Employer of Record in Italy: 20 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in Italy: key facts

Italy has no statutory minimum wage: pay floors, 14 monthly payments, notice and most leave rules come from the national collective agreement (CCNL). We use CCNL Terziario, Distribuzione e Servizi (Confcommercio) as the benchmark for office and IT work.

Minimum wage

There is no national or regional statutory minimum wage, so the table shows a collective-agreement floor, not a legal minimum (temi.camera.it, checked 2026-10-05).

• Other levels, monthly minimo tabellare from 2025-11-01, before contingenza: Quadri 2,183.09; I 1,966.54; II 1,701.04; III 1,453.94; V 1,136.07; VI 1,019.94; VII 873.22. IT and software roles are often classified at levels II-III, so level IV is a floor for office work, not a market salary (cs.camcom.gov.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• DL 62/2026 ties pay adequacy and access to public hiring incentives to the leading CCNL of the sector but sets no fixed amount; the L. 144/2025 delegation to legislate on pay lapsed on 2026-04-18 (temi.camera.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Employer contributions

Rates for an office employee in commerce at an employer with more than 50 staff, which is the assumption for an EOR entity. They apply to full gross pay including the 13th and 14th payments, up to a 2026 ceiling of EUR 122,295 (kitech.it, checked 2026-10-05).

The FIS and CIGS rates are both counted here, following Il Sole 24 Ore’s report of double coverage for non-industrial employers above 15 staff; we did not confirm it against an INPS table. If FIS does not apply on top of CIGS, the INPS total is 0.5333 points lower. Kitech’s own total omits FIS (ntplusfisco.ilsole24ore.com, checked 2026-10-05).

Working hours and overtime

• Standard week: 40 hours under the CCNL, spread over 5 days; the statutory maximum is 48 hours a week on average including overtime (D.Lgs. 66/2003) (cs.camcom.gov.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• CCNL surcharges: daytime overtime up to the 48th weekly hour +15%, beyond it +20%, Sunday and holiday work +30%, night work +50% (confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Annual leave and public holidays

• Leave: 26 working days under the CCNL; the statutory minimum is 4 weeks, and it cannot be paid out in lieu except on termination. Paid ROL permits add 56 hours a year, or 72 for employers above 15 staff (confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• Holidays: 11 national days (1 Jan, 6 Jan, Easter Monday, 25 Apr, 1 May, 2 Jun, 15 Aug, 1 Nov, 8 Dec, 25 Dec, 26 Dec) plus the local patron saint day (ecnews.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 4 October (St Francis of Assisi) joined the list from 2026 under L. 151/2025. Whether it gives private-sector staff a paid day off is not confirmed from the law text; ecnews reads it as a paid holiday (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Probation

Notice and severance

Source: confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05. The extract does not label the seniority bands. Dismissal also needs a justified reason (giustificato motivo or giusta causa).

• No statutory redundancy pay. On any termination the employee receives TFR, accrued yearly at pay divided by 13.5 less 0.50% (about 6.91% of gross) and revalued each year by 1.5% plus 75% of ISTAT inflation (brocardi.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• Unjustified dismissal of staff hired after 2015-03-07: a court-ordered indemnity of 2 months’ pay per year of service, between 6 and 36 months; reinstatement only in specific cases. The range comes from secondary summaries (firstcisl.it, checked 2026-10-05).

13th salary and bonuses

The CCNL makes a 13th and a 14th monthly payment mandatory: each equals one month of actual pay, the 13th paid in December and the 14th in June. This is a collective-agreement duty, not a statutory one (confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Mandatory benefits

• Statutory: INPS pension, sickness, maternity, unemployment and wage-guarantee funds; INAIL accident insurance; TFR.
• CCNL: Fondo Est supplementary health fund, EUR 15/month per employee of which EUR 13 is the employer share (fondoest.it, checked 2026-10-05). Lazio adds a Sanimpresa share.
• CCNL sick leave: job protection for 180 calendar days a year, with pay top-up of 100% on days 1-3 (with limits), 75% on days 4-20 and 100% from day 21 (confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• Supplementary pension enrolment is voluntary, with tacit-enrolment rules from 2026-07-01 (see the 2026 changes below).

