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Rottamazione-quinquies: no grace period for the second instalment due on 30 September

On 30 September 2026 the second instalment of the settlement of debts entrusted to the collection agent between 2000 and 2023 falls due. For this instalment the law grants none of the five days’ grace reserved for the single instalment and the last instalment of the plan; forfeiture, however, occurs only when the unpaid instalments become two. Anyone who missed the instalment of 31 July has not forfeited the settlement, but by 30 September at least one of the two overdue instalments must have been paid; paying both is the choice that removes every uncertainty.

On 30 September 2026 the second of the two-monthly instalments of the settlement introduced by the 2026 Budget Law, known in Italy as the rottamazione-quinquies, falls due. The date must be taken literally: for instalments other than the single one and the last one the law allows no margin, and a payment made on 1 October is not timely. The sum paid is not lost and, once paid, the instalment is no longer outstanding: the delay matters in the interval between the due date and the payment, because it is in that interval that the number of unpaid instalments is counted. Indeed, forfeiture of the benefit does not follow from delay on a single instalment: article 1, paragraph 95, of Law no. 199 of 30 December 2025 links it to the failure to pay, or insufficient payment of, two instalments, even non-consecutive ones. The practical consequence is this: whoever skipped the instalment of 31 July is still within the plan, but by 30 September at least one of the two overdue instalments must have been paid, and paying both is the only way not to carry the arrears through to the final instalment.

What was settled and on what terms

The rules are set out in paragraphs 82 to 100 of article 1 of Law no. 199/2025. Paragraph 82 admits to the settlement the debts entrusted to the collection agent from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2023 arising from the non-payment of taxes shown in annual returns and resulting from automated and formal checks (articles 36-bis and 36-ter of Presidential Decree 600/1973; 54-bis and 54-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972), as well as social security contributions owed to INPS, excluding those claimed following an assessment. Only the principal is paid, together with the sums due as reimbursement of the costs of enforcement procedures and of service of the payment notice. Not payable are the interest and penalties entrusted to the agent, default interest under article 30 of Presidential Decree 602/1973, the penalties and additional sums under article 27, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree 46/1999 on contribution debts, and the collection charges under article 17 of Legislative Decree 112/1999 (the collection fee, for the debts to which it still applies). Debts already covered by earlier settlements or by the «saldo e stralcio», for which the settlement had lapsed, are also included, provided they fall within the same categories. For road traffic fines imposed by State authorities the settlement covers only interest and the collection fee (paragraph 97), including the six-monthly surcharge of ten per cent under article 27, sixth paragraph, of Law no. 689/1981, which on the oldest fines is by far the heaviest item; fines imposed by municipalities and local police remain wholly outside the settlement, and for those the measure for regional and local authorities described below may be relevant. Paragraph 100 also excludes the debts entrusted from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2022 included in rottamazione-quater applications (article 1, paragraph 235, of Law no. 197/2022) or in applications for readmission to the rottamazione-quater (article 3-bis of Decree-Law no. 202/2024, converted by Law no. 15/2025) for which, at 30 September 2025, all instalments due by that date had been paid.

The application had to be filed by 30 April 2026, with the choice of the number of instalments (paragraph 86), and could be supplemented by the same date (paragraph 88). By 30 June 2026 the collection agent notified the total amount due, the amount of each instalment, which may not be less than 100 euros, and the due date of each (paragraph 92). Payment is made in a single instalment by 31 July 2026 or in up to fifty-four two-monthly instalments (paragraph 83); instalments bear interest at 3 per cent per year from 1 August 2026 (paragraph 84).

The instalment calendar

The first three instalments fall due on 31 July 2026, 30 September 2026 and 30 November 2026. From the fourth to the fifty-first the due dates are 31 January, 31 March, 31 May, 31 July, 30 September and 30 November of each year from 2027; the last three instalments fall due on 31 January, 31 March and 31 May 2035. As 30 September 2026 is a Wednesday and 30 November 2026 a Monday, for this year’s two deadlines no question of postponement arises. The first instalment of 2027, however, falls on a Sunday, 31 January: under the general rule of article 7, paragraph 1, letter h), and paragraph 2, letter l), of Decree-Law no. 70/2011 the deadline moves to the next working day, Monday 1 February 2027. That rule, however, lies outside Law no. 199/2025, and the calendar published by the collection agent shows the date of 31 January: on an intermediate instalment, which allows no grace at all, it is unwise to stake the settlement on a deferral. The payment should be made by Friday 29 January 2027.

