Tax Observatory › European taxation › Excise duties: the guarantee waiver gives way to SOAC status

Excise duties: the guarantee waiver gives way to SOAC status

The waiver of the obligation to provide a guarantee, granted to operators found to be reliable and of established solvency (affidabili e di notoria solvibilità), is due to lapse: in its place comes the status of accredited liable person (SOAC), introduced into the Italian consolidated excise act by Legislative Decree no. 43 of 28 March 2025. Legislative Decree no. 148 of 7 August 2026 has extended the time available to file the application, without breaking the continuity of the waiver, from sixty to one hundred and twenty days.

An operator that runs a tax warehouse, or that is among the liable persons eligible for the new status, and that currently provides no guarantee because the Customs and Monopolies Agency has found it reliable and of established solvency, must bear two things in mind. First, that waiver has an expiry date, tied to the entry into force of the ministerial decree that will make SOAC status operational. Second, in order not to return to a full guarantee, the application for accreditation must be filed within a period that Legislative Decree no. 148 of 7 August 2026 has just doubled. The decree was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale (the Italian Official Gazette) no. 185 of 11 August 2026 and has been in force since 12 August 2026.

The waivers at stake are those granted under articles 5(3)(a), 21(7), 26(11) and 53(6) of the consolidated act, and not the waiver of the movement guarantee under article 6(4), which follows its own rules and is not among the SOAC benefits. That waiver, however, has already been amended, and the amendment is in force: since 1 January 2026 the final sentence of article 6(4) — inserted by article 1(1)(d) of Legislative Decree no. 43/2025 — makes the exercise of the power to grant the waiver, under the fifth and sixth sentences of that paragraph, conditional on obtaining suitable bank references from the credit institutions with which the applicant deals, and on verification of the historical, prospective and comparative assessment of the applicant’s insolvency risk. Operators holding such a waiver must expect every renewal to be examined against those parameters.

What SOAC status is and where it comes from

Legislative Decree no. 43 of 28 March 2025 rewrote significant parts of the consolidated excise act (Legislative Decree no. 504 of 26 October 1995). In article 1(2) it inserted point (f.1), which defines the accredited liable person as a person liable for the payment of excise duty and established in Italy. Recognition is conditional on verification by the Customs and Monopolies Agency of that person’s reliability under the excise regime. The designation varies according to the sector: SOAC-PE for energy products, including coal, lignite and coke; SOAC-BA for the sector of alcoholic products and the related fiscal marks; SOAC-T for tobacco; SOAC-GE for natural gas and electricity.

The rules are set out in articles 9-ter to 9-octies of the consolidated act, added by the same decree. The status is valid for four years and is divided into three levels of reliability: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.

Who is eligible, and what they gain

Article 9-ter(1) confines the field to the authorised warehousekeeper and to the liable persons listed in articles 21(6), 26(7) and 53(1) of the consolidated act. On the Customs Agency’s own reading (circular no. 13/2025), these are the operator of a tax warehouse for energy products, alcoholic products or manufactured tobacco; the registered company, or the person authorised to act in its place, supplying coal, lignite and coke; and the seller, or whoever invoices final consumers for natural gas or for electricity. Other categories of liable person fall outside: operators of commercial depots, those liable in respect of their own consumption of gas or electricity, and operators in tax sectors other than those of Titles I and II of the consolidated act.

There are two benefits. The first is a full or partial waiver of the guarantee obligations laid down by article 5(3)(a) for the operation of tax warehouses and by articles 13(5) (the guarantee on the fiscal marks affixed to containers of products under suspension, equal to the full amount of the duty), 21(7), 26-bis(1) and 53-bis(1). The percentages are graduated by level: 30 per cent for the Basic level, 50 per cent for the Intermediate level and 100 per cent for the Advanced level (article 9-sexies(2)). The benefit is not automatic: it must be applied for during the period of validity of the status and covers only the sector for which the operator is accredited.