Work permits

• EU and EEA citizens need no permit.
• Non-EU nationals abroad need a nulla osta: the employer files a named request with the Sportello Unico per l’Immigrazione at the prefecture (art. 22 D.Lgs. 286/1998), within the annual decreto flussi quotas, then the worker applies for a visa (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• EU Blue Card (art. 27-quater): same office; salary must be at least the ISTAT average annual gross and not below the CCNL. The current euro threshold was not confirmed from a government source.
• The applicant must be an Italian-registered employer, which matters for EOR structures. Whether a licensed somministrazione agency can sponsor a nulla osta for a client-directed hire was not established.

Currency and payroll

Euro. Pay is monthly, in 14 payments a year; the pay date is set by the CCNL and contract practice, not by law (confcommercio.it, checked 2026-10-05). ECB reference rate on 2026-10-02: 1 EUR = 1.1225 USD (ecb.europa.eu, checked 2026-10-05).

Is Employer of Record legal in Italy?

Restricted. Italian law has no EOR statute. A provider that hires workers and places them at a company that directs their work is performing somministrazione di lavoro (labour supply). It is lawful only for agencies authorised by the Ministry of Labour and entered in the Albo informatico delle agenzie per il lavoro (D.Lgs. 276/2003 arts. 4-5; D.Lgs. 81/2015 arts. 30-40) (lavoro.gov.it, checked 2026-10-05). See also the Employer of Record glossary entry.

The rules that matter to a client:

• Authorisation. General agencies may supply fixed-term and permanent workers across all activities; specialised agencies only permanent contracts in listed activities. Authorisation is provisional for two years, then made permanent after compliant operation (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• Entry requirements (art. 5). As read in a summarised extract: paid-in capital of at least EUR 600,000 for a general agency (EUR 350,000 for a specialised one), a guarantee deposit, offices and professional staff, and a legal seat or branch in the EU (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• Sanctions (art. 18 D.Lgs. 276/2003, in force 2024-03-02 after DL 19/2024). Unauthorised somministrazione: arrest up to 1 month or EUR 60 per worker per day, and the same for the client that uses an unauthorised supplier. Supply used to evade mandatory legal or collective-agreement rules (comma 5-ter): arrest up to 3 months or EUR 100 per worker per day, for supplier and client. Amounts rise 20% for repeat offenders, and proportional fines are never below EUR 5,000 (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05). From the 2016 decriminalisation until DL 19/2024 these were administrative fines.
• Limits even with an authorised agency (arts. 31-32 D.Lgs. 81/2015). Permanent agency workers up to 20% of the user’s permanent staff; fixed-term and fixed-term agency workers together up to 30%, with exemptions. Banned to replace strikers, within 6 months of collective redundancies in the same duties, or without a safety risk assessment (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05). Whether a long-term, client-directed EOR-style hire fits these limits and the 24-month cap on fixed-term agency work (art. 34) was not resolved in our research.
• Equal treatment and joint liability (art. 35). Agency workers get conditions at least equal to comparable staff of the client, and the client is jointly liable with the agency for pay and social contributions, with a right of recourse (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Italian law firms differ:

• Zambelli & Partners writes that “L’Eor risulta non utilizzabile” in Italy and that any interposition risks unlawful somministrazione (zambellipartners.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• Beneggi & Associati says the formal employer must exercise real employer functions, not just administration; otherwise it is unauthorised supply (beneggiassociati.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• Graber & Partner says the classification depends on who actually directs and controls the work (graber-partner.com, checked 2026-10-05).

Risks the client carries:

• Criminal exposure: arrest or per-worker-per-day fines under art. 18, as above.
• Direct employment: the worker can ask a court to establish the employment relationship with the client that used the work, and the client is jointly liable for pay and contributions (ance.it, checked 2026-10-05). See co-employment.
• Lost benefits: since DL 19/2024, statutory benefits depend on a DURC (contribution compliance certificate) and no labour-law violations (same source).
• Tax: one advisory site flags that a foreign client whose Italy-based employee has negotiating or managerial authority may create a permanent establishment; we did not check this against Italian tax law (taxdry.com, checked 2026-10-05).