Five days’ grace: when it applies and when it does not

In its original wording paragraph 95 made the settlement ineffective upon the mere failure to pay, or insufficient payment of, the instalments, with no margin at all. Article 10, paragraph 2-bis, of Decree-Law no. 38 of 27 March 2026, inserted on conversion by Law no. 88 of 22 May 2026, rewrote that clause: the settlement is ineffective «in the event of non-payment or insufficient payment or, solely in the cases under letters a) and c), also of late payment exceeding five days». The letters referred to are that of the single instalment chosen by the debtor (letter a) and that of the last instalment of the plan (letter c). Letter b), by contrast, concerns the non-payment or insufficient payment of two instalments, even non-consecutive ones, whichever instalments are involved: for this case no margin is provided. The count is made at each due date: if at a due date two instalments are unpaid the settlement is already lost, and a later payment does not recover it; if instead the late instalment is paid before a second instalment falls into arrears, forfeiture does not occur. What the law does not allow is not the delay as such, but being, even for a single day, two instalments in arrears at the same time.

For the single instalment the Italian Revenue-Collection Agency (Agenzia delle entrate-Riscossione) indicated as timely the payments made by 5 August 2026. For the second instalment there is no equivalent indication, because there is no margin: the deadline is 30 September.

The two-instalment rule

The safety valve for intermediate instalments is not the grace period but the count. Letter b) of paragraph 95 entails forfeiture for anyone who fails to pay, or pays insufficiently, two instalments, even non-consecutive ones. Missing a single intermediate instalment, therefore, does not cause the benefit to be lost. It does not cancel the instalment, however: that remains due.

As to how the arrears are recovered, the Revenue-Collection Agency has clarified, in the answers published on its website, that the payment of the instalment following the skipped one is allocated to the earlier instalment left unpaid. Whoever skips an instalment and pays the following ones regularly, in other words, remains one instalment in arrears for the whole duration of the plan; at the end they will have to pay, by the due date of the last instalment, both the last and the previous one, with only the five days’ grace. The example given by the Agency is a plan in three instalments: with the first and third paid, the payment of the third covers the second and the one left unpaid is the last, with consequent forfeiture. The criterion is not written in the law, which lays down no rules on the allocation of payments: in the Agency’s example, however, it is the criterion that determines forfeiture, because it shifts the shortfall onto the last instalment. Keeping the receipt of every payment, showing the instalment to which it refers, is therefore the first precaution.

Two clarifications complete the picture. The first concerns the amount: paragraph 95 treats insufficient payment as non-payment, so an instalment paid only in part counts as an unpaid instalment for the purposes of the two-instalment count. The second concerns the amount due when an instalment is paid late: the 3 per cent annual interest under paragraph 84 runs from 1 August 2026 and is already included in the instalments of the plan notified; the law provides neither default interest nor surcharges for the late payment of an instalment, and the amount remains that shown on the payment form. Delay does not cost more, but it uses up the one instalment in arrears that is allowed.

Those who skipped the instalment of 31 July

The first instalment of a payment plan does not enjoy the five days’ grace, which paragraph 95 reserves for the single instalment and the last one. Whoever did not pay it by 31 July 2026 today has one unpaid instalment and has not forfeited the settlement. On 30 September 2026 the overdue instalments will be two: if on that date only one of them has been paid, the arrears remain at one instalment and the settlement holds; if neither has been paid, from 1 October the unpaid instalments are two and the settlement ceases to have effect. Paying both the first and the second instalment by 30 September, with the respective forms attached to the notice of sums due, is the choice that removes every uncertainty and avoids carrying the arrears through to the final due date of the plan.

