IT · NAPLESLocal facts

Living in Naples.

Southern Italy's largest city, 905,000 in the comune and around three million across the metropolitan area. It has the warmest winter days of Italy's modelled cities, the lowest share of foreign residents of any of them at 7.1%, and the second-widest gap between central and outer rents — the seafront and hillside districts ask 68% more per square metre than the eastern peripheries.

VerifiedAug 28, 2026Updated Aug 28, 2026

Population 905,050

ISTAT — Popolazione residente per età e sesso al 1° gennaio 2026 (POSAS), comune di Napoli 063049

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Sum of the single-year-of-age rows for comune 063049 in POSAS_2026_it_Comuni.csv, excluding age code 999, which is ISTAT's own total row and would double the count. The same computation reproduces the already-published figures for Genoa (566,247), Rome (2,745,062) and Milan (1,362,863) exactly.
Notes: Comune di Napoli only — Italy's third-largest municipality after Rome and Milan. The gap between city and metropolitan area is wider here than anywhere else in this dataset: the metropolitan city of Naples holds roughly three million people in a nearly continuous built-up belt around Vesuvius, so the comune boundary cuts through the middle of the functional city. The air-quality figure on this page is measured over that wider footprint and is labelled accordingly. ISTAT flags the 1 January 2026 figures as an estimate.

· Europe/Rome· Italy rules apply

IT · NAPLES

At a glance

The headline numbers for Naples — each with its own source and freshness. A live official figure is not the same as a survey estimate or a 30-year climate normal.

Cost of living

7.2/10

$1,093/mo

Rent, 1–3 bed

5.7/10

$648–$2,172

/mo

Freelancer tax

6.0/10

24.9%

Safety

9.9/10

0.57/100k

Air quality

6.0/10

15.1 µg/m³

Internet

2.2/10

27 Mbps

English

5.0/10

Moderate

Private health

no verified data

What the tags meanofficial — live figure from a government or authorityopen data — open dataset (Eurostat, EEA, M-Lab, UdSC…)survey — survey or index estimatecurated — SettleMetric-assembled estimate — open the source for the method

What it costs you per month

A planning estimate: real asking rent plus a cost-of-living basket scaled to your household. Not a quote.

Household

Lifestyle

Location

Estimated total

$1,742/mo

≈ $20,904 / year

Where it goes

Rent (1-bed)$648
Food & non-alcoholic beverages$281
Housing (water, energy, maintenance — excl. rent)$160
Transport$157
Restaurants & accommodation$85
Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)$71
Furnishings & household equipment$61
Health (out-of-pocket)$61
Recreation, sport & culture$55
Clothing & footwear$54
Insurance & financial services$39
Information & communication$38
Alcoholic beverages & tobacco$23
Education$9
Living costs$1,094

Rent from the asking-rent matrix below. Living costs scale a one-person basket ($1,094/mo) by household size and lifestyle; the equivalence factors are our assumption. Schooling and one-off setup are excluded.

Cost of living

What a single person spends each month — food, utilities, transport, eating out and the rest — excluding rent.

Typical monthly spending (national average)

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, divisioni di spesa)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Each ISTAT 2024 spending division for all households, divided by the average household size 2.2, uplifted ×1.0164 (HICP 2024→2025) and converted at 1.1399 USD/EUR. The housing line is shown net of both imputed rent (€617.39/household) and actual rentals (€63.08, from the 2.951% HICP weight), leaving water, energy, maintenance and condominium charges. Items sum to $1,094 against the $1,093 headline; the €1 gap is rounding.
Notes: Food is the largest single line at a quarter of the basket — a high share for Western Europe, and one reason Italy's overall cost sits below France and Austria despite comparable incomes. Health is out-of-pocket only: the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale covers residents, with co-payments (ticket) and private consultations making up this line.

total1,094 USD/mo

01Food & non-alcoholic beverages281 USD

02Housing (water, energy, maintenance — excl. rent)160 USD

03Transport157 USD

04Restaurants & accommodation85 USD

05Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)71 USD

06Furnishings & household equipment61 USD

07Health (out-of-pocket)61 USD

08Recreation, sport & culture55 USD

09Clothing & footwear54 USD

10Insurance & financial services39 USD

11Information & communication38 USD

12Alcoholic beverages & tobacco23 USD

13Education9 USD

Italy's household-budget basket for a single person, excluding rent. Non-rent costs vary little between cities — the city-specific part is rent, shown under Housing below.

01Cost of living (single, excl. rent)country-level1,093USD/month, single person, excluding rent7.2

What this measures

Monthly cost of a defined single-person basket (food, transport, utilities, mobile+internet, modest leisure) excluding rent, curated from national statistics office price data and large local retailers' published prices, converted to USD at the ECB rate recorded in fx-rates. The method field of each value itemizes the basket inputs.

