from the building, and the numbers you underwrite are occupancy, ADR and RevPAR rather than square metres. This guide sets out how the transaction is structured, what tax actually applies, which authorisations need verifying before signing, and which operating figures are worth checking against Italy’s 2025 benchmarks.

What decisions come before you make an offer?

Before any offer goes in, a buyer needs to settle three things: the intended location (a city hotel, a seaside resort, a thermal spa town), the number of rooms and hotel type that fit the budget, and whether the target is a ready-made hotel with a tenant already in place, a property for self-management, a building to renovate, or one to convert into hospitality use. Trevi Elite’s current hotels for sale in Italy span all four of those categories, and conversion or repositioning candidates follow the same logic as the operating-model shift described in our note on active longevity and wellness hospitality.

Once the criteria are set, the search runs as a professional engagement naming the buyer’s company, followed by a non-disclosure agreement. Signing the NDA opens access to the hotel’s name, address, floor plans and key financial indicators, including options that are not listed publicly.

From letter of intent to the final deed

The transaction moves through five further stages once a target is identified. A letter of intent comes with a deposit paid into the notary’s trust account; the property comes off the market and the buyer gets access to a data room covering cadastral extracts, ownership documents, balance sheets, operating permits, licences, lease agreements, supplier contracts and urban planning documents.

Due diligence follows, run by the buyer’s own auditors, engineers, technicians and notary, typically over one to one and a half months and at the buyer’s cost, ending in a condition report. An irrevocable offer comes next, usually with a deposit around 10% of the offered price structured as a caparra confirmatoria: the buyer forfeits it by walking away, the seller returns it doubled by walking away. Any cadastral or building irregularities or tax arrears found during due diligence need to be resolved by the seller before the final deed.

A preliminary contract follows, drawn by a notary and registered with the tax office, taking the total paid to 20% to 25% of the price, the irrevocable-offer deposit included; it requires the buyer or the buyer’s company to have obtained an Italian codice fiscale and opened an Italian bank account by this point. The final deed is signed before a notary, who registers it and retains the original while certified copies go to both parties; a bank representative attends when a loan is involved. Licences, permits and contracts transfer to the new owner at this stage.

Asset deal, going concern or share deal: choosing the acquisition structure

The acquisition can be structured three ways, and the choice affects tax treatment as well as due diligence scope. An asset deal buys the property itself. A going-concern purchase (cessione d’azienda) buys the operating business, complete with licences, contracts and goodwill, alongside the real estate. A share deal buys the company that owns the business rather than the assets, which means the buyer takes on the company’s history and the due-diligence scope widens accordingly. Buying as an individual or through a company changes which of these routes fits and how liability sits afterward, a distinction covered in our note on purchasing commercial real estate as an individual or through a company.

The going-concern route sits outside the scope of VAT; it is taxed instead by proportional imposta di registro applied to the different asset categories listed in the deed, including goodwill.

What tax is due when you buy the property itself?

On a straightforward property purchase, tax runs on the strumentali regime rather than the residential one: the sale is VAT-exempt by default, and imposta di registro, ipotecaria and catastale carry the real cost, with the split depending on whether the seller is VAT-registered. That is because a hotel classified in cadastral category D/2 counts as a fabbricato strumentale per natura, an instrumental building by nature, as Fiscomania and EC News both confirm, so it never falls under residential tax rules.

The sale is exempt from VAT by default under article 10, no. 8-ter of D.P.R. 633/1972. VAT applies instead only when the seller is the company that built or renovated the property and sells within five years of completion, or when the seller opts to charge VAT in the deed, per Fiscomania and Altalex. The rate that then applies, 10% or 22%, depends on the tax treatment of the individual transaction, which we cover in our article on purchasing commercial real estate.

When an Italian VAT-registered business sells the property, imposta di registro is due at a fixed 200 euro, while imposta ipotecaria applies at 3% and imposta catastale at 1% of the price stated in the deed, a combined 4%, and this holds whether or not VAT is actually charged on the sale, according to EC News, Fiscomania and Notaio Tassitani. When the seller is a private individual rather than a VAT-registered business, the figures change: imposta di registro rises to 9% and imposta ipotecaria and catastale drop to 50 euro each, per Notaio Tassitani and Fiscomania.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice, and rates can change; check the current position for the specific property before relying on any figure here.

Which licences and authorisations need checking?

A hotel purchase needs checks a residential purchase never requires: the accommodation SCIA, any hotel-use constraint on the destinazione d’uso, star classification, fire-prevention compliance and agibilita. The SCIA that authorises the accommodation business transfers with the business on a change of operator rather than automatically following the building, so a buyer needs to confirm the transfer directly rather than assume it comes with the deed. Some buildings also carry a hotel-use constraint on their destinazione d’uso from their history as an operating hotel, which limits what the property can be used for afterward.

Star classification is set at regional level in Italy, so the requirements behind a given star rating differ from region to region and need checking against the region the property sits in, not against a national standard. Fire-prevention compliance falls under D.P.R. 151/2011, which governs receptive structures and sets a periodic renewal cycle for the antifire conformity attestation, per Normattiva; the exact timing needs to be checked for the specific property rather than assumed. Agibilita, the building’s habitability certificate, is part of the same technical check.

Reading occupancy, ADR and RevPAR before you commit

Three figures do the work in evaluating an operating hotel: occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. Occupancy is rooms sold divided by rooms available. ADR, average daily rate, is room revenue divided by rooms sold. RevPAR, revenue per available room, is ADR multiplied by occupancy, or equivalently room revenue divided by available rooms, and it is the single number that captures both pricing and how full the hotel actually runs.

Italy closed 2025 with a national RevPAR of 159 euro. Rome reached a RevPAR of 183 euro on 74% occupancy and an ADR of 247 euro, and Milan reached a RevPAR of 160 euro on an ADR of 216 euro, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Market Beat Italy FY 2025 report. Those are useful reference points for measuring a target property’s own numbers against its city, rather than absolute benchmarks every hotel should hit. Going-concern hotels get valued on income and EBITDA and cross-checked per available room, not on building comparables alone, which is another reason the operating numbers matter as much as the bricks.

Is the Italian hotel market moving in your favour?

Transaction volume is climbing. Italian hotel investment reached 2.5 billion euro in 2025, up 29% on 2024, across 110 transactions, the highest deal count since 2007, with Rome accounting for 23% of national volume and Milan 15%, and domestic capital behind 53% of it, per Cushman & Wakefield. That is market-level context to weigh alongside the due-diligence steps above; our note on the hospitality sector’s appeal to investors covers the wider trend in more depth.

How Trevi Elite supports the acquisition

Trevi Elite runs the search and selection stage for buyers targeting a hotel purchase in Italy: naming the search engagement to your company, arranging the NDA, and giving you access to off-market options alongside our published hotels for sale. Through due diligence and the deed, we coordinate access to the data room and stay alongside you as licences, permits and contracts transfer to your name. Contact Trevi Elite to see the current selection of Italian hotels that match your criteria.

Sources: Cushman & Wakefield, Market Beat Italy FY 2025 (13 May 2026); Fiscomania; Notaio Tassitani; Altalex; EC News; Normattiva, D.P.R. 151/2011.