A warning for those who declared a pending court case in their application and undertook to withdraw from it. Paragraph 87 sets out two steps, neither of which is automatic. The proceedings are stayed by the court upon the filing, in the proceedings themselves, of a copy of the application, «pending payment of the first or single instalment»: the stay does not follow from the application sent to the collection agent, but from its filing in court, and whoever filed nothing has proceedings that have carried on. Extinction of the proceedings (estinzione) is then declared by the court of its own motion, that is without any application being required, but only upon production in the proceedings of the application, the notice of sums due and the documents proving payment of the first or single instalment; they may be produced by the debtor, or by the Revenue-Collection Agency if it is a party to the proceedings or, failing that, by the creditor body. Extinction may therefore come about even without the taxpayer’s initiative, and whoever holds a favourable judgment on the merits cannot rely on doing nothing. Whoever paid the instalment of 31 July has therefore perfected the settlement for the purposes of extinction, but until those documents are produced the case is merely stayed: the filing must be handled with counsel, not least because extinction has a cost, namely the ineffectiveness of the judgments on the merits and of the orders made in the proceedings that have not become final, including those in the taxpayer’s favour. Once the proceedings are extinguished, if the settlement is later forfeited the debt becomes enforceable in full and can no longer be disputed in that forum. Whoever has not paid the instalment of 31 July has, if a copy of the application was filed, a case that is merely stayed: nothing should be filed before deciding what to pay by 30 September. The stay, however, is not indefinite: once the deadline for the first instalment has passed without payment the ground for the stay has ceased and, in tax proceedings, a request for the hearing must be made within six months (article 43, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree 546/1992), failing which the proceedings are extinguished for inactivity of the parties (article 45); before the ordinary courts, which hear among other things disputes on contribution debts and objections to enforcement, the time limit is shorter, because the request to fix the new hearing must be filed within the mandatory period of three months from the end of the ground for the stay (article 297 of the Code of Civil Procedure), on pain of extinction (article 307, third paragraph). It is a time limit that runs by itself and must be taken to counsel at once.

What happens upon forfeiture

The effects of ineffectiveness are set out in paragraph 95 itself: the limitation and time-bar periods for recovery of the debts resume running, collection continues through the agent, and payments made are retained as an advance on the total amount due following the entrustment of the debt, that is on the original debt in full and not on the reduced amount, without extinction of the remaining debt. The periods were suspended under paragraph 91, letter a): they resume, they do not start afresh, so the time already elapsed before the application remains counted. Once the settlement lapses, the basis for the protective measures of paragraph 91 lapses too: the Revenue-Collection Agency indicates that forfeiture is followed by the start of new precautionary and enforcement procedures and by the continuation of those already started at the date of the application. The latter, however, presupposes that the procedures had remained dormant: paragraph 91, letter e), prohibits their continuation, without extinguishing them, unless a first auction had already been held successfully. For those who paid the first instalment, paragraph 94, letter b), provides by contrast for the extinction of the enforcement procedures already started, with the same limit of a successful first auction: what is extinguished should not continue, but the Agency’s answers do not distinguish, and the point is unsettled. Anyone in this situation must check the state of the individual procedure before treating it as closed; new procedures remain possible in any case. Vehicle immobilisation orders (fermi) and mortgages already registered at the date of the application remain in place in any event, since the settlement never cancelled them (paragraph 91, letter c). Once collection resumes, if enforcement was not started within one year of service of the payment notice, it must be preceded by service of the notice containing the demand for payment within five days provided for by article 50, paragraph 2, of Presidential Decree 602/1973, which ceases to be effective one year after service (paragraph 3). It should be borne in mind that article 50 is repealed, with effect from 1 January 2027, by Legislative Decree no. 33 of 24 March 2025, the deferral being set by Decree-Law no. 200 of 31 December 2025: for collection resuming after that date the reference will have to be sought in the consolidated text, whose content corresponds. The notice of demand is the act that signals that enforcement is imminent and it should be taken at once to a professional: it may be challenged, however, only for its own defects, such as service, the amounts or a limitation period that expired after service of the payment notice, and it does not reopen the merits of the debt, least of all for those who, having applied, have seen their own proceedings extinguished. What can still be disputed, and within what time limits, is explained on our page on tax audits and tax litigation.

A second effect, equally serious, lies in paragraph 94, letter a). For the eligible debts covered by the application, on 31 July 2026 the earlier payment plans, suspended by the filing of the application, were automatically revoked, and «no new payment plans may be granted under article 19 of Presidential Decree no. 602 of 29 September 1973». The prohibition does not stem from forfeiture: the law imposes it for all eligible debts covered by the application, and whoever forfeits simply discovers it to their cost; the collection agent’s answers present it instead as a consequence of forfeiture, but under the law it applies irrespective of forfeiture. Whoever forfeits therefore does not return to an ordinary instalment plan: the debt becomes due in full, with penalties, interest and collection charges (the collection fee, for the debts to which it still applies), net of what has already been paid. It is this, more than the loss of the discount, that makes the deadline of 30 September different from all other end-of-month deadlines.