Lower is betterUSD/month, single person, excluding rentre-verified every 365 days

Curated by SettleMetric

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Housing

What it costs to rent, by apartment type and location.

Asking rent by apartment type & location

Immobiliare.it — Mercato immobiliare Napoli, canoni di locazione richiesti per zona (giugno 2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jun 30, 2026
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Two per-m² rates from the 14 zone quotations of June 2026: central = mean of the priciest quartile (4 zones) = €17.12/m²; outside the centre = mean of the cheapest quartile (Barra/Ponticelli/San Giovanni a Teduccio €9.60, Pianura/Soccavo/Traiano €9.94, Chiaiano/Piscinola €10.30, Scampia/Secondigliano/Capodichino €10.99) = €10.21/m². Applied to the dataset's assumed floor areas — studio 35 m², 1BR 55 m², 2BR 80 m², 3BR 110 m² — and converted at 1 EUR = 1.1534 USD (ECB, 2026-08-13). Read through the Internet Archive snapshot of 2026-07-17, as above.
Notes: A central premium of 1.68x, second only to Rome's 1.78x, and the districts on either side of that gap differ by much more than price: the cheap quartile is Scampia, Ponticelli, Barra and Secondigliano, the eastern and northern peripheries with the city's worst reputation for crime and services. A $648 one-bedroom outside the centre and a $1,086 one inside are not the same product with a longer commute, which is the assumption the studio/1br/2br/3br matrix makes everywhere else.

A central premium of 1.68x, second only to Rome's 1.78x, and the districts on either side of that gap differ by much more than price: the cheap quartile is Scampia, Ponticelli, Barra and Secondigliano, the eastern and northern peripheries with the city's worst reputation for crime and services. A $648 one-bedroom outside the centre and a $1,086 one inside are not the same product with a longer commute, which is the assumption the studio/1br/2br/3br matrix makes everywhere else.

Apartment	Central	Outside centre
Studio	691 USD/mo	412 USD/mo
1-bedroom	1,086 USD/mo	648 USD/mo
2-bedroom	1,579 USD/mo	942 USD/mo
3-bedroom	2,172 USD/mo	1,295 USD/mo

Climate

Temperature and rainfall through the year, plus air quality.

Monthly normals — Naples

Climates to Travel — Naples climate (1991–2020 normals), cross-checked against NOAA/WMO Napoli Capodichino (WMO 16289)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: The official WMO 1991–2020 normals for Napoli Capodichino (16289) have five blank cells — May and July temperature means, and July precipitation — so a complete 1991–2020 series is used for the whole row and checked against the WMO station on everything WMO does publish. All ten published temperature months agree to within 0.18°C. The four blank temperature cells were checked two further ways. First, recomputed from NOAA's Global Summary of the Day daily observations for the same station over the same 30 years, giving May 14.05/23.78 and July 20.52/30.68 against this row's 14.0/23.8 and 20.4/30.6 — within 0.12°C. Second, WMO does publish a mean daily temperature for those two months, 19.00°C for May and 25.68°C for July, against midpoints of 18.9 and 25.5 from this row's minima and maxima. Both the same-station daily recomputation and WMO's own published means corroborate the filled cells independently.
Notes: Precipitation is the weak point and should be read as a city series, not the airport gauge. On the eleven months WMO publishes, this row runs consistently above them — October 130 mm against 78.23, November 160 against 115.52, August 40 against 13.82 — and the NOAA daily recomputation cannot arbitrate, because the station's pre-2005 daily record is itself biased: the 1991–2004 ISD record overstates WMO's own monthly sums by 26% while the 2005–2020 record overstates them by 8%. So the annual total of about 1,005 mm is more likely an upper bound than a central estimate. The temperatures are solid, and they are the striking part: January days average 13.5°C, the warmest of Italy's modelled cities, and the summer is drier than Florence's despite a wetter year overall.

Daytime high °CNighttime low °CRainfall mm

Average day/night temperature (lines, left axis) and total rainfall (bars, right axis) for each month — 1991–2020 normals. Hover a month for exact figures.

Month by month
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Daytime high °C	13.5°	14.0°	16.5°	19.5°	23.8°	28.0°	30.6°	31.2°	27.0°	23.2°	18.5°	14.4°
Nighttime low °C	4.7°	5.0°	7.3°	9.9°	14.0°	18.1°	20.4°	21.0°	17.2°	13.5°	9.4°	5.9°
Rainfall mm	105	100	85	75	50	35	25	40	80	130	160	120

01Climate comfort6pleasant months/year6.0

What this measures

Number of months whose 1991–2020 climate normals satisfy: mean daily maximum between 15°C and 28°C and monthly precipitation under 150mm. Computed from the city's climate-normals indicator; the raw normals are stored alongside so users can judge by their own taste.

