IMU on rural farm buildings: barns, stables and agricultural sheds in Italy
Italian law treats buildings that serve farming very gently. The question for most owners is whether their outbuildings really do.
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Rural buildings used for farming (fabbricati rurali ad uso strumentale) pay IMU at a base rate of 0.1 %, and this is the one rate a comune can only lower, never raise (paragraph 750 of Law 160/2019). The category exists for barns, stables, haylofts, wine cellars, greenhouses and sheds that serve a farm business under article 9(3-bis) of Decree-Law 557/1993; the rate schedule lists it as rural buildings for business use, including cadastral category D/10. The taxable value is worked out like any building: rendita plus 5 %, times the category multiplier, 65 for D/10 or 160 for a C/2 storeroom. A C/2 barn with €1,200 of rendita pays €202 a year at the full rural rate. Of the 7,357 comuni whose schedules we read, 2,423 have cut the rate to zero. The farmhouse itself is not a rural business building: it pays as a home.
IMU on a rural farm building
IMU 2026 (code 3913)
€102
| Taxable value (×65) | €102,375 |
| Maximum rate | 0.1 % |
Use, not looks, decides
Many foreign owners of Italian country houses also own a fienile (hayloft), a stalla (stable) or a rimessa (cart shed). Whether these count as rural business buildings depends on what they do today. Paragraph 750 refers to buildings serving agricultural activities as defined in the Civil Code; a stable full of a neighbour’s sheep under a farming arrangement may qualify, a stable converted into a guest annex does not. The cadastral category alone is not decisive: D/10 was created for farm buildings, but a farm shed can also be registered as C/2 or C/6.
The multiplier still matters
The low rate applies to a taxable value computed in the usual way, and the multiplier depends on the category. A D/10 building uses 65; a C/2 store or C/6 stable uses 160; a C/3 workshop 140. At the same rendita, a C/2 barn therefore pays roughly two and a half times what a D/10 building pays.
| Rendita | D/10 at 0.1 % | C/2 at 0.1 % |
|---|---|---|
| €400 | €27 | €67 |
| €800 | €55 | €134 |
| €1,200 | €82 | €202 |
| €2,500 | €171 | €420 |
| €5,000 | €341 | €840 |
Zero in thousands of comuni
Because the rate can only go down, comuni split into two camps: 4,749 keep 0.1 % and 2,423 have removed the tax on farm buildings entirely, often in rural areas that want to support farming. The rest set something in between. Your comune’s choice is shown on the rates by comune page, on the line for rural buildings.
Farmhouse, holiday home, barn: three regimes on one deed
A typical rural purchase in Tuscany or Umbria bundles a house, outbuildings and land. Each item has its own IMU treatment. The house is a dwelling: exempt only if it is your main residence and not in the luxury categories, otherwise taxed like a second home. The outbuildings are rural business buildings only if they serve farming; otherwise they follow their category, typically as pertinenze of the house or as other buildings. The land pays on its land income unless the comune is a mountain or hill area or the owner is a registered farmer.
When the farming stops
If the farm activity ends, or the building is let for non-farm use, the rural rate no longer applies and the building pays at the rate for its category: the rate for other buildings, or for group D at no less than 0.76 % with a State share, as explained in the group D guide. A farm building that is unfit for use and actually unused may instead have its taxable value halved under paragraph 747 (b), for the period the condition lasts.
Paying the comune
Farm building IMU goes entirely to the comune under tax code 3913, in two instalments on 16 June and 16 December. Each F24 line is rounded to the euro, so a very small barn may produce a payment of a few euros. Where the rate is zero, nothing is due, but the building keeps its rendita in the land registry: if its use changes, the tax returns at the rate of the new category.
Who pays when the farm is run by someone else
IMU is always owed by the owner or the holder of a right such as usufruct, not by the person farming. If you let your barns to a local farmer who uses them for his business, they keep their rural business status because they serve an agricultural activity, and you pay at the rural rate. If two siblings own the farm buildings in equal shares, each pays half: on a D/10 with €1,200 of rendita at 0.1 % that is €41 each, a sum small enough that the rounding of each F24 line to the euro becomes visible.
Rural buildings and the cadastral record
The rendita of a farm building, like any building, is on the visura catastale. Old outbuildings that were never registered in the urban cadastre are a known problem in rural Italy: a building that should be registered with a rendita is still a building for IMU under paragraph 741 (a), even if the registration is missing, and regularising it means filing with the land registry through a technician. Before buying a rural property, ask the notary or surveyor to check that every outbuilding appears on the cadastral map and in the urban register with a category and rendita.