Those who selected their notices with ContiTu

Whoever used the ContiTu service to settle only some of the notices included in the notice of sums due received a new plan, with the amount spread over the same number of instalments indicated in the application. The rules of 30 September apply to that plan; according to the collection agent’s indications, for the notices excluded from the recalculation the settlement has no effect and recovery actions resume. How the service works is described in our July article on the rottamazione-quinquies and ContiTu.

How to pay

Paragraph 93 provides three methods: direct debit from the current account indicated by the debtor, the pre-filled payment forms made available on the collection agent’s website, and the agent’s counters. In practice the forms can be used at bank branches and post offices, through home banking, at authorised retailers and tobacconists, at ATMs participating in the CBILL circuit and at Postamat machines, as well as on the institutional website and the EquiClick app; the agent’s counters are open by appointment. Those who activated direct debit would do well to check, on the due date, that the account has sufficient funds and that the debit has been executed: a failed debit has the same effect as an omitted payment: the instalment remains unpaid and uses up the one instalment in arrears that is allowed, and if another instalment is already unpaid the settlement is lost the same day.

Those who filed the application from the reserved area of the website find the notice of sums due and the payment forms exclusively in that area, as paragraph 92 provides; those who filed it from the public area also received it at the address indicated in the application, whether a certified e-mail (PEC) address or a postal address. Those who do not have them, or have lost them, may request a copy, without credentials, through the form available in the public area of the collection agent’s website, attaching an identity document and indicating the e-mail address to which they are to be sent. This should be done at once: 30 September allows no postponement, and the deadlines for this and the other September obligations are collected in our guide to deadlines and voluntary correction.

Other debts and plans not affected

The rules described concern only the eligible debts included in an accepted application. Instalment plans in progress on other debts are not affected and continue according to their own schedule, even where they were part of the same instalment order as the debts later settled. Care is needed, however, where settled debts and non-eligible debts coexisted in the same plan: for the latter the taxpayer must take action to pay through the «Paga online» service or at the counter, because the original forms may no longer be usable. Inaction is costly: eight unpaid instalments, even non-consecutive ones, cause forfeiture of the ordinary instalment plan under article 19 of Presidential Decree 602/1973 and make the whole amount immediately enforceable; for older plans the threshold must be checked against the order granting the plan.

A rule of its own applies to debts included in the over-indebtedness procedures referred to in paragraph 96, namely the consumer debt restructuring plan and the minor composition with creditors, together with the procedures still pending under Law no. 3/2012, and not to the other crisis-resolution procedures: the provision allows payment, even in a reduced amount (falcidiato), in the manner and within the time limits «that may be laid down in the approval decree». The qualifier is not a matter of style: if the decree lays down no manner and time limits of its own, the ordinary deadlines of the settlement apply, starting with 30 September. The decree must be read, not presumed.

As regards regional and local authorities, the conversion law of Decree-Law no. 38/2026 introduced, with article 10-quinquies, the extension of the settlement to the debts entrusted to the collection agent by regions and local authorities that have adopted a specific resolution. It is a separate measure, with a wider scope than the State one: it covers all debts, tax and non-tax, entrusted to the collection agent from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2023, excluding those arising from judgments of the Court of Auditors ordering payment. The calendar is that of the text of article 10-quinquies currently in force, rewritten by Law no. 113 of 25 June 2026, converting Decree-Law no. 63 of 30 April 2026, which postponed all the dates of the May version still shown in some notices: the authorities had to notify their resolution to the agent by 31 July 2026, so the list of participating authorities is now closed. From 15 October 2026 the agent makes the data on eligible debts available in the reserved area; the application is filed between 16 October and 15 December 2026 and may be supplemented by the same date. The notice of sums due arrives by 28 February 2027; payment is made in a single instalment by 31 March 2027 or in up to fifty-four two-monthly instalments, with interest at 3 per cent per year from 1 April 2027. Here too, however, for road traffic fines the settlement covers only interest and the collection fee: the fine itself remains due in full. The measure does not cover local taxes collected by concessionaires other than the collection agent. Those with notices from regions or local authorities therefore have two months, from mid-October, to check whether their authority has resolved to take part and to decide: we will return to the point when the window opens.