Higher is betterpleasant months/yearre-verified every 3650 days

Curated by SettleMetric

SettleMetric — computed from the Naples 1991–2020 normals

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Months whose 1991–2020 normals have a mean daily maximum of 15–28°C and under 150 mm of precipitation: March, April, May, June, September, October = 6. July and August are excluded for heat (30.6 and 31.2°C), December to February for cold, and November for rain — at 18.5°C it is warm enough but its 160 mm exceeds the 150 mm threshold. June qualifies at exactly 28.0°C, the top of the band.
Notes: November is the only month in the Italian set excluded by the rain rule rather than by temperature, and it fails narrowly. Because the precipitation row is an upper-bound city series (see the climate normals notes), a drier gauge could plausibly put November inside the threshold and raise this score to 7.

02Air quality (PM2.5)15.1µg/m³, annual mean PM2.56.0

What this measures

Annual mean fine-particulate (PM2.5) concentration for the city, latest available year. Anchors follow the WHO 2021 guideline (5 µg/m³ → 10) through the EU limit value territory (25 µg/m³ → 2). Preferred source: European Environment Agency city-level air quality data; outside Europe: WHO Ambient Air Quality Database or the national monitoring network.

Lower is betterµg/m³, annual mean PM2.5re-verified every 730 days

Open data

WHO Ambient Air Quality Database 2026 (v8.0), row "Napoli Greater City/ITA" 2024 — original data European Environment Agency, Air Quality Statistics

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Row "Napoli Greater City/ITA", year 2024, pm25_concentration 15.118 µg/m³ at 94% temporal coverage, from eighteen stations — three suburban background, three urban background, four suburban industrial, one urban industrial, one suburban traffic and six urban traffic. The largest station network of the Italian cities in this dataset.
Notes: Read the boundary before the number. WHO publishes no city-proper row for Naples, only a "Greater City" one, and it aggregates a station centroid of 40.87367°N 14.31456°E over a footprint of 2,855,958 people against the comune's 905,050 — so this covers the whole metropolitan belt, including the industrial areas east of the city and around Pozzuoli, not the historic centre alone. Five of the eighteen stations are industrial, a mix no other Italian city here has. The comparison with Florence, Bologna, Rome and Genoa, whose rows are all city-proper, is therefore not like for like. On its own terms: three times the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³, inside the current EU limit of 25, above the 2030 EU limit of 10, and falling — 17.2 in 2020, 17.15 in 2022, 15.41 in 2023, 15.12 in 2024.

Safety

How safe daily life is, from official crime statistics.

01Homicide ratecountry-level0.6intentional homicides per 100,000/year9.9

What this measures

Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 population, latest available year. Country level: UNODC national series. City level: official municipal/police statistics where published; otherwise null (country value shown as country-level).

Lower is betterintentional homicides per 100,000/yearre-verified every 730 days

Open data

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Crime by offence typecountry-levelpolice-recorded per 100,000 · 2024

Eurostat — police-recorded offences by category (crim_off_cat, ICCS, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary of private residential premises 05012, drug offences 0601, robbery 0401, sexual violence 0301, serious assault 020111. Italy's profile is the mirror image of its low homicide rate: property crime is high (theft above 1,550 per 100k, concentrated in tourist cities) while violent offences are low — serious assault is recorded at 2.04 per 100k, but Italy defines that category far more narrowly than France or Poland do, so cross-country comparison of that line is meaningless. Fraud, not shown here, was recorded at 732.67 per 100k.

01Theft1,552per 100k

02Burglary264per 100k

03Drug offences54per 100k

04Robbery49.8per 100k

05Sexual violence12.6per 100k

06Serious assault2per 100k

ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary of private residential premises 05012, drug offences 0601, robbery 0401, sexual violence 0301, serious assault 020111. Italy's profile is the mirror image of its low homicide rate: property crime is high (theft above 1,550 per 100k, concentrated in tourist cities) while violent offences are low — serious assault is recorded at 2.04 per 100k, but Italy defines that category far more narrowly than France or Poland do, so cross-country comparison of that line is meaningless. Fraud, not shown here, was recorded at 732.67 per 100k.

Hate crime (police-recorded)country-levelpolice-recorded · 2024

OSCE ODIHR Hate Crime Reporting — Italy (official police-recorded)

Official source

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: OSCE ODIHR 2024: 893 alleged criminal offences recorded as hate crimes, drawn from the police database (SDI) and OSCAD, the interior ministry's observatory on discrimination. Italy does not break out a racist/xenophobic subtotal in the data it submits, so that field is left empty rather than guessed. Counts are not comparable across countries — a higher number often reflects better recording, and Italy's total is far below France's 6,096 largely because of how bias motivation is flagged and how willing victims are to report.

893

recorded by police

OSCE ODIHR 2024: 893 alleged criminal offences recorded as hate crimes, drawn from the police database (SDI) and OSCAD, the interior ministry's observatory on discrimination. Italy does not break out a racist/xenophobic subtotal in the data it submits, so that field is left empty rather than guessed. Counts are not comparable across countries — a higher number often reflects better recording, and Italy's total is far below France's 6,096 largely because of how bias motivation is flagged and how willing victims are to report.

Infrastructure

Internet speed and how parcels get to your door.

01Domestic delivery qualitycountry-levelGood7.0

What this measures

Quality of in-country parcel delivery. excellent = nationwide next-day widely available, dense parcel-locker network, real-time tracking standard; good = 1–3 day delivery, lockers in major cities; basic = reliable but slow (3–7 days), mostly to-door or post-office pickup; poor = unreliable delivery, street addresses often unusable, informal workarounds common. Classified from official service/coverage data of the national postal operator and the two largest private carriers; inputs itemized in each value's method field.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Curated by SettleMetric

Poste Italiane — Rete Punto Poste (punti di ritiro e Locker)

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Poste Italiane's Punto Poste network lists over 18,000 pickup points and lockers, and more than 30,000 proximity points counting post offices, alongside private networks — BRT, GLS, SDA, DHL, UPS and InPost Italia. Home delivery is nationwide with next-day options in the north and centre. Rated 'good' rather than 'excellent': locker density is far below Poland's or France's (Poste's own locker estate is in the low thousands, against ~26,000 InPost lockers in Poland), and delivery reliability is noticeably weaker in the south and on the islands.
Notes: Cash on delivery (contrassegno) is still a mainstream consumer option in Italy, unlike in France — a legacy of lower card penetration that remains useful for anyone without an Italian bank card yet.

02International delivery easecountry-levelMinor friction7.0

What this measures

Ease of receiving goods from abroad. seamless = major international carriers deliver door-to-door, meaningful duty-free de-minimis threshold, customs clearance predictable in days; minor-friction = carriers present but low de-minimis, extra paperwork or routine delays; significant-friction = frequent customs holds, high brokerage fees, some marketplaces refuse to ship; unreliable = parcels regularly lost or blocked, informal import channels dominate. De-minimis thresholds and clearance rules from the national customs authority (official source, cite the regulation); carrier presence from carriers' official pages.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Official source

European Commission — removal of the €150 customs duty exemption threshold for e-commerce imports (from 1 July 2026)

Data as of: Jul 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Intra-EU shipping is frictionless under the single market — a parcel from Germany or Spain arrives like a domestic one. For non-EU imports the EU removed the €150 duty-free threshold and from 1 July 2026 applies a temporary flat customs duty per item on consignments up to €150, with VAT already collected at checkout through IOSS. The same EU-wide regime as every member state; Italian customs handling of non-EU parcels is slower than northern Europe's, which is the 'minor friction' in practice.

03Internet speedcountry-level27.4Mbps, median fixed download2.2

What this measures

Median fixed-broadband download speed over the trailing 6 months from M-Lab NDT open data (CC0), aggregated at country or city level. Not comparable with Ookla figures (different test methodology) — do not mix sources within this criterion.

Higher is betterMbps, median fixed downloadre-verified every 365 days

Open data

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Italy

Data as of: Dec 31, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for IT in 2023 (17.42M download tests; daily medians ranged 8.6–29.9 Mbps). M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API.
Notes: Low by Western European standards on this metric: Italy's copper legacy is long and FTTH rollout, while accelerating under the national broadband plan, still lags France and Spain. Fibre is available in the three modelled cities; rural and southern coverage is where the national median is lost.

Healthcare

What comprehensive private medical cover costs.

01Private healthcare costcountry-levelno verified data—

What this measures

Median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private medical insurance (outpatient + inpatient, ~$100k coverage, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old resident foreigner, from local and international insurers. Method field lists the insurers quoted.

Lower is betterUSD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-oldre-verified every 365 days

No verified premium. Italian insurers do not publish individual health-policy tariffs the way French mutuelle comparators do, and the figures circulating on broker blogs (roughly €300–500 a year for a basic individual policy at 35) are not traceable to a named tariff table, so they are not recorded here. What is certain is the structure: residents — including foreigners with a residence permit — enrol in the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which covers GP care, hospital treatment and subsidised specialist care against a co-payment (ticket). Private policies in Italy are supplementary, bought mainly to skip public waiting lists, not a replacement. Non-residents on a digital-nomad or elective-residence visa must instead hold private travel/health insurance for the visa itself.

Money & crypto

Crypto rules and how freely personal money moves.

01Crypto regulationcountry-levelLegal regulated8.0

What this measures

Own classification of the legal status of holding, trading and cashing out cryptocurrency for individuals: legal-friendly (legal with clear, favourable rules or explicit tax exemptions), legal-regulated (legal under standard licensing/AML and taxation), restricted (partial bans: payments or banking access prohibited), banned (holding/trading prohibited). Classified from national regulators' and central banks' official positions.