The second benefit consists of simplifications and relaxations of the accounting and administrative obligations. A caveat on timing is called for here: the ministerial decree that is to specify them is the one under article 9-octies(2), and it is separate from the decree under article 9-octies(1), on which the effectiveness of the whole regime depends. SOAC status may therefore become operational while the simplifications are still to be specified, since the benefit is granted only on the terms that second decree will lay down (article 9-sexies(3)). An Advanced-level SOAC-GE may in addition apply to file the return provided for by articles 26-ter(1) and 55(1) on an annual basis: for a gas or electricity supplier this is the most tangible simplification.

Admission requirements

Article 9-quater sets requirements for applicants that are partly objective and partly reputational:

• having operated in the sector for at least five consecutive years from the issue of the licence or authorisation;
• not being, at the date of the application, the subject of criminal proceedings brought for the offences listed in article 23(6) of the consolidated act — an exhaustive list, not the whole body of criminal offences;
• not having been the subject, in the preceding five years, of convictions, even non-final ones, or of plea agreements for those same offences;
• not being subject, and not having been subject in the last five years, to instruments for the regulation of business crisis and insolvency or to insolvency proceedings.

A further requirement applies to legal persons and companies: not having incurred, in the five years preceding the application, penalties under Legislative Decree no. 231 of 8 June 2001 for those same offences. This last requirement, however, applies only from 1 July 2028.

In companies and other legal entities the requirements concerning criminal proceedings and convictions (article 9-quater(2)) must also be met by those holding powers of representation, administration or management and by those who exercise management and control, including on a de facto basis. This is a point not to be overlooked where effective management does not coincide with the formal corporate body.

How reliability is measured

Once that threshold has been passed, the Agency assesses five aspects (article 9-quinquies(2)):

• professional standing: technical competence, the quality of previous experience and relevant professional qualifications;
• business organisation: size, turnover, technical means, administrative and accounting structure, and the adoption of a control system for the prevention of the offences covered by Legislative Decree no. 231/2001;
• financial solvency: balance-sheet indicators and the timely performance of commitments;
• supply chain: dealings with suppliers and intermediate purchasers, and the soundness of the latter;
• compliance with tax requirements: the absence of serious and repeated infringements of the rules on excise duty, VAT and customs duties, measured by their nature, extent or frequency and in proportion to the size and turnover of the applicant, and limited to those infringements for which administrative penalties have been notified.

The review runs from the five years preceding the application to the close of the investigation, and the Agency may carry out checks at the premises where the business is carried on. A summary score of between zero and one hundred is then awarded: the status is granted only if the score reaches at least sixty, and the level depends on it. The investigation must be concluded within one hundred and twenty days of receipt of the application.

The operator’s right to be heard is not confined to revocation: it also precedes rejection for failure to meet the admission requirements and rejection at the close of the investigation, and it is the stage at which a business can supplement its documentation and provide explanations. Once accredited, the operator must notify the Agency within thirty days of any operational or management changes affecting those aspects.

The timetable depends on the implementing decree

This is the factor that governs the timing for all concerned. Article 8(3) of Legislative Decree no. 43/2025 provides that articles 9-ter to 9-septies, together with the definition in point (f.1), take effect from the date of entry into force of the decree of the Minister for the Economy and Finance provided for by article 9-octies(1). It is that decree that will set the parameters and the scores. The only exception is the rule that defers to 2028 the requirement drawn from Legislative Decree no. 231/2001.

Article 9-octies, by contrast, has been in force since the 2025 decree took effect: the implementing decree may therefore be adopted at any time. As at the date of this note — 18 August 2026 — it has not been published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale: SOAC status exists on paper, but cannot yet be applied for.

Until that decree enters into force, article 8(4) expressly preserves the Agency’s power to waive the guarantee for operators that are reliable and of established solvency, under the previous wording of articles 5(3)(a), 21(7), 26(11) and 53(6) of the consolidated act. It is a regime with a fixed term, not a vested entitlement.

