Since 7 April 2026, people with a foreign pension who move their tax residence to Manduria can pay a flat 7% on all their foreign income, for ten years.
Italy’s 7% regime for foreign pensioners (article 24-ter of the income tax code) used to stop at towns of 20,000 inhabitants in the South. Law no. 34 of 11 March 2026, article 26, raised the ceiling to 30,000. About eighty more towns came in, across Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia, Campania, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise and Puglia.
In Puglia two familiar names are among them: Ostuni, with 29,943 residents, and Manduria, with 29,665 (Istat, 1 January 2025). Ostuni sits 57 people under the line. Manduria sits 335 under it, and its population has been easing down every year since 2019.
You choose the regime in your Italian tax return for the year of the move.
Whether you qualify. That depends on your pension, your past residence and your timing, and it needs an Italian tax adviser. We introduce one.
The 7% starts from your registration at the comune, and registration needs a registered lease. Long leases are scarce here, and finding them is one of the first things we do for people who arrive. Read how it works.
A tax rate is a reason to look. It is not a reason to live somewhere. Manduria gives you an old town you can walk end to end, a piazza in use in February, the Ionian sea fifteen minutes away at San Pietro in Bevagna, Primitivo from the vineyards around you, and a train line to Lecce and Martina Franca. 136 western residents already live here: who they are.
Yes. Since 7 April 2026 the regime covers southern towns of up to 30,000 inhabitants, and Manduria had 29,665 at 1 January 2025.
No. The regime is for pensions paid from abroad. An Italian pension on its own does not qualify.
Eligibility is checked when you move, on the population at 1 January of the year before. Manduria has been under the line, and moving further from it, every year since 2022.
Ask a tax adviser before you count on it. The timing of the new threshold for earlier moves is the one point official sources do not yet spell out.
Yes, with 29,943 residents at 1 January 2025.
Last checked: 27 October 2026. This page is information, not tax advice.
Sources: Agenzia delle Entrate, regime opzionale per i pensionati esteri; Law no. 34 of 11 March 2026, art. 26; Istat, resident population at 1 January 2025.
Thinking about it? Write to us, or join the Facebook group “Expats in Manduria”, where people who arrived earlier answer the questions of those arriving now.