In practice

By 30 September 2026: pay the second instalment; if the instalment of 31 July was not paid, pay that one too. There is no grace period on intermediate instalments.

Amount: check that the payment covers the whole instalment; a partial payment counts as an unpaid instalment. The amount of an instalment paid late remains that shown on the form.

Forms: those who do not have the notice of sums due find it in the reserved area of the collection agent’s website or request a copy through the form in the public area, with an identity document.

Direct debit: check the funds on the account and the outcome of the debit; keep the receipt of every payment showing the instalment concerned.

Pending court cases: whoever has not paid the first instalment has, if the application was filed in court, proceedings that are merely stayed, with six months to request the hearing before the tax court and only three before the ordinary courts; whoever has paid it must have extinction declared by filing the application, the notice and proof of payment, and loses the judgments that are not final. In both cases, talk to counsel first.

Next deadlines: third instalment on 30 November 2026; from 2027 six instalments a year, at the end of January, March, May, July, September and November. 31 January 2027 is a Sunday: although the deferral to the next working day applies, pay by Friday 29 January.

Five days’ grace: only on the single instalment and on the last instalment of the plan.

Debts in over-indebtedness procedures: the time limits of the approval decree apply if the decree lays them down; otherwise the ordinary two-monthly calendar.

Local authorities and regions: a separate, stand-alone settlement. Application from 16 October to 15 December 2026, first or single instalment on 31 March 2027. Check in good time whether your authority has joined.

Frequently asked questions

If I pay the second instalment on 2 October, do I forfeit the settlement?

No, if it is the only instalment left unpaid. The payment of 2 October is not timely, but it covers the overdue instalment and brings the plan back into line, without surcharges. The mechanism of allocating payments to the earlier instalment concerns a different situation: that of someone who skips an instalment and carries on paying the following ones. What the law does not allow is being two instalments in arrears, even non-consecutive ones.

I paid only part of the instalment of 31 July: does it count as an unpaid instalment?

Yes. Paragraph 95 treats insufficient payment as non-payment. For the purposes of the two-instalment count that instalment is unpaid, and it should be topped up by 30 September together with the second.

If I lose the settlement, can I apply for a new instalment plan?

No. For the eligible debts covered by the application, paragraph 94, letter a), excludes the granting of new instalment plans under article 19 of Presidential Decree 602/1973, and the earlier plans were already revoked on 31 July 2026. The debt becomes enforceable in full, with penalties, interest and collection charges, net of what has been paid, which the law retains as an advance.

Sources

Law no. 199 of 30 December 2025, article 1, paragraphs 82–100 (Normattiva, text in force on 6 September 2026)

Decree-Law no. 38 of 27 March 2026, article 10, paragraph 2-bis, and article 10-quinquies, converted by Law no. 88 of 22 May 2026, with article 10-quinquies in the text replaced by Law no. 113 of 25 June 2026, converting Decree-Law no. 63 of 30 April 2026, in force since 28 June 2026 (Normattiva)

Presidential Decree no. 602 of 29 September 1973, articles 19, 30 and 50, paragraphs 2 and 3; Decree-Law no. 70 of 13 May 2011, article 7, paragraph 1, letter h), and paragraph 2, letter l); Legislative Decree no. 546 of 31 December 1992, articles 43 and 45; Code of Civil Procedure, articles 297 and 307; Legislative Decree no. 33 of 24 March 2025 and Decree-Law no. 200 of 31 December 2025, for the repeal of article 50 of Presidential Decree 602/1973 from 1 January 2027 (Normattiva)

Legislative Decree no. 46 of 26 February 1999, article 27, paragraph 1; Legislative Decree no. 112 of 13 April 1999, article 17; Law no. 689 of 24 November 1981, article 27, sixth paragraph; Law no. 197 of 29 December 2022, article 1, paragraph 235; Decree-Law no. 202 of 27 December 2024, article 3-bis (Normattiva)

Agenzia delle entrate-Riscossione, «Definizione agevolata (Rottamazione-quinquies)» and FAQ published on the institutional website, consulted on 5 September 2026