730 tax return deadline 2026: 30 September is the last day to file

What happens on 30 September

Picture Sarah. She works in Milan, gets back to Cinisello Balsamo in the evening and since June has been telling herself: «I'll take care of it at the end of the summer». Then come the holidays, work, the kids. On 30 September Sarah wakes up and discovers that the deadline has already gone. It is not a made-up story: at our counter it happens dozens of times every year.

The rule is a single one: your 2026 Form 730 — the return for the income you earned in 2025 — must be filed by Wednesday 30 September 2026. It applies to the pre-filled form, to the ordinary one and to people who file without an employer acting as withholding agent. There are no extensions and you cannot ask for more time.

Who needs the 730 and who does not

Who needs the 730

It is for anyone who worked as an employee or was retired in 2025 and also has other spending or income to declare: medical costs, a mortgage, rent, school fees, bank interest. In practice it matters for almost every employee and pensioner who wants part of the tax already paid back in their pocket.

Who does NOT need it

If in 2025 you had only one salary or one pension and no expenses to deduct, you probably do not have to do anything: your employer has already settled the figures. If you have a VAT number, rental income or more than one job, your return is called Modello Redditi PF and has a different deadline (2 November 2026). Any doubts? One phone call to the CAF sorts everything out in five minutes.

What to bring to your appointment

You do not need to prepare anything complicated. A simple folder with these documents is enough:

• A valid ID document and your tax code (codice fiscale) — your husband's or wife's too, if you file together
• The Certificazione Unica: the form your employer or INPS gives you, showing the income of the year
• Receipts and invoices for your 2025 medical expenses
• The details of your mortgage, if you have one running
• Your rent receipts, if you pay for rented housing
• Your ISEE certificate, if you need it for nursery school or bonuses
• Bank transfer receipts, if you renovated your home with a building bonus

If you use the pre-filled 730, most of this data is already on the Italian Revenue Agency website. Our job is to check that everything is there and that as little as possible is missing: it is very easy to forget a 200 euro medical receipt and lose 50 euro of tax relief.

How it works at our CAF, step by step

The appointment takes about half an hour and has three simple moments.

1. You book your slot

Call +39 02 8716 5567, send us a WhatsApp message or walk straight into Via Oreste Terenghi 21/23, 20092 Cinisello Balsamo. Our hours are Monday to Friday, from 9:30 to 12:30 and from 15:00 to 19:00. Slots in the last two weeks of September always go first: it is better to book early.

2. We fill it in together

An adviser checks your documents, enters the figures and shows you the result before anything is sent. If the 730 comes out «in credit», you see straight away how much will come back to you. If it comes out «in debit», you know immediately how much you owe and when to pay. No surprises: the quote is given before we start.

3. We send it and keep the receipt

We file the return online with the Italian Revenue Agency and hand you the receipt. That receipt is your proof that you complied: keep it safe with your other tax papers.

Back to Sarah's story: on the Saturday before the deadline she came into the office with her folder and thirty-five minutes later she was done. «I thought it would be much worse», she said on her way out.

If you are late: what really changes

Missing 30 September is not the end of the world, but every day of delay costs more than the day before. Here is the real ladder, checked against official sources:

• By 30 September 2026: you file the 730 as it should be. No penalty, no extra cost.
• From 1 October to 2 November 2026: the 730 can no longer be filed, but you can submit Modello Redditi PF instead. Still no penalty, because the ordinary deadline moves to 2 November (31 October is a Saturday).
• After 2 November 2026: the 90 days of the late return start. The return is still valid, but a fixed penalty of 250 euro applies — which drops to 25 euro with the ravvedimento operoso if you owe nothing to the tax office.
• After those 90 days (before February 2027): the return counts as omitted. The penalty becomes 120% of the tax due, with a minimum of 250 euro. And if no tax is due at all, the penalty still runs from 250 to 1.000 euro.

One more thing worth knowing: an omitted return also blocks the paperwork you need later. Without a regular return the ISEE does not come out, and without the ISEE the single child allowance, reduced university fees and all sorts of bonuses do not arrive. A tax problem can turn into a family problem within six months.

Already filed but got something wrong?

Do not worry: you can correct it even after sending. Forgot a receipt, or put the wrong name for a dependent child? You use the 730 integrativo, which has to be filed by 26 October 2026. If the mistake is bigger, Modello Redditi correttivo can be filed by 2 November. Bring us the receipt and we will take care of it.

Questions we get most often

Here are the answers to the five questions we hear most at the counter. If yours is not there, call us: the first consultation is free.

Thirty days ahead: the calendar that keeps you off 30 September

• By 30 June: gather the receipts that give you deductions — medical, school, mortgage, bank interest.
• In July: if you already know a balance is due, talk to your payroll office now, not in September.
• Mid-August: check that your employer has received every income certificate for the previous year.
• 1 September: book the appointment. Slots fill up within days.
• One week before: prepare the folder with ID, tax code, income certificate and expense receipts.
• 30 September is the limit, not the goal: arriving on the 20th costs exactly the same and feels nothing like a rush.

The reasoning is simple: at the CAF the 730 costs the same on the first day and on the last, while the time you have to replace a missing document shrinks week by week. Someone who comes in with three days to spare can go home, find the missing receipt and come back calmly; someone who arrives late on the 30th simply leaves that document out.

One habit helps more than any reminder: keep a single envelope from 1 January for everything you receive from your employer, your doctor or your children's school. By September it is already sorted, and the difference between a complete return and a hurried one is almost always decided in that envelope.

Five last-minute mistakes that push everything into October

The first is arriving without the income certificate: without it your employer cannot confirm what you earned, and the return stays on hold. The second is forgetting the intermediary's form, the one where you authorise the CAF to transmit the return — without that signature nothing is sent, even when every other document is present.

The third is bringing expenses registered in someone else's name without declaring them in the right section: your spouse's or children's expenses can be deducted, but only where they belong. The fourth is a wrong or incomplete IBAN: a refund does not reach an account that is no longer yours, and getting it back takes weeks.

The fifth, and the most common: assuming the salary alone is enough. If you had two employers during the year, a period of unemployment or an extra pension, the statements need a careful read — those are exactly the cases where the 730 finds something to give back.

After filing: refunds, checks and how to follow your return

If you file by the deadline and you have a withholding agent — your employer or your pension fund — they do the arithmetic: any refund arrives month by month in the payslip or pension, while a balance due is withheld in instalments from the same payments. You do not file an F24: the 730 settles itself.

If you have no withholding agent, the return closes differently and any payment is made with the F24 form by the November dates. In both cases keep a copy of the return and the transmission receipt: they are the two documents you need if the Revenue Agency writes to you, and they save you from reconstructing what you declared two years ago.

One check is worth doing every year: confirm that the return was actually received and that its status has changed in your tax drawer. It takes two minutes and tells you immediately whether the amount you expect and the amount on file agree. For any doubt about timing or status, we answer at the office or by phone.