Most Erasmus students and expats never reach year four. But if you signed a 4+4 when you arrived and you are still in Italy three and a half years later, this is the moment the contract stops being background paperwork. The rules are unusually tenant-friendly — and unusually easy to lose by not knowing them.
What does "4+4" actually mean on your contract?
Quattro più quattro describes the shape of the lease, not two separate contracts. According to Legge 431/1998, Article 2 — the structure summarised in idealista's January 2024 guide to Italian rental types — the free-market residential lease runs four years and then renews for another four, making an eight-year cycle by default.
The rent in that contract is canone libero: freely agreed between you and the owner, unlike the canone concordato alternative. Per the same idealista guide, the agreed-rent contract runs three years plus an automatic two-year renewal (the "3+2") and its rent must follow local territorial agreements negotiated between landlord and tenant associations, in exchange for tax breaks for the owner.
Check which one you actually have before counting deadlines: the contract header names the type, and the two structures expire on different clocks. If you are unsure what you signed, our breakdown of rental contract types in Italy walks through the differences line by line.
Do I need to sign anything to renew a 4+4 contract?
📷 Mikhail Nilov / Pexels
No. Renewal at the first deadline is the default outcome, not something you request. This is rinnovo tacito — tacit renewal — and it happens through silence.
You do not send a letter, you do not re-sign, and you do not renegotiate. The only party with an action to take is the landlord, and only if they want the contract to end. Article 3 of Legge 431/1998, whose full text is published in Brocardi's legal database, requires the landlord to send disdetta — notice of non-renewal — at least six months before the first deadline, in writing, stating a legally valid reason.
There is one piece of admin, and it belongs to the owner. The Agenzia delle Entrate (the Italian tax agency) requires every lease extension (proroga) to be reported using form RLI within 30 days of the contract's expiry date, at the office where the original contract was registered. That is the landlord's filing, not yours — but it is worth knowing it exists, because a landlord who "forgets" to register is not a landlord who is keeping careful track of your deposit either.
When can my landlord legally refuse to renew at year 4?
📷 Markus Spiske / Pexels
Only for reasons the law itself lists. Article 3 of Legge 431/1998, as published by Brocardi, sets out seven exhaustive grounds (lettere a-g): the owner or close family needs the property; a non-profit or public body will use it; you already own suitable housing in the same municipality; the building requires major reconstruction or demolition; you abandoned the property without justification; or the owner intends to sell and owns no other home — in which case you get a right of first refusal on the purchase.
Anything else makes the disdetta void. "I want to raise the rent" is not on the list. Neither is "I prefer a different tenant" or "I want to put it on a short-let platform."
The law also carries teeth. Article 3, comma 3 of Legge 431/1998 provides that a landlord who pushes a tenant out using a false or invalid reason owes compensation of no less than 36 months' rent, calculated on the last rent paid. That number is not a bluff, and it is the reason most Italian landlords who want you out simply wait for the second deadline instead.
What happens at the second deadline, after eight years?
The balance shifts. At the end of year eight, either side can activate the exit procedure by registered letter (raccomandata) sent at least six months before expiry — and according to the analysis by Studio Legale Foschini Pagani of the same 1998 law, if neither party does so, the contract renews tacitly for another four years on identical terms, repeating indefinitely.
Two practical consequences follow. First, the six-month clock at the second deadline is not decorative: miss it as a landlord and you have another four years of tenant; miss it as a tenant who planned to renegotiate and you have another four years of the same rent — which, in a rising market, is usually good news for you.
Second, "renews on the same terms" means the same rent, the same deposit (caparra), the same everything. A landlord who wants different terms has to open the conversation before that six-month window closes. If they open it late and ask you to sign a new contract, you are not obliged to.
Can my landlord raise the rent when a renewal kicks in?
Not automatically, and not by an amount they choose. The annual adjustment is the adeguamento ISTAT, tied to the FOI consumer-price index, and it is capped. According to DokiCasa's 2026 guide to ISTAT rent indexing, which derives the rules from Legge 431/1998, free-market 4+4 contracts can be adjusted by up to 100% of the FOI index variation, agreed-rent 3+2 contracts by up to 75%, and 75% applies by default when the contract itself specifies no percentage.
