Italy plans 26% exit tax on unrealised gains for those leaving

Italy would take 26% of unsold gains from anyone who moves away

Imagine you have spent a decade building up index funds, never sold anything, and one day decide to move abroad. Until now, that money was only taxed when you turned it into cash. Italy's draft budget wants to change the rule: an exit tax of **26% on unrealised capital gains** for anyone leaving the country from **2027** onwards. Article 17 of the new budget sets the threshold at **800,000 euros** in relevant assets and requires that you have been a tax resident in Italy for at least **six of the last ten years**. The proposal has been circulating in the financial press and on social media since autumn 2025, and a single headline has been enough to send half the internet nervously checking their net worth.

What exactly is an exit tax on unrealised gains?

The mechanics are easy to state and hard to swallow. It is not what you own that gets taxed, but what you would have made if you sold. A founder with appreciated shares, an investor whose portfolio has tripled, or an individual with a flat bought twenty years ago all come into the frame without having touched a euro. The official logic is to stop anyone from waiting until they change tax residence to realise the gain in a low-tax country.

The calculation doing the rounds in the most detailed analyses is telling: a saver with **600,000 euros** invested in index funds now worth **1.5 million** has accumulated **900,000 euros** in unrealised gains. If they move to a low-tax jurisdiction, sell there and return, the Italian bill would be zero. With the new tax, that play stops being free. The question is how many people actually do that, and how many simply move for work, family or climate.

The earlier bait: the flat tax for foreign millionaires

Anyone with a memory for tax matters can see the paradox. For years Italy has been selling the opposite: a **flat tax on foreign income** regime for multimillionaires who move their residence to the country. First the hook, now the net. Some read it as a deliberate sequence —attract capital, consolidate it, then seal the exit— while others see it as simple administrative clumsiness on the part of a state that urgently needs revenue.

The macroeconomic context in the discussion is one of rising tax pressure in several European countries on high wealth and capital income. The harshest reading is of states that do not want «the substance to walk away», that is, the tax base to escape. The more charitable one points out that the 800,000-euro threshold does not catch your typical millionaire: in many parts of Italy that wealth belongs to a professional with a paid-off flat and a pension plan.

Who does the 800,000-euro threshold really affect?

This is where the interesting debate begins. The figure sounds high until you add it all up: home, funds, pension, a stake in a startup. **800,000 euros in assets** does not make you an oligarch; it makes you someone with a paid-off house in Milan and some savings. The «super-rich» label applied to that profile jars, and much of the reaction points exactly there: the tax catches the upper middle class and founders with illiquid shares, not big capital moving pieces between jurisdictions with advisers.

For the entrepreneur holding shares in a private company, things get trickier: they may have a high book value and zero liquidity to pay the 26%. That is the point that comes up most often and gets answered least.

The alternatives being floated: gold, bitcoin and moving away

The average saver's spontaneous response has been the usual one: **buy gold bars** and cross yourself. Another, more digital, camp is clear: three letters, **BTC**, and to hell with the exit tax. The logic is an asset you self-custody that moves with its owner without a notary.

Neither solves the underlying problem. The tax hits unrealised gains on relevant assets, and holding crypto is not invisible to a tax authority that already cross-checks data. Fleeing to tax havens requires effective residence, not a rental stint, and double taxation treaties come with fine print.

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One fact remains unsettling: the tax does not come into force until **2027** and still has to pass through parliament. In other words, there is room to plan, to sell, to move, or for the rule to be watered down along the way. What does not change is the signal: the country that welcomed you with a flat tax now charges you to leave. On that message, fiscal loyalty in the years ahead remains to be seen.