Who actually employs your hire in Italy

In Italy the question has a public answer. We exported the whole Albo on 2026-10-05 (6,613 rows) and searched it for each of the 20 vendors by company name and VAT number (P.IVA). Registered-company details come from Italian company registers and match the vendor by name.

All checked 2026-10-05; Albo search at politicheattive.lavoro.gov.it.

Eleven of the 20 don’t say who the Italian employer is. Nine are classed as own entity, but for most of them the link from brand to legal entity is a name match; only Remote publishes documents that name its Italian entities. An Albo entry shows an agency is authorised, not that the entity signing your employee’s contract is the one listed. Before signing, ask: “What is your Albo authorisation number, in whose name is it held, and which Italian entity signs my employee’s contract?”

How to choose an EOR in Italy

Want an authorisation you can verify today? Remote, G-P, Pebl, Safeguard Global and Rippling each have a valid Albo entry, but all five are in the name of a foreign group company. Ask which entity signs the contract and how your hire fits the art. 31 limits. Only Remote and G-P publish an Italy price ($699 and $599/month).

Considering Deel, Oyster or Multiplier? Each has an Italian S.r.l., but none was found in the Albo by name or VAT number. This is not a finding of non-compliance. Ask for the Albo authorisation number, or the provider’s written explanation of the legal basis it uses.

Expect to end the contract without a specific reason? RemotePass says on its Italy page that termination without cause “isn’t possible under the Employer of Record setup in Italy due to local labor law restrictions”, that redundancy is not possible either, and that you need your own Italian entity for either (remotepass.com, checked 2026-10-05). Its available routes are termination for cause, a mutual termination agreement, resignation and expiry of a fixed term. Plan around that before hiring.

Price against completeness? Among prices on an Italy page, Playroll is lowest at $399/month, but it has no Albo record and names no entity. Where the entity and the Albo entry matter more than the fee, start with the five Albo holders.

Hiring a non-EU national? The nulla osta must be filed by an Italian-registered employer. We could not establish whether a licensed agency can sponsor one for a client-directed hire, so ask the provider before you promise a start date.

What it costs to employ someone in Italy through an EOR

The EOR is a large payroll employer (over 50 employees), so no small-employer rates apply. The example employee is an office or IT worker (impiegato) under CCNL Terziario, paid in 14 payments, with no hiring relief. The gross salaries are rounded to EUR 44,500 and EUR 89,000, about USD 50,000 and USD 100,000 at the ECB rate of 1 EUR = 1.1225 USD on 2026-10-02 (ecb.europa.eu, checked 2026-10-05).

If FIS does not apply on top of CIGS, the INPS employer total falls by 0.5333 points, which is EUR 237.33 at the first salary and EUR 474.67 at the second, so the real figure may be slightly lower. INAIL uses the average tariff rate for office work (0.50%); a given employer’s rate varies with its claims record (consulentidellavoro.mi.it, checked 2026-10-05).

Not included: ente bilaterale and Sanimpresa contributions, the employer share of the CCNL supplementary pension (Cometa) if the employee joins, meal vouchers and other CCNL welfare, QuAS for Quadri, and Treasury-fund TFR exemptions.

The EOR’s own fee comes on top. Seven vendors show a price on an Italy page, from $399/month at Playroll to $699/month at Remote: Playroll $399, Borderless AI $579, Deel from $599, Justworks $599, G-P $599, Skuad $649 (with a 12-month commitment) and Remote $699. Global list prices, where no Italy figure exists, run from $99 to $699 per month; Rippling, Pebl, Safeguard Global and Papaya Global publish none for Italy.