The period extended to one hundred and twenty days

The transition is governed by article 8(6). Waivers of the guarantee that are in force on the date on which the new rules become applicable will lapse, and it is on this point that article 32(2) of Legislative Decree no. 148/2026 has intervened: the lapse moves from the sixtieth to the one hundred and twentieth day following that date. Within that same period of one hundred and twenty days — no longer within the original sixty days — the holder of the waiver may file the application for accreditation. If it does so, the waiver remains effective until the sixtieth day following the close of the investigation.

Two points clarify how far the extension goes. The first concerns the duration of the protection: it is not fixed, since it depends on when the investigation actually closes, but it has a ceiling, because the investigation must be concluded within one hundred and twenty days. On the Agency’s reading (circular no. 13/2025, which was working with the original sixty-day window), the protection is a sum of successive periods: today, after the corrective decree, up to one hundred and twenty days to file, plus one hundred and twenty days of investigation, plus a final sixty — a maximum of three hundred days from the entry into force of the ministerial decree. That is the horizon within which the guarantee must in any event be arranged.

The second point matters most in practice: those sixty final days run from the close of the investigation, whatever its outcome. If the application is rejected, the guarantee must be provided in full within that period; if the level granted is Basic or Intermediate, the unwaived share — 70 or 50 per cent — must be made up within the same period. That is where the financial impact of the reform is felt.

One clarification is owed to those who let the period expire: what lapses is the continuity of the waiver, not access to the status. Article 9-quinquies sets no deadline for filing the application; an operator that files late simply reverts to the ordinary guarantee and may apply for SOAC status later, recovering the waiver at the percentage of the level awarded.

After accreditation: monitoring and revocation

The status is not acquired once and for all. Article 9-septies gives the Agency a continuous monitoring role over the persistence of the requirements, the reliability aspects and the summary score, including through requests for information and documents. The original text allowed five days to reply; article 32(1)(f) of Legislative Decree no. 148/2026 extended that to forty-five days, before the provision had even taken effect — a sensible correction given the documentation those checks call for.

Where the monitoring brings to light evidence that the requirements or the conditions of reliability are no longer met, the Agency — after hearing the operator and by reasoned decision — revokes the status or redetermines its level, adjusting the benefits already granted. The guarantee must then be adjusted within thirty days of notification of the decision changing the level and within fifteen days of notification of the decision revoking the status.

One exception: the taxes under Title III

For indirect taxes on production and consumption other than those under Titles I and II and other than the manufacturing tax on matches — that is, Title III of the consolidated act, which covers for example the consumption taxes on lubricating oils and petroleum bitumen — the mechanism survives in a form of its own. Article 8(5) of Legislative Decree no. 43/2025 inserts into article 61 a paragraph 2-bis allowing the Agency, from the same date, to waive the guarantee obligation for reliable operators of established solvency running factories or depots of those products. The waiver may be revoked if the conditions that allowed it change and, in that case, the guarantee must be provided within fifteen days of notification of the revocation.

One question remains open, however: article 8(6) confines the lapse to waivers granted under articles 5(3)(a), 21(7), 26(11) and 53(6), whereas the Title III waivers were granted by virtue of the reference in article 61(2) to article 5(3). Whether they too lapse on the one hundred and twentieth day, and must therefore be applied for afresh under the new paragraph 2-bis, has not been clarified: circular no. 13/2025 does not address the point, and it is worth seeking confirmation from the competent office before the deadline.

In practice

The first exercise is arithmetical: knowing how much would again be due if the waiver lapsed without being replaced.

For the tax warehouse, the adjustment must be made within thirty days of the payment deadline that triggered it, with notice to the Agency within ten days of the adjustment.

