One of the first things that surprises people working in Italy is the payslip. Instead of twelve equal salary payments a year, many Italian employees receive thirteen — and sometimes fourteen. These extra payments are the tredicesima (the thirteenth month) and the quattordicesima (the fourteenth month).
They are not a bonus the company can simply skip. They are part of your contractual pay, set out in national collective agreements (CCNL — Contratto Collettivo Nazionale di Lavoro). This guide explains who gets them, when they arrive, how they are taxed, and why the amount that lands in your account is smaller than you might expect.
What the Tredicesima Is
The tredicesima, also called the gratifica natalizia (Christmas bonus), is an additional month's salary paid once a year, normally in December before the holidays. It is a legal entitlement for almost all employees (lavoratori dipendenti), and most pensioners receive one too.
The idea is simple: over the year you build up the right to one extra month of pay, and it is handed to you in a lump sum at Christmas. For families, it often covers presents, festive food, and end-of-year bills.
What the Quattordicesima Is
The quattordicesima is a fourteenth month of salary, usually paid in June or July. Unlike the tredicesima, it is not universal. Whether you receive it depends on your national collective agreement — it is common in retail, tourism, banking, chemicals and several other sectors, but absent in others.
If your CCNL provides for it, the quattordicesima works the same way as the tredicesima: it builds up over the year and is paid as a separate lump sum, giving many workers a welcome boost just before the summer holidays.
How Much You Build Up Each Month
You do not have to be employed for a full year to receive a tredicesima or quattordicesima. They accrue (maturano) month by month. For each full month you work, you earn roughly one twelfth of the extra salary. So if you start a job in September, your December tredicesima will be about four twelfths of a full month's pay.
A few rules affect how much builds up:
- Working at least 15 days in a month usually counts as a full month for accrual
- Periods of paid holiday and ordinary illness generally still count
- Long unpaid absences, certain parental leave beyond statutory limits, and unpaid sabbaticals may reduce the amount
- Part-time workers receive a proportionate share based on their hours
To see how your gross monthly pay translates into net take-home and how the extra months stack up across the year, use our salary calculator.
Why the Net Amount Is Smaller Than a Normal Salary
This is the part that catches people out. Your tredicesima is one month's gross salary, but the amount that reaches your bank account is noticeably less than a normal monthly net payment. There are two reasons.
First, no extra deductions allowance. Italy's IRPEF system gives employees certain deductions (detrazioni da lavoro dipendente) spread across the twelve ordinary pay periods. The tredicesima and quattordicesima do not receive these deductions, so a larger share of the gross is taxed.
Second, full social contributions still apply. The employee's INPS social security contributions (around 9.19 to 10 percent for most employees) are withheld from the extra month just as they are from normal pay. Our INPS calculator shows how these contributions are worked out.
The result is that a gross tredicesima of, say, €2,000 might land as roughly €1,300 to €1,400 net, depending on your tax band and region. It is still real, welcome money — just taxed a little more heavily per euro than your ordinary monthly pay.
How the Extra Months Affect Your Annual Tax
Because IRPEF is progressive, the tredicesima and quattordicesima are added to your total annual income. They can therefore push part of your earnings into a higher tax band. This is not a penalty — it is simply how progressive tax works on a larger yearly total. When you compare two job offers, always check whether the quoted salary is over twelve, thirteen or fourteen months, because the headline figure can be misleading.
Our salary comparison calculator is built for exactly this: it lets you line up two offers and see the real annual difference once the extra months and tax are taken into account.
What About the Self-Employed?
If you work for yourself under a partita IVA, there is no tredicesima or quattordicesima — these are employee entitlements tied to a payroll and a collective agreement. As a freelancer your income arrives when you invoice it, and you set aside your own tax and contributions. If you are weighing up employment against freelancing, our self-employed tax calculator helps you compare the two on a like-for-like basis.
Tredicesima and Your TFR
One often-missed detail: the tredicesima (and the quattordicesima where it exists) is part of your annual gross pay, and that means it feeds into the calculation of your TFR (Trattamento di Fine Rapporto), the severance pot that builds up while you work. A higher annual gross, including the extra months, means a slightly larger TFR set aside each year. You can estimate that accumulated amount with our TFR calculator.
The Bottom Line
The tredicesima is a guaranteed thirteenth salary paid at Christmas, and the quattordicesima is a fourteenth salary paid in summer if your collective agreement provides one. They build up month by month, they are taxed without the usual employee deductions, and they still carry full INPS contributions — which is why the net amount is smaller than a normal month's pay.
The key takeaway when comparing jobs in Italy is to always ask how many monthly payments the salary is split into. A "€30,000" salary over fourteen months is a very different deal from the same figure over twelve. Use our salary calculator and salary comparison calculator to see exactly what you would take home.