Hidden costs, where published:

• Deel’s Italy page lists one-off items on the first invoice: onboarding medical check EUR 119 and health and safety training EUR 42 (EUR 12 more in English). For Quadri it adds a one-off QuAS fee of EUR 340, up to EUR 370 a year, and Quadrifor EUR 50 a year; for Dirigenti, Fondo Mario Negri at EUR 769.43 a month (deel.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• Skuad’s $649 rate needs a 12-month commitment (skuad.io, checked 2026-10-05).
• For every other vendor, setup fee, deposit, minimum term and termination fee are not published for Italy. Treat a blank as unpublished, not zero.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. If the person sets their own hours and tools and can serve other clients, a contract is closer to the real relationship. See how to pay contractors in Italy and our hiring guide; a role that is really employment should not be relabelled (see contractor misclassification).
• Your own Italian entity. The remaining route when no Albo-listed provider fits your hire or when you need the freedom to end the contract that RemotePass says an EOR cannot give in Italy. A non-EU hire also needs an Italian-registered employer to file the nulla osta.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01: INPS parameters for 2026. Minimum daily pay for contributions EUR 58.13; contribution ceiling EUR 122,295; an extra 1% employee contribution above EUR 56,224 (inps.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-01-01: Budget law 2026 (L. 199/2025). The duty to pay TFR into the INPS Treasury fund extends to employers reaching 60 average employees in 2026-2027 (40 from 2032); parental leave extended to children aged 14; leave for child illness raised from 5 to 10 days a year; partial contribution relief for hiring young people and disadvantaged women, implementing decree pending (blog.pwc.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-01-01: L. 151/2025 adds 4 October (St Francis of Assisi) to the national holidays list; 4 October 2026 fell on a Sunday (normattiva.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-01-01: INAIL applies reduced experience-rated rates for 2026 on a provisional basis (DL 159/2025), and may claim higher premiums if the implementing decree changes them.
• 2026-04-18: the L. 144/2025 delegation on pay and collective bargaining lapsed unexercised; no statutory minimum wage was introduced (temi.camera.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-04-30: DL 62/2026 (“salario giusto”) ties pay adequacy and access to public hiring incentives to the leading sector CCNL, with no fixed amount; the Camera page gives 2026-06-28 as definitive entry into force.
• 2026-06-07: D.Lgs. 96/2026 transposes the EU Pay Transparency Directive: pay or pay range in job adverts, a ban on asking pay history, a right to pay-level information, and gender-pay-gap reporting for employers with 100 or more staff on a phased schedule; administrative fines of EUR 5,000-10,000 (aoshearman.com, checked 2026-10-05). How it applies to an EOR employer was taken from one law-firm summary.
• 2026-07-01: automatic enrolment in collective supplementary pension schemes with a 60-day opt-out after hiring; the annual deductibility limit rises from EUR 5,164.57 to EUR 5,300. Which employees and funds are covered is not confirmed (blog.pwc.it, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-11-01: next CCNL Terziario step, level IV minimo tabellare EUR 1,292.46, already agreed but not yet in force; 2027-02-01 follows at EUR 1,332.46.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

We found no vendor figure that is clearly out of date, but several differ from ours or from each other.

• Deel gives employer cost as 37.42% of salary in its text and 37.47% in its cost block on the same Italy page, with INAIL at 0.40%; our examples show 37.70-37.88% with INAIL at the 0.50% average (deel.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• RemotePass puts the TFR accrual at 7.4-7.5% (annual pay divided by 13.5); applying the 0.50% reduction in the statutory formula gives the 6.91% we use (remotepass.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• Rivermate lists level IV at about EUR 1,850 a month in rounded figures; the CCNL table shows EUR 1,781.68, rising to EUR 1,816.68 on 2026-11-01 (rivermate.com, checked 2026-10-05).
• Boundless cites administrative fines up to EUR 80,000 for working without a licence. The art. 18 sanctions we read are criminal (arrest or per-worker-per-day fines, minimum EUR 5,000) and contain no EUR 80,000 figure in our research; treat it as a vendor claim (boundlesshq.com, checked 2026-10-05).

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-10-05 against Italian legislation (normattiva.it), the Ministry of Labour, INPS and INAIL material, the CCNL Terziario tables and law-firm commentary. We exported the Ministry of Labour’s public Albo informatico on the same day and searched it for each vendor by company name and VAT number; Italian company-register matches for Deel, Oyster, Multiplier and others rest on name and address. Where a vendor operates through a differently named entity, our search cannot see it. Vendors are ordered with the confirmed or stated own entities first, by Italy price and completeness of data, then those that do not disclose; no vendor pays for placement.