The same guide is clear on the mechanism: the increase must be requested in writing by the landlord to take effect. It is not automatic, and it is not retroactive by default. Silence from the owner means the rent stays where it is.
So a renewal is not a re-pricing event. If your landlord announces a sudden increase "because the contract renewed," ask which clause and which index they are applying — the answer has to point at the FOI variation, not at what the flat could fetch on the open market today.
Who pays the renewal tax, and why cedolare secca matters to you
Formally, this is the owner's problem. Practically, it explains half of your landlord's behaviour at the deadline.
If the lease sits under the ordinary tax regime, the Agenzia delle Entrate's own portal states that renewing or extending it triggers registration tax (imposta di registro) of 2% of the annual rent for each year of the new term, with a minimum of €67 for the first year, payable within 30 days of expiry.
If the lease is under cedolare secca, the flat substitute tax, the Agenzia delle Entrate confirms that no registration tax or stamp duty is owed on the renewal at all. The catch is that the owner must actively reconfirm the cedolare secca option within 30 days of expiry, or it can lapse. The rates, per the agency's information sheet: 21% on free-market contracts, reduced to 10% for agreed-rent contracts in municipalities officially classified as having a housing shortage, including Rome, Milan, Naples and Bologna.
Why this touches you: under cedolare secca the landlord gives up ISTAT increases for the duration of the option. A sudden interest in "switching regimes" at renewal usually means someone wants indexing back.
What if my contract isn't a real 4+4?
Many foreign students never sign one. The common alternatives are the contratto transitorio (temporary-need contract) and the specific student version of it — and they follow different rules entirely.
According to idealista's 2024 guide to Italian rental types, transitory contracts are capped at 18 months, with a separate transitory contract type existing specifically for university students. The same guide notes that the label cannot be used to dodge the 4+4 rules: Italian courts routinely convert improperly designated transitory contracts back into standard 4+4 terms.
That reclassification is a real tenant remedy, not a technicality. If you were given an 18-month "transitory" contract with no documented temporary reason, and you have lived there for years paying rent like any ordinary tenant, the paperwork may not describe what actually exists.
If a valid disdetta does land and the deadline is real, start hunting early rather than in the final weeks — six months is a comfortable runway in Italy. When you do start, our honest comparison of room-finding apps in Italy covers where listings actually are; full disclosure, Coinquilino (coinquilino.app), a free app for finding rooms and roommates in Italy, is our own.
Does my landlord have to tell me the contract is renewing?
No. Under Legge 431/1998, silence is the renewal. The landlord only has an obligation to write to you if they want to stop the renewal — with at least six months' notice at the first deadline, per Article 3 of the law as published by Brocardi.
What counts as valid notice from the landlord?
Written notice, sent by raccomandata (registered letter), stating one of the law's grounds. Article 3 of Legge 431/1998 requires the reason to be one of the seven listed grounds at the first deadline; a notice with no reason, or an invented one, is void.
Do I get my deposit back at renewal, or does it roll over?
It rolls over. A renewal is a continuation of the same contract, so the caparra stays with the landlord until you actually leave. What matters is that the amount and conditions are unchanged — the return rules only apply at move-out, which we cover in how to get your rental deposit back.
Does the renewal need to be registered again with the Agenzia delle Entrate?
Yes. The Agenzia delle Entrate's page on extending and terminating contracts requires the proroga to be filed on form RLI within 30 days of the contract's expiry date, at the office where the original was registered.
Can I leave during a renewed term?
Your right to withdraw (recesso) comes from the withdrawal clause in your own contract, so read that clause rather than assuming a standard number. The renewal does not lock you in for four more years by itself — it continues the same terms you already agreed, including whatever notice period you owe.
I sublet a room from the main tenant. Do these rules protect me?
Only indirectly. The 4+4 protections run between the landlord and whoever signed the registered contract. If your name is not on a registered contract, your position depends on your agreement with the main tenant — and on the head lease surviving its own deadline.
The short version: at year four you are protected and passive, at year eight both sides get an exit, and every deadline runs on a six-month clock. Put a calendar reminder seven months before your contract's expiry date. That single reminder is what turns a stressful surprise into a decision you get to make.
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This article was produced with the help of AI tools and reviewed by the Coinquilino editorial team.
