Buying a Small Business
Buying a Small Business in Italy
Know what you are buying before you pay for it
The short version
In Italy the sale of a business is a cessione d’azienda: the lease, the permits and the staff move with it, and so do debts in the seller’s books. This page is about what to check before you pay.
In 2024, 33,683 whole businesses were sold in Italy for a price, and each sale was registered with the tax office. Italy does not publish what each of them sold for. This book shows you what can be known instead, and how to check the business in front of you before you pay.
In Genoa a company paid €150,000 for a beach business and lost it, because one sale further back a company director had signed without a resolution of the company’s members. In Cremona a buyer paid €25,000 for a bar at a notary’s office; by the day to take it over, the lease had already ended and an eviction was under way. Each of them needed one question asked, one document read, or one call made before paying.
What’s inside
- IntroItaly's small-business market: what you are walking into
- 1What you are actually buying
- 2Which business, and what it costs
- 3Who is really selling: the seller's right to sell and the owners before him
- 4The seller's debts: what is in his books becomes yours too
- 5The premises: whether the lease comes with the business, and what the landlord can still do
- 6The premises: will they take the business you plan?
- 7Permits: what passes to you, and what you file yourself
- 8The staff come with the business
- 9The seller's taxes: one certificate, forty days
- 10Will the seller open a rival business down the road?
- 11The deed, the notary, the tax and the money
- 12If you are not Italian: your passport decides the path
- 13Money for the purchase: the bank, the guarantee, and which grants apply
- Appendices
- AHow the numbers were counted
- BPrices by category and region
- CThe whole checklist
- DWhere to check
- EItalian words in this book
From the book
Whole businesses sold for a price in Italy in 2024, each registered with the tax office.
The median asking price, across 382 listings (September 2026).
The median starting price at court auctions, across 937 lots. Not what they sold for.
The tax office’s own average for 2024 was €126,630. Appendix A explains how each number was counted.
Editions
- EnglishBuying a Small Business in Italy
Know what you are buying before you pay for it - ItalianoRilevare un'attività in Italia
Sappi che cosa compri prima di pagarlo
On Amazon
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EnglishBuying a Small Business in Italy
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ItalianoRilevare un'attività in Italia
The introduction, “Italy’s small-business market: what you are walking into”, is free to read before you decide.
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When something changes that touches this book — a court decision, a law, a figure — it goes into the letter for the countries you follow, at most once a month. Each item comes with its source and date.
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