Rated by category—re-verified every 180 days

Official source

Agenzia delle Entrate — Quadro RT, sezioni V-A1/V-B1: imposta sostitutiva 33% sulle plusvalenze da cripto-attività realizzate dal 1° gennaio 2026

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Legal and fully regulated, but taxed harder than most of Europe from 2026: the substitute tax on crypto capital gains (art. 67(1)(c-sexies) TUIR) rose from 26% to 33% on gains realised from 1 January 2026, and the previous €2,000 annual exemption threshold was abolished from 2025 — so the first euro of gain is taxable. Euro-denominated e-money tokens stay at 26%. Service providers operate under the EU MiCA regime, supervised by CONSOB and the Bank of Italy. Note that the regime forfettario's substitute tax does not cover capital gains: crypto is declared separately in quadro RT whatever your business regime.

02Financial control levelcountry-levelLow10.0

What this measures

Own composite of state control over personal money flows: currency/capital controls (IMF AREAER), restrictions on foreign accounts and transfers, mandatory income declaration scope for residents, cash payment limits, banking access for foreigners. Low = free movement of personal funds and easy non-resident banking; very-high = strict capital controls and pervasive reporting. Method field on each value lists the inputs used.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Official source

Agenzia delle Entrate — Limitazione all'uso del contante e deroga per cittadini stranieri non residenti

Data as of: Jan 1, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Composite: Italy uses the euro, with EU free movement of capital and no exchange or capital controls. The binding constraints are ordinary anti-money-laundering rules — a ceiling on cash transfers between parties (art. 49 of D.Lgs. 231/2007), a reporting duty on large cash tourism sales, and the RW section of the tax return, in which residents must declare foreign accounts and assets including crypto. Non-resident banking is available with standard KYC. None of this restricts moving your own money, so the classification is 'low', the same as France and Spain.
Notes: Two official sources disagree on the general cash ceiling and we flag rather than hide it: the 2023 Budget Law (law 197/2022) raised it from €1,000 to €5,000 from 1 January 2023, and this Agenzia delle Entrate page tracks that by setting the tourism cash-sale reporting threshold at €5,000 ('previously €1,000 until 2025'), while the Treasury's own prevention-of-financial-crime FAQ still displays €1,000 as the limit in force since 2022. Either figure lands Italy in the same band. Worth knowing separately: Italy's declaration duty for foreign-held assets is broad, and penalties for undeclared foreign accounts are real.

Language

How far English gets you in daily life and services.

01English proficiencycountry-levelModerate5.0

What this measures

Own banding of how far English gets a resident in daily life (government offices, healthcare, housing, services). Informed by EF EPI band (research source, cited with attribution, not republished) plus official language status and service-sector realities. Values are our bands, not EF scores.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Research

EF EPI 2025 — Italy (score 513, rank 59/123, Moderate band)

Data as of: Nov 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Italy score 513, global rank 59, 'Moderate' band (EF cutoffs: Moderate 500–549), down 15 points on the previous edition. Reading scores highest (534) and speaking lowest (417), which matches the lived experience: written and technical English is workable in Milan's professional world, but Italian is required for administration, healthcare and most daily life, and proficiency falls sharply from north to south.

Education

International schooling options for families.

01International schools6accredited international schools, count6.3

What this measures

Count of international schools in the metro area accredited by or member of IB, CIS, COBIS, or an equivalent national-curriculum-abroad body (verified against the accreditor's public registry, not aggregator sites).

Higher is betteraccredited international schools, countre-verified every 730 days

Curated by SettleMetric

International Schools Database — International schools in Naples (6 schools listed)

Data as of: Aug 28, 2026
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: The directory's headline count and its list agree at six: TAIS Naples (American), The International School of Naples (American and Montessori), Teodoro Monticelli International School (American), International School of Lago Patria (American), Anglo-Italian School — Montessori Division, and École Française de Naples Alexandre-Dumas (French). The same directory and the same counting rule were used for Rome, Milan, Genoa, Florence and Bologna in this dataset.
Notes: Six schools, but four of the six teach an American curriculum and one is French — there is no British, IB or German option in the city, the narrowest curriculum range of the Italian cities here despite the middling count. The American concentration reflects the large United States Navy presence at Naples and nearby Lago Patria, which is also why one of the six sits 20 km outside the city. A directory count rather than an accreditor-by-accreditor tally, because the IB World School registry answers automated requests with a bot challenge that we do not bypass.

Demographics

Who else lives here — the share of foreign residents and the largest national communities, from official statistics.