• List the waivers currently in force: references, date, products and plants concerned, checking that they are among those due to lapse (articles 5(3)(a), 21(7), 26(11) and 53(6)).
• Check the five years: continuity runs from the issue of the licence or authorisation, and a formal break may compromise admission to the status.
• Review criminal and insolvency positions: confined to the offences listed in article 23(6) and to the last five years, and extending to directors and to anyone managing the company on a de facto basis.
• Assemble the evidence of reliability: organisation chart, technical means, stock accounting, balance-sheet indicators, mapping of suppliers and customers, and a record of the administrative penalties notified in respect of excise duty, VAT and customs.
• Consider the Legislative Decree no. 231/2001 compliance model: the adoption of a control system for the prevention of offences already tells in favour of the business-organisation aspect today, and will become a requirement in 2028.
• Apply for the benefit to be activated: recognition of the status does not by itself reduce the guarantee. Access to the benefits under article 9-ter(2) must be applied for under article 9-sexies(1), during the period of validity of the status and for the accredited sector alone: the application should be made at the same time as the status is granted, so as not to consume the final sixty days.
• Keep the evidence: the reliability assessment covers five years and continues through the monitoring, so the documentation filed with the application should be kept in order and retrievable after recognition as well.
• Diarise the expiry: the status lasts four years, and the continuous monitoring under article 9-septies is not the same as automatic renewal.

Frequently asked questions

We hold a waiver of the movement guarantee: is that caught by the move to SOAC status?

No. The waiver under article 6(4) is not among the benefits of the new status and does not lapse under article 8(6). It has, however, already changed independently of that reform: since 1 January 2026 the power to grant it is exercised only after suitable bank references have been obtained and after verification of the historical, prospective and comparative assessment of the applicant’s insolvency risk.

How large is the guarantee that would again be due for a seller of electricity or natural gas?

Fifteen per cent of the annual duty calculated on the data in the declaration (articles 26-bis(1) and 53-bis(1)): that is the amount which the waiver in force currently covers and which, on Basic-level accreditation, would again be due as to 70 per cent.

Does the status cover all the activities of the business?

No. Accreditation relates to the sector of activity — energy products, alcoholic products, tobacco, gas and electricity — and the benefits attach exclusively to that sector.

The design is coherent: the Agency is replacing a discretionary assessment of solvency with an accreditation that is measured, periodic and graduated, and the corrective decree of August 2026 has eased its most rigid features by extending the tightest deadlines. The time gained, however, is less than it seems. The one hundred and twenty days do not run from a known date but from the entry into force of a ministerial decree that may be adopted at any time; and the evidence of reliability — accounts, stock records, supply chain, organisational safeguards — cannot be assembled in four months. The sensible course is to prepare the documentation now and to file the application when the time comes. Our firm assists businesses with these obligations as part of its business taxation practice; on the insolvency instruments, see our page on business crisis and insolvency; our other contributions are collected in the Tax Observatory.

• Legislative Decree no. 504 of 26 October 1995 (consolidated excise act): articles 1(2)(f.1), 5(3)(a), 6(4), 9-ter, 9-quater, 9-quinquies, 9-sexies, 9-septies, 9-octies, 13(5), 21(6) and (7), 23(6), 26(7) and (11), 26-bis(1), 26-ter(1), 53(1) and (6), 53-bis(1), 55(1) and 61.
• Legislative Decree no. 43 of 28 March 2025 (revision of the rules on excise duties), article 1(1)(a), (c), (d) and (e), and article 8(1) to (6): Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 79 of 4 April 2025.
• Legislative Decree no. 148 of 7 August 2026, article 32(1)(f) and (g) and article 32(2): Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 185 of 11 August 2026, ordinary supplement no. 30; in force from 12 August 2026.
• Legislative Decree no. 231 of 8 June 2001; Law no. 111 of 9 August 2023 (delegation to the Government for tax reform), articles 12 and 16.
• Customs and Monopolies Agency, Excise Directorate, circular no. 13/2025 of 13 June 2025 (prot. 333927/RU), “First guidance” on Legislative Decree no. 43/2025.
• As at 18 August 2026, the decree of the Minister for the Economy and Finance provided for by article 9-octies(1) of the consolidated act does not appear to have been published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale.