Experimentation begins in another 40 provinces and from 2027 the new system will be operational throughout Italy. INPS single assessor, uniformity of criteria, electronic certificate, multidimensional assessment and life plan. Who it affects and what changes.
The disability reform enters a decisive phase: from 1 March another 40 Italian provinces will be involved in the testing of the new system for assessing civil invalidity and disabilities. It means that almost half of the country will adopt completely new rules, which will become operational throughout Italy from 1 January 2027. The way in which the State recognizes and evaluates disability changes. And for millions of citizens (for new questions and revisions) these are concrete and immediate news.
Disability reform 2026: what changes from March 1st
From 1 March 2026, the experimentation of the civil disability reform will extend to 40 new provinces: from Rome to Milan, from Turin to Bologna, from Venice to Cagliari, passing through Bergamo, Verona, Treviso, Bolzano, Catania, Messina, Reggio Calabria, Caserta and many others.
The first pilot phase started at the beginning of 2025 in nine provinces (including Brescia, Florence, Perugia and Salerno) and subsequently, from 30 September 2025, in eleven others, including the autonomous Province of Trento and Valle d’Aosta. The system is being tested which from 2027 will become the only one valid throughout Italy.
The central innovation is that INPS becomes the sole inspector for the entire national territory. There will no longer be fragmented commissions between local health authorities and other bodies: the health and functional assessment will be managed uniformly by the Institute, with standardized criteria.
Goodbye to the old question: how does the new INPS assessment work of civil invalidity and disabilities
The most immediate change for citizens concerns the procedure. The traditional administrative application for the recognition of civil disability disappears. In its place comes the telematic introductory medical certificate. The process starts from the certifying doctor, who transmits the necessary health documentation online to INPS. It can be the general practitioner, the pediatrician of free choice, or specialist doctors from the NHS/accredited structures, equipped with a digital signature. With that submission the entire verification process is automatically activated. It is no longer necessary to submit additional paper applications or contact multiple offices to start the process. Once the condition of disability has been recognised, the socio-economic data for the possible provision of economic benefits can be transmitted directly online, independently via the INPS portal or with the assistance of patronage organizations and trade associations.
Another element of simplification is the new single disability certification. There will no longer be separate reports for civil disability, law 104, blindness or deafness: a single document to allow the citizen to access the various benefits, including fiscal ones, with a single certification.
Then there is the appearance the uniformity of the evaluation criteria: with INPS as the sole inspector and standard rules valid throughout Italy, the aim is to overcome the disparities between provinces which until now led to different judgments for the same pathology depending on the place of residence.
Multidimensional assessment and the Life Project in disability reform
The reform goes beyond the purely medico-legal approach based on the percentage of disability and introduces multidimensional evaluation. What does this mean concretely? That disability is no longer considered only as a pathology to be classified, but as a condition that affects a person’s entire life. The new baseline assessment uses codes that classify diseases clinically, along with codes that measure the condition’s impact on daily functioning, social relationships and work. During the visit, a standardized questionnaire is also provided which detects the level of participation and limitations in daily life activities.
They are also introduced four levels of support intensitymild, medium, high and very high, which allow interventions and services to be better calibrated based on the actual needs of the person.
At the heart of the new system is the so-called “Life project“: no longer just a health snapshot, but a personalized path that takes into account the aspirations, potential and concrete difficulties of the individual. It is a step that aligns Italy with the most advanced international models and with the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities.
Disability reform 2026: who is involved
The new procedure concerns first of all the new questions presented in the provinces being tested, but also involves who already holds a recognition and must undergo a review upon expiry of the established period. Citizens who have already recognized civil invalidity or a disability will not have to repeat the entire process with different rules. And from 1 January 2027 the disability reform will be operational throughout Italy.
It remains to be verified in the field whether the centralization under the INPS and the standardization of the criteria will really succeed in guaranteeing faster times and greater uniformity between areas, overcoming the disparities that have characterized the assessment of civil disability over the years.
