In the Budget Law new rules for the economic indicator: excluding the first home up to 100,000 euros of cadastral value. What does the reform provide and what are the advantages for low-medium income families
ISEE, let’s change. The guidelines of the 2026 Budget Law, illustrated in the Council of Ministers, provide for a change in the calculation of the ISEE, the indicator of the equivalent economic situation which regulates access to the majority of bonuses and benefits for Italian families. The objective is to redraw the boundary between income and assets, lightening the weight of home ownership on the calculation of family wealth, to make the indicator closer to actual income. A change which, if confirmed, could broaden the number of beneficiaries of subsidies and social benefits, but which also opens up a series of questions about its redistributive effects and impact on public finances.
How the ISEE will change with the 2026 budget
The main innovation of the ISEE reform concerns the exclusion of the first house from the calculation, up to a cadastral value of 100 thousand euros (equal to a market value of approximately 300-400 thousand euros). In practice, for families who own their main home, the real estate assets up to this threshold will no longer contribute to the determination of the indicator.
Today the value of the property significantly affects the ISEE, often penalizing families with low incomes but owners of the house in which they live, perhaps the result of an inheritance or life savings. According to the note released by the Ministry of Economy, the measure will be supported by an allocation of 500 million euros per year, with an intervention “on the value of the house and on the equivalence scales”, to encourage access to “subsidized benefits for medium and low income families”. It still remains to be defined whether the reference value will be the cadastral income or a more updated evaluation, and whether the ceiling will be kept fixed or indexed over time, in light of a possible revision of the land register.
The government is also considering the introduction of new income thresholdsto prevent families with high incomes from benefiting from the relief. In other words, those who exceed certain income limits could not subtract the main residence from the ISEE calculation, even if it falls below the established cadastral threshold.
The reform follows the logic that led last year to also exclude government bonds and postal savings bonds from the ISEE calculation, up to 50 thousand euros per family unit.
The effects of the possible ISEE reform on families and bonuses
In a country where almost three out of four families own their own homethe exclusion of the first home could reduce the ISEE for millions of households.
This would result in a easier access to a series of services currently bound to stringent thresholds: fromSingle allowance for children al nursery bonuscome on support for electricity and gas bills to the rent contributionsup to the most recent ones sports bonus and home applianceswhich provide for increasing brackets based on the economic indicator.
For many families, the revision would result in a lower ISEE and therefore in higher amounts of allowances or subsidies. This is the case, for example, of parents with dependent children who, seeing their indicator drop, could obtain a larger single allowance.
But there are risks. Without adequate corrective measures, the exclusion of the first home could end up favoring even those who have high incomes, but live in properties with a low cadastral value. This is why the government is working on balance mechanisms, such as income thresholds and updated equivalence scales, to better calibrate benefits.