Openness to foreignerscountry-levelOpenGallup MAI 6.49/9 · 2016

What this measures

How accepting the resident population is of migrants and foreigners — the inverse of xenophobia, a real concern for someone relocating. Our own five-band reading (very-open / open / moderate / reserved / low) informed primarily by the Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index (0–9 scale: three questions on migrants living in the country, becoming neighbours, and marrying into the family; 2019 wave), cross-checked where available with the World Values Survey wave 7 / European Values Study 2017 question on whether people would not want immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours (a higher share = more hostile). Banding guide against the Gallup 0–9 score: ≥7.0 very-open, 5.5–7.0 open, 4.0–5.5 moderate, 2.5–4.0 reserved, below 2.5 low (the 2019 global average of 5.21 sits in 'moderate'). Country level only: no credible city-level survey of attitudes to foreigners exists, so on city pages the country reading is shown as country context. Gallup is a research source cited with attribution, not republished in bulk; the raw index score/year and any cross-check figure are carried inside each value. Value shape: { band, gallupMai?, gallupYear?, unwantedNeighborPct?, unwantedNeighborSource? }. Display-only: attitudinal, survey-based and ~2019 vintage, so it is shown as honest context and never folded into the composite score.

Reference data—re-verified every 1825 days

Research

Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index, first wave (2016–2017 Gallup World Poll) — full 139-country table (research, attribution)

Data as of: Aug 23, 2017
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Gallup MAI 6.49/9 (2016/2017 wave), well above the global average of 5.29 and just ahead of France (6.46) — a result that sits oddly against Italy's loud political debate on immigration, and a reminder that the index measures personal acceptance (migrants as neighbours, family) rather than support for immigration policy. Vintage 2019 or earlier: honest context, never scored.

Who lives therecountry-levelforeign residents 7.1%

ISTAT — Popolazione straniera residente al 1° gennaio 2026 per età e sesso, comune di Napoli 063049

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: 64,179 foreign residents in comune 063049 against a total resident population of 905,050, both at 1 January 2026 and both from ISTAT's own municipal files (STRASA and POSAS 2026), each summed over the single-year-of-age rows with the age code 999 total row excluded = 7.09%.
Notes: Below the Italian average of 9.1%, and less than half Florence's or Bologna's share. The same ISTAT files give Rome 12.96%, Milan 19.66% and Genoa 12.73%, so Naples is the only one of Italy's six largest cities under the national figure. The absolute numbers make the point sharper still: 64,179 foreign residents here against 59,425 in Bologna, a city with a quarter of Naples's population. The reason is economic rather than legal — the labour market that draws migrants to the north is not replicated here — and it is worth weighing against the low rents, because cheap housing in southern Italy comes with a much thinner established foreign community.

Largest communities of foreign residents5,371,251 total

Eurostat — Population on 1 January by citizenship (migr_pop1ctz), Italy

Open data

Data as of: Jan 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Counts are Eurostat's as published; shares are those counts over the 5,371,251 foreign residents. These ten citizenships account for about 63% of all foreign nationals. Romanians alone are almost a fifth — a legacy of free movement after 2007 — and the Ukrainian figure includes those under temporary protection.

01Romania19.6%1,053,042

02Albania7.7%414,622

03Morocco7.7%412,457

04China5.8%311,250

05Ukraine5.3%287,187

06Bangladesh4%213,622

07Egypt3.2%174,141

08India3.2%171,429

09Pakistan3.2%171,179

10Philippines2.9%153,455

Counts are Eurostat's as published; shares are those counts over the 5,371,251 foreign residents. These ten citizenships account for about 63% of all foreign nationals. Romanians alone are almost a fifth — a legacy of free movement after 2007 — and the Ukrainian figure includes those under temporary protection.

How you can stay

How you can legally enter and stay. These apply across Italy.

All requirements & citizenship filter

What you'd pay in taxes

The tax schemes a freelancer can choose from. Rules are national, the same in Naples as anywhere in Italy.

Full schemes & calculator

See what you would keep

Your income against Italy's real tax schemes — the same engine as the full calculator.

Annual gross incomeCurrencyper monthBusiness expenses: 0%

1 Regime forfettario — IT and other services (67% coefficient)
45,062 EURnet/year
24.9% burden
Is this a genuinely new activity in its first five years (no business or professional activity in the previous three years, and not a continuation of previous employment)?
2 Regime forfettario — professional and technical activities (78% coefficient)
42,609 EURnet/year
29.0% burden
Is this a genuinely new activity in its first five years (no business or professional activity in the previous three years, and not a continuation of previous employment)?
3 Impatriati regime — 50% income exemption for new residents
41,056 EURnet/year
31.6% burden
4 Ordinary self-employment (lavoro autonomo) — IRPEF 23/33/43% + INPS
32,520 EURnet/year
45.8% burden

Who is Naples for?

The same place reads differently depending on why you move. Each lens pulls the facts that matter most for that plan — with sources, and the trade-offs stated plainly.

Contract or freelance in tech, billing clients abroad.

