Italy Retirement Outlook 2026

1The wealth picture

Italian households are wealthy on paper, and older households hold a growing share. They keep most of it in homes, and most of it will stay in Italy.

• Household net wealth, 2025€12,326 billion8.5 times yearly disposable income; about US$13.9 trillion (our conversion at the 2025 average rate)^{1, 8}
• Held by over-65 households32%Households whose main earner is over 65, 2022; almost double the 1991 share¹
• Typical older household€163,115Median net wealth when the main earner is 65 or over, 2022 (all households: €152,051)³

Net wealth is homes, savings and other assets minus debts. Gross financial wealth (savings and investments before debts) was almost €6,500 billion. If older households still hold 32%, that is roughly €3.9 trillion (our rough calculation, mixing a 2022 survey share with the 2025 total). It is not money leaving Italy.¹

The typical household by age

The median is the middle household. The average for all households was about €296,000, because a few are very rich: the richest 10% hold about 52% of wealth in the survey, or 60% in the Bank of Italy's distributional accounts (end 2023). About 20% of older households are in the richest fifth (our sum).³

Inheritance: large, and it stays at home

All four describe wealth passing between generations within Italy, much of it in homes. None measures money leaving the country, and none says any of it will be spent in the DR.

2Homes and businesses changing hands

Older Italians own their homes, rarely owe money on them, and are about half of those who sell. Many small firms are ageing with their owners.

• Own their home, 65+80.6%Households whose main earner is 65 or over, 2022 (all households: 74.3%)³
• Owe on property, 65+3.5%Have debt for buying property (all households: 13.9%)³
• Sellers over 6049.5%Of individual home sellers in 2024 (our sum of those aged 61 to 70 and over 70)⁹
• Sole traders aged 70+314,824June 2025: 10.7% of all sole traders, up from 8.9% in 2015¹⁷

• Home sales in 2024. 719,578 homes were sold in Italy in 2024, not counting areas that use the tavolare land register. Nearly half of individual buyers (48.4%) were aged 31 to 50.⁹
• Most older wealth is in homes. In 2022, households whose main earner was born between 1941 and 1950 held on average about 62% of their wealth in homes, 28% in financial assets and almost 10% in businesses.¹
• Values are modest. An older household's home is worth €194,427 on average, by the owner's own estimate (all households: €214,743).³
• Selling and staying. 3.8% of homes sold in 2024 were bare-ownership sales (nuda proprietà), a way to sell a home while keeping the right to use it (our description).⁹
• A rough forecast. A think tank expects almost 6 million homes to change hands in 10 to 12 years, after nearly 3 million in the past ten. It assumes about €400,000 a home, far above the survey's average, and its 82% home-ownership rate is higher than the Bank of Italy's 74.3%.^{15, 3}

A change of leader is not a sale, and an older owner does not mean a firm is for sale. No source gives a euro value.

3Ageing: people aged 65 and over, now and in 2035

One person in four in Italy is 65 or older, the highest share in the EU, and the number keeps rising.

• Aged 65+, 1 Jan 202614.8 million25.1% of residents; over 240,000 more than a year earlier²
• Aged 65+, 203517.7 million31.3% of the population (UN projection)¹⁰
• Aged 55 to 64, 20259.3 millionThe next group to turn 65, by 2035 (UN)¹⁰
• Aged 85+, 1 Jan 20262.5 million4.3% of residents²

Italy's statistics office expects a smaller rise: 34.6% aged 65 and over in 2050 (90% range 33.2% to 35.9%), against the UN's 36.8%. Part of the gap is that the UN expects fewer people in total in 2050 (51.9 million, against ISTAT's 54.7 million).^{19, 10}

On 1 January 2025, 24.7% of Italy's residents were 65 or over, the highest share in the EU, where the average was 22.0%.² If the share of pensioners who move abroad stays the same, the number who move still rises (our reasoning).

4Retirees abroad from Italy

Many Italian pensions paid abroad go to people who emigrated long ago, or to foreign workers who went home. The group that looks like Retire.do's audience is small and better off, and it is moving more often.

Italians who retire abroad

INPS studied pensioners who worked their whole career in Italy and moved abroad when they retired. The yearly rate of moves almost tripled: about 10 per 100,000 pensioners in 2010, and 33 in 2023. INPS warns that the 2020 and 2023 peaks may partly be paperwork backlogs. The total living abroad (37,825 in 2024) fell over 2003 to 2024, mostly because there are fewer women (INPS suggests the older generations are dying out), while the number of men has risen in recent years.⁴

• Where they live. Among the 347,422 Italian citizens abroad with a pension, the main European countries of residence include Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium and the UK. ISTAT says Spain (about 13,000) and Portugal (about 4,000) are favoured for the cost and quality of life or tax benefits, and notes Tunisia outside Europe (about 3,000, 91.5% born in Italy). It publishes no figure for the DR.⁵
• Spain leads. Over 2,800 Italy-career pensioners moved to Spain between 2010 and 2024, almost two-thirds of them men.⁴
• Why they go. ISTAT calls this pension emigration a structural trend, partly driven by tax advantages or a lower cost of living, alongside family reasons. INPS says many of the pensions behind its high averages in Portugal, Tunisia, Albania, Greece and Spain go to pensioners who moved abroad for more favourable tax treatment.^{5, 13}
• No survey data. We found no reliable Italian survey on wanting to retire abroad, so this section uses what people actually do.

The DR in the pension data

INPS paid 593 pensions in the Dominican Republic in January 2024, up 26% from 470 in 2020, while the worldwide total fell 6%. They were worth €8.1 million in 2024. 282 of them (47.6%) went to non-Italian citizens, a group INPS says grew 54.9% over five years, so about 311 went to Italian citizens (our calculation).¹³ Some of those may be Dominican-born people with Italian citizenship: over 50,000 people born in the DR live in Italy (UN estimate).²¹

5The Dominican Republic connection

Italians already know the Dominican Republic as visitors, and they land mostly on the south and east coasts. Few settle, and that number has not grown.

• Air arrivals, 202595,359Visitors living in Italy; the most since at least 2015, 13.6% above 2019 (our calculation)⁶
• Landed at La Romana44%Of 2025 arrivals from Italy (our calculation); the airport for Bayahibe and Dominicus⁶
• Born in Italy, in the DR4,719UN estimate for 2024, down from 8,501 in 2000²¹
• Registered citizensAbout 14,000Italian citizens on the embassy's register (AIRE), mostly in the DR²²
• Residencies, 20251,006Granted to Italians, all types, not only retirees (1,037 in 2018)⁷
• Direct flightsNeosFrom Milan Malpensa and, in season, Rome and southern Italy to Punta Cana and La Romana¹²

Arrivals from Italy grew by 8,399 in 2025 while arrivals from Europe as a whole fell 1.7%. Italy was 10.4% of European arrivals and 1.3% of all foreign air arrivals (our calculations). January to July 2026 was up again: 59,822 arrivals, 6,543 more than a year earlier.^{11, 6} Counted by nationality, Italian citizens made 107,033 air arrivals in 2025, including Italians who live outside Italy.²³

This is the airport of entry, not where people stay. In 2025 other airports saw few arrivals from Italy: Cibao 800, Puerto Plata 607, La Isabela 169 and El Catey (Samaná) 7. Visitors to Las Terrenas probably fly into Santo Domingo, but the data cannot show that.⁶

Few settle

In 2025, 711 of the residencies granted to Italians were temporary, 258 permanent and 37 definitive; 670 were granted from January to August 2026. Across all nationalities, residencies rose from 19,698 in 2018 to 34,778 in 2025, so Italy's share fell from 5.3% to 2.9% (our sums). Italy ranked ninth in 2025, after Haiti, Venezuela, China, Colombia, the US, Cuba, Spain and Mexico.⁷

Modelled estimates, not a new count. A 2017 national survey put people born in Italy at 0.7% of 570,933 immigrants, about 4,000 (our calculation). The embassy's figure of about 14,000 registered citizens is higher, probably because it counts citizens, including dual nationals and children born in the DR, and the embassy also covers Haiti for some services.^{24, 22}

This is not an expat cost-of-living index. It compares average household baskets: imported goods, private health care, electricity and beachfront homes can cost relatively more, and price levels after 2021 are extrapolated.²⁵

Neos serves Punta Cana and La Romana. In 2025, 28,944 arrivals from Italy entered through Santo Domingo, which Neos does not serve, so other routes matter too.^{12, 6}

6What it means for DR businesses serving people from Italy

What the figures mean for a Dominican business serving people from Italy.

• Speak Italian, and know the Italian paperwork

  A mover from Italy keeps dealing with Italian offices. INPS pays pensions abroad through Citibank, usually each month, in euros or local currency, and checks every year that the pensioner is alive. Italians who move their residence abroad must register with AIRE within 90 days; since 2024, not doing so can bring fines of €200 to €1,000 a year, for up to five years.^{26, 27} A business that explains these steps in Italian can ease a real worry, while the consulate or an adviser confirms each case.

• Be found where Italians already arrive

  Visitors from Italy enter most often through La Romana (44% in 2025, our calculation), then Santo Domingo, then Punta Cana.⁶ Some future movers are among these visitors, so be easy to find, in Italian, while they are still planning.

• Fill the gaps the rules leave

  Italy has no social security agreement and no double-taxation treaty with the DR, and registering as resident in the DR ends Italian public health cover, with narrow exceptions.^{28, 29, 30} Each gap needs a qualified professional (nothing here is advice):

  • Insurers and clinics: registering abroad in a country with no health agreement, such as the DR, ends cover from the Italian health service. For pensioners, the exception is up to 90 days a year of free urgent hospital care during a temporary return to Italy, for Italy-born emigrants with an Italian pension and no other cover.³⁰
  • Tax advisers: INPS pensions paid to non-residents are generally taxed in Italy, with regional and municipal surcharges when income tax is due. Law 171-07 exempts qualifying pension income from DR income tax, as written. The DR is not on Italy's tax-haven list for individuals (Dominica, a different country, is). An Italian tax adviser and a Dominican lawyer must check each case.^{31, 32, 33}
  • Residency lawyers: as written, Law 171-07 offers pensioner residency for at least US$1,500 a month of pension, with no minimum age. How a euro pension counts against that, and whether the 2026 tax reform (Law 30-26) changes the incentives, need a Dominican lawyer.^{32, 34}
  • Banks and pension helpers: the pension arrives from abroad, usually each month, and in 2025 pensions above the INPS minimum were not uprated for pensioners living abroad.^{26, 35}
  • Estate agents and property managers: households whose main earner was born 1941 to 1950 hold about 62% of their wealth in homes, so for many a move starts with a decision about the home in Italy: sell it, rent it out or keep it.¹

• Some clients will be well off, and they compare countries

  Pensioners on over €5,000 a month are the most likely to move abroad, and INPS says higher-income movers choose countries for tax, climate and quality of life.⁴ ISTAT highlights Spain, Portugal and Tunisia, so the DR competes with them.⁵ Do not assume every client is wealthy: INPS pensions paid in the DR came to about €13,700 each in 2024 (our calculation: €8.1 million over 593 pensions, Italian and non-Italian together).¹³ Everyday prices in the DR are about half of Italy's (our calculation), though imported goods and private care can cost more.²⁵

• Stay honest about the size

  About 1,000 DR residencies of any type go to Italians each year, and about 311 INPS pensions go to Italian citizens in the DR (our calculation).^{7, 13} Most Italian wealth stays in Italy. The opportunity is to be found early, in Italian, by the few who choose the DR. Retire.do puts a business's listing next to its guides and move plan. It cannot promise customers, and the site has no traffic figures yet.

7Risks and caveats

• Estimates, not flows. No source measures how much Italian wealth, pension income or home-sale money will be spent in the DR. Most of it stays in Italy, much of it in homes.
• Pensions are not people. INPS counts pensions, ISTAT counts Italian citizens with any pension, and the INPS study counts only Italy-career movers. Do not compare them directly.^{13, 5, 4}
• The DR pension count is mixed. 282 of the 593 INPS pensions in the DR go to non-Italian citizens, and some of the rest may go to Dominican-born people with Italian citizenship.¹³
• A misread figure. The 675,000 that circulated in early 2026 is all INPS international-regime pensions, most of them paid in Italy (675,325 on 1 January 2025). INPS says about 340,000 people received payments abroad in 2025, including one-off payments.^{20, 36}
• Definitions differ. The Bank of Italy's 32% counts households; Tortuga's 40% counts people. The inheritance estimates use very different methods and periods; never add them.^{1, 14, 15, 16}
• Arrivals are trips. Repeat visitors count each time, residence is not nationality, cruise passengers are left out, and the counting method changed in 2021.⁶
• Modelled and rounded counts. The UN's Italy-born figure is modelled; the 2022 census breakdown by country of birth could not be opened. The embassy's 14,000 is rounded, counts citizens including dual nationals, and the embassy also covers Haiti for some services.^{21, 22}
• Residencies are all types. The DGM counts work, family, investment and pensioner residencies together and does not say whether renewals are included; 2026 covers eight months. Across all nationalities residencies grew, so the flat trend describes Italians, not every group of foreigners.⁷
• Rules change. We did not check whether the 2025 freeze on uprating pensions abroad was repeated for 2026. Law 30-26's effect on Law 171-07 is unclear until its implementing rules come out. Nothing here is legal or tax advice.^{35, 34}
• Safety. Italy's Foreign Ministry calls crime high, including against tourists, especially in Santo Domingo and tourist resorts. It names four provinces on the Haiti border (Pedernales, Elías Piña, Independencia and Dajabón) as high-risk for violence and robbery against foreigners (advice last updated 8 April 2026).³⁷
• Currency. The DR looked cheaper for Italians in 2025 (about 53% of Italy's price level) than in 2024 (about 58%), mostly because the euro strengthened. A weaker euro would reverse that.²⁵
• Second-hand sources. The AUB family-firm figures come from BeBeez's summary, the INPS 340,000 from VareseNews and the Law 30-26 details from El Inmobiliario.^{18, 36, 34}
• Left out on purpose. An INPS figure for moves to Portugal in 2019 that does not square with INPS's own totals, and the value implied by the think tank's €400,000-a-home assumption.^{4, 15}

8Sources

Figures were checked against the original publications. Where only press coverage could be read, the source line says so. “Our calculation” means we derived the figure from published numbers; the publisher did not print it.