Mortgage interest deduction 730: how much you get back every year

What the 730 gives you back on your mortgage

Mihaela and Fabrizio live on via dei Tigli, in Cinisello Balsamo. They bought their home in 2021 with a mortgage they pay every month, and they thought the only sure thing in life was the instalment. Then at the office we opened the bank certificate: in 2025 they had paid 3,100 euros of interest. With the 730 they got 589 euros of it back, arriving little by little in the payslip. Money they had already spent, and that they risked leaving with the bank forever.

The rule is simple. If you have a mortgage loan to buy the home you live in (or that a family member of yours lives in), the State gives you back 19 per cent of the interest you paid during the year, together with some extra costs of the mortgage itself. The capital does not count, that is the part of the instalment that reduces your debt: only the interest and the costs linked to the contract count.

The real numbers: how much comes in, when it arrives and who gets it

The ceiling of 4,000 euros of interest

The 19 per cent applies up to 4,000 euros of interest paid in the year. If you pay 2,400 euros of interest, the deduction is 456 euros; if you pay 4,000 or more, the deduction stops at 760 euros. Above that ceiling the tax office recognises nothing else, so there is no advantage in declaring bigger figures: it only triggers checks.

When the mortgage is in two names

With a joint mortgage the 4,000 euro ceiling is only one, and it is split between the names on the contract, in equal parts or according to the percentages written in the deed. If the mortgage is 50 per cent between wife and husband, each of them declares at most 2,000 euros of interest and gets up to 380 euros back. The exception is when one of the two is a dependant of the other: whoever pays can declare both shares.

The 2026 change: the ceiling for incomes over 75,000 euros

With this year's 730 a reorganisation of the deductions came into force for anyone with a total income above 75,000 euros: one single limit of deductible spending, calculated on the income and on the number of children. The good news is that it only concerns mortgages signed from 1 January 2025 onwards. If your mortgage is older, the interest deduction stays in full even with a high income.

• Mortgage signed up to 31 December 2021: full deduction, no ceiling on income.
• Mortgage signed between 2022 and 2024: full deduction, no ceiling on income.
• Mortgage signed from 1 January 2025: if the income goes over 75,000 euros, the interest falls inside the ceiling of the reorganisation together with the other deductible costs.
• The calculation of the ceiling starts from 14,000 euros of spending for incomes between 75,001 and 100,000 euros and from 8,000 euros above 100,000, with a coefficient that grows with the children you support.

This is one of those rules that is hard to sort out on your own: two mortgages with the exact same instalment can be treated in different ways depending on when they were signed. At the office we check the signing year on the deed and tell you straight away which case you are in.

Which mortgage costs go into the 730 and which ones do not

When the bank sends you the certificate of interest paid, usually between March and April, there is more written on it than it seems. It is not only the interest: the law also recognises the accessory costs, the ones you paid to start the mortgage and to keep it running.

• The interest actually paid during the year, on a cash basis: what counts is the payments you made, not the instalment that fell due.
• The arrangement fees and the technical survey paid to the bank.
• The substitute tax on the money that was lent to you.
• The notary fee for the mortgage contract, including the costs of registering and cancelling the mortgage.
• The penalty paid for paying the mortgage off early.
• The indexation shares, if the contract has indexation clauses.

• The capital does not count, that is the share of the instalment that reduces the debt.
• The notary fee for buying the house does not count: that is about the purchase, not about the mortgage.
• The interest of mortgages on properties abroad does not count.
• The sums refunded by your employer as a benefit do not count: only the part you paid yourself is deducted.

One detail that makes all the difference: the deduction belongs to the person named on the mortgage and owner of the property, not to whoever physically pays the instalment. If the mortgage is in your name and the house is lived in by your mother, the deduction is yours: what counts is the name on the contract and a family member living in the property.

Where the mortgage goes on the 730: row E7 and the three codes

The interest of a first-home mortgage is declared in section E, row E7. From this year, in that row you also have to write a code that says when the contract was signed, because it is needed to understand whether your mortgage falls under the new ceiling for high incomes.

• Code 7: mortgages to buy the main home signed up to 31 December 2021.
• Code 48: mortgages signed between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2024.
• Code 57: mortgages signed from 1 January 2025 onwards, including contracts re-negotiated or moved to another bank after that date.

Watch out for mortgages moved to another bank: if you switched to a different bank or re-negotiated the loan, the code is chosen on the date of the new deed, not on the date of the original one. Whoever moved an old mortgage in 2025 uses code 57, with all the rules that come with it.

What the pre-filled 730 already does for you

The bank tells the Agenzia delle Entrate how much you paid, and in most cases the interest is already sitting in the pre-filled return. It is not certain that everything is there: if last year no main home was recorded for you, or if the bank sent the data late, the line can be missing and you have to add it by hand. And even when it is there, it must be compared with the paper certificate: a wrong figure or a different code changes the result.

Documents for the 730 mortgage: the folder ready to go

Preparation is half of the work. If you put your mortgage folder together once a year, the 730 becomes a formality. Here is what should be inside it:

• The certificate of interest paid issued by the bank, the one that arrives between March and April in the online area or by post.
• The original mortgage contract, from which the signing date and the purpose come out: purchase, building or renovation.
• The deed of purchase of the property.
• In case of a switch to another bank, a re-negotiation or someone taking over the loan, the contract of the new deed with its date.
• For building or renovation mortgages, the invoices and the statements of the works that prove the start and the end of the job.
• ID document and tax code of the person filing the return.

The documents must be kept until 31 December 2031: that is the deadline by which the Agenzia delle Entrate can ask for proof of what you declared. One single envelope, labelled with the year and kept with your other tax papers, saves you from hunting for a certificate from seven years ago when the bank's online area barely shows it any more.

One last practical tip: when you pay the December instalment, check that the payment went through by the 31st. Interest paid in January counts for the year after, and even this small deadline changes the amount you see on your payslip.

Five mistakes that make you lose the refund

• Counting the instalment instead of the interest: only the interest share and the extra charges go into the deduction, not the capital. Whoever declares the whole instalment is stating something untrue, even without meaning to.
• Getting the code in row E7 wrong: a 2025 mortgage with code 48 falls outside the right calculation, and the result changes most of all for incomes over 75,000 euros.
• Forgetting the bank certificate and trusting the pre-filled return: when the bank has not sent the data, the line is missing completely and the refund disappears.
• Having everything deducted by one single name: on a 50 per cent joint mortgage each of the two can declare their own share, and whoever does not use it loses it.
• Thinking that all mortgages are the same: the one to build or renovate a house has a different cap, of 2.582,28 euros, and it goes into other rows of section E.

One more mistake, the most common of all: leaving everything to the last moment. The mortgage certificate arrives in spring and the 730 closes in September: between those two dates there are whole months to fix a figure or find a document, with no anxiety and no queue.

At the CAF in Cinisello Balsamo: half an hour and you are done

If you have a mortgage and you have never looked at the bank certificate, the first step is to bring it to the office. We are in Via Oreste Terenghi 21/23, in Cinisello Balsamo, open from Monday to Friday between 9:30 and 12:30 and between 15:00 and 19:00. You can book by phone on +39 02 8716 5567, write on WhatsApp at +39 329 713 9762 or simply pass by the desk.

At the appointment an operator looks at three things with you: how much interest you paid during the year, which code your contract needs and whether the pre-filled return has everything in it. Then the result is shown to you before sending, so you know straight away how much comes back in your payslip. The quote for the service is given to you before starting: no surprises at the end.

Mihaela and Fabrizio walked out of the office with two things in their hands: the 730 statement and the mortgage certificate marked with a pen. 'We thought we were in trouble because of the mortgage,' she said, 'and instead almost 600 euros came back to us'. The mortgage stays a big expense every month, but a part of it can come back: you just have to ask for it in the right way.