Works in your favour

Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$1,093/mo

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Domestic delivery qualityGood

Poste Italiane — Rete Punto Poste (punti di ritiro e Locker)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Poste Italiane's Punto Poste network lists over 18,000 pickup points and lockers, and more than 30,000 proximity points counting post offices, alongside private networks — BRT, GLS, SDA, DHL, UPS and InPost Italia. Home delivery is nationwide with next-day options in the north and centre. Rated 'good' rather than 'excellent': locker density is far below Poland's or France's (Poste's own locker estate is in the low thousands, against ~26,000 InPost lockers in Poland), and delivery reliability is noticeably weaker in the south and on the islands.
Notes: Cash on delivery (contrassegno) is still a mainstream consumer option in Italy, unlike in France — a legacy of lower card penetration that remains useful for anyone without an Italian bank card yet.

Watch-outs

Freelancer tax burden24.9%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Agenzia delle Entrate regime forfetario; INPS circolare 8/2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Best eligible scheme at €60,000 revenue for an IT freelancer = it-forfettario-it-67. Taxable base 67% × 60,000 = 40,200 (ATECO group 9 coefficient; expenses never reduce the base). INPS Gestione Separata 26.07% = 10,480.14, deducted from the forfeitary income → 29,719.86. Imposta sostitutiva 15% = 4,457.98. Levies 14,938.12 → 24.9%. The first five years of a new activity run at 5% instead (19.9%); the ordinary IRPEF route on the same profile is near 41%.

Internet speed27 Mbps

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Italy

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for IT in 2023 (17.42M download tests; daily medians ranged 8.6–29.9 Mbps). M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API.
Notes: Low by Western European standards on this metric: Italy's copper legacy is long and FTTH rollout, while accelerating under the national broadband plan, still lags France and Spain. Fibre is available in the three modelled cities; rural and southern coverage is where the national median is lost.

English proficiencyModerate

EF EPI 2025 — Italy (score 513, rank 59/123, Moderate band)

Research

Data as of: Nov 1, 2025
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Italy score 513, global rank 59, 'Moderate' band (EF cutoffs: Moderate 500–549), down 15 points on the previous edition. Reading scores highest (534) and speaking lowest (417), which matches the lived experience: written and technical English is workable in Milan's professional world, but Italian is required for administration, healthcare and most daily life, and proficiency falls sharply from north to south.

Relocating with a partner and school-age children.

Works in your favour

Homicide rate0.57/100k

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Watch-outs

International schools6

International Schools Database — International schools in Naples (6 schools listed)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Aug 28, 2026
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: The directory's headline count and its list agree at six: TAIS Naples (American), The International School of Naples (American and Montessori), Teodoro Monticelli International School (American), International School of Lago Patria (American), Anglo-Italian School — Montessori Division, and École Française de Naples Alexandre-Dumas (French). The same directory and the same counting rule were used for Rome, Milan, Genoa, Florence and Bologna in this dataset.
Notes: Six schools, but four of the six teach an American curriculum and one is French — there is no British, IB or German option in the city, the narrowest curriculum range of the Italian cities here despite the middling count. The American concentration reflects the large United States Navy presence at Naples and nearby Lago Patria, which is also why one of the six sits 20 km outside the city. A directory count rather than an accreditor-by-accreditor tally, because the IB World School registry answers automated requests with a bot challenge that we do not bypass.

Air quality (PM2.5)15.1 µg/m³

WHO Ambient Air Quality Database 2026 (v8.0), row "Napoli Greater City/ITA" 2024 — original data European Environment Agency, Air Quality Statistics

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Row "Napoli Greater City/ITA", year 2024, pm25_concentration 15.118 µg/m³ at 94% temporal coverage, from eighteen stations — three suburban background, three urban background, four suburban industrial, one urban industrial, one suburban traffic and six urban traffic. The largest station network of the Italian cities in this dataset.
Notes: Read the boundary before the number. WHO publishes no city-proper row for Naples, only a "Greater City" one, and it aggregates a station centroid of 40.87367°N 14.31456°E over a footprint of 2,855,958 people against the comune's 905,050 — so this covers the whole metropolitan belt, including the industrial areas east of the city and around Pozzuoli, not the historic centre alone. Five of the eighteen stations are industrial, a mix no other Italian city here has. The comparison with Florence, Bologna, Rome and Genoa, whose rows are all city-proper, is therefore not like for like. On its own terms: three times the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³, inside the current EU limit of 25, above the 2030 EU limit of 10, and falling — 17.2 in 2020, 17.15 in 2022, 15.41 in 2023, 15.12 in 2024.

Private healthcare costno verified data

Ministero della Salute — Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (iscrizione e assistenza)

Official source

Data as of: Jul 28, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: No verified premium. Italian insurers do not publish individual health-policy tariffs the way French mutuelle comparators do, and the figures circulating on broker blogs (roughly €300–500 a year for a basic individual policy at 35) are not traceable to a named tariff table, so they are not recorded here. What is certain is the structure: residents — including foreigners with a residence permit — enrol in the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which covers GP care, hospital treatment and subsidised specialist care against a co-payment (ticket). Private policies in Italy are supplementary, bought mainly to skip public waiting lists, not a replacement. Non-residents on a digital-nomad or elective-residence visa must instead hold private travel/health insurance for the visa itself.

