Tax credit of up to 80% and non-repayable grants: an overview of the history, eligible interventions and what is still useful to know today.
The Tourism Superbonus 80% — formally known as the “Tax credit and non-repayable contribution for hospitality businesses” and born within the PNRR (Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan) — has been among the most discussed interventions of the Italian recovery plan. Four years on from the first opening of submissions on the Ministry of Tourism’s portal, it is worth taking a clear stocktake for sector operators: what it was, what is still useful to know today, and what it leaves behind for the future.
The Tourism Superbonus combined two instruments:
The maximum eligible expenditure was set at €500,000, with a structure that allowed more substantial investments to access both instruments simultaneously. The eligible population was broad: hotels, non-hotel accommodation, agritourism, thermal facilities, fair and event facilities, recreational activities.
Eligible expenditure categories fell into five broad blocks:
The ambition was significant: to drive the Italian hospitality sector towards more sustainable, digital and accessible standards, within a tight timeframe. PNRR provided the financial impulse; the Ministries (the Ministry of Tourism in particular) built the operational instruments.
In the interest of intellectual honesty, the Tourism Superbonus was also an obstacle course for many businesses. Specific recurring difficulties emerged from the concrete experience of applicants:
These are lessons that apply to future similar measures, and worth keeping in mind.
For businesses currently holding active files — invoices in the reporting phase, controls received from the Italian Revenue Agency, accrued credits being offset — the key points are:
Documentary retention is critical and will remain so in the coming years. Invoices, technical sworn statements, certifications and proof of payment must be retained within the legal limitation periods.
The use of the tax credit in offsetting follows the rules of the F24 form with dedicated tax codes. Any credit transfers fall under the general rules on traceability and joint liability.
In the event of requests for clarification or controls, one must be ready to document the consistency between expenditure incurred, project purposes declared, and eligible intervention categories. The most frequent challenges concern precisely the classification of expenditure.
Even for those who did not participate in the 80% Tourism Superbonus, the measure leaves an important footprint: it has raised the bar on the volume of public resources allocated to the hospitality sector, consolidated a model (tax credit + grant) that is being replicated in other calls, and definitively placed sustainability, digitalisation and accessibility at the centre.
The 2026 Hospitality Facilities Grant that arrived a few months ago with its €109 million is a direct descendant of this season: same logic of instrument combination, same attention to ESG objectives, same ATECO codes.
For the hospitality sector, the real lesson of the 80% Superbonus is that the measures exist, but must be seized at the right moment with files built in good time. Those who got ready in advance achieved results; those who waited “to see how it would go” were left out.
If you have open files linked to the Tourism Superbonus and want a consistency check, or you are considering participating in similar measures arriving on the horizon and want to prepare in time, write to us or book a call.