Optimising tax, banking and crypto rules.

Works in your favour

Crypto regulationLegal regulated

Agenzia delle Entrate — Quadro RT, sezioni V-A1/V-B1: imposta sostitutiva 33% sulle plusvalenze da cripto-attività realizzate dal 1° gennaio 2026

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Legal and fully regulated, but taxed harder than most of Europe from 2026: the substitute tax on crypto capital gains (art. 67(1)(c-sexies) TUIR) rose from 26% to 33% on gains realised from 1 January 2026, and the previous €2,000 annual exemption threshold was abolished from 2025 — so the first euro of gain is taxable. Euro-denominated e-money tokens stay at 26%. Service providers operate under the EU MiCA regime, supervised by CONSOB and the Bank of Italy. Note that the regime forfettario's substitute tax does not cover capital gains: crypto is declared separately in quadro RT whatever your business regime.

Financial control levelLow

Agenzia delle Entrate — Limitazione all'uso del contante e deroga per cittadini stranieri non residenti

Official source

Data as of: Jan 1, 2023
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Composite: Italy uses the euro, with EU free movement of capital and no exchange or capital controls. The binding constraints are ordinary anti-money-laundering rules — a ceiling on cash transfers between parties (art. 49 of D.Lgs. 231/2007), a reporting duty on large cash tourism sales, and the RW section of the tax return, in which residents must declare foreign accounts and assets including crypto. Non-resident banking is available with standard KYC. None of this restricts moving your own money, so the classification is 'low', the same as France and Spain.
Notes: Two official sources disagree on the general cash ceiling and we flag rather than hide it: the 2023 Budget Law (law 197/2022) raised it from €1,000 to €5,000 from 1 January 2023, and this Agenzia delle Entrate page tracks that by setting the tourism cash-sale reporting threshold at €5,000 ('previously €1,000 until 2025'), while the Treasury's own prevention-of-financial-crime FAQ still displays €1,000 as the limit in force since 2022. Either figure lands Italy in the same band. Worth knowing separately: Italy's declaration duty for foreign-held assets is broad, and penalties for undeclared foreign accounts are real.

Watch-outs

Freelancer tax burden24.9%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Agenzia delle Entrate regime forfetario; INPS circolare 8/2026)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Jan 1, 2026
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: Best eligible scheme at €60,000 revenue for an IT freelancer = it-forfettario-it-67. Taxable base 67% × 60,000 = 40,200 (ATECO group 9 coefficient; expenses never reduce the base). INPS Gestione Separata 26.07% = 10,480.14, deducted from the forfeitary income → 29,719.86. Imposta sostitutiva 15% = 4,457.98. Levies 14,938.12 → 24.9%. The first five years of a new activity run at 5% instead (19.9%); the ordinary IRPEF route on the same profile is near 41%.

Prioritising safety, air, and an easy daily life.

Works in your favour

Homicide rate0.57/100k

Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Notes: Police-recorded intentional homicide, 2024 (2023 was also 0.57). Dataset last updated by Eurostat 2026-04-29. Among the safest large countries in Europe — roughly half the French rate and a fifth of the global average — and down from 1.05 in 2008.

Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$1,093/mo

ISTAT — Spese per consumi delle famiglie, Anno 2024 (Prospetto 4, tavole allegate)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Jul 28, 2026
Method: ISTAT household budget survey 2024: average monthly household spending €2,755.09, of which imputed rent (affitti figurativi) €617.39 → monetary spending €2,137.70. Actual rentals removed using Italy's 2025 HICP weight for COICOP 04.1 (29.51 per 1,000 = 2.951%, Eurostat prc_hicp_inw) = €63.08 → €2,074.62 excluding all rent. Divided by the average household size of 2.2 (Eurostat ilc_lvph01) = €943.01 per person per month; uplifted by HICP annual averages 2024→2025 (122.3 → 124.3, ×1.0164) = €958.43; converted at 1 EUR = 1.1399 USD (ECB, 2026-07-02) → $1,093.
Notes: Per-capita basis, to match how Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. ISTAT also publishes the real single-person household basket, which is what a solo mover actually faces: €1,931.70/month total, €1,347.48 after removing imputed and actual rent — about $1,561/month on the same uplift and FX. A person living alone has no household economies of scale, so read the $1,093 as the comparable cross-country figure and the $1,561 as the realistic personal one. No extrapolation into 2026 was applied beyond the 2025 annual average.

Watch-outs

Air quality (PM2.5)15.1 µg/m³

WHO Ambient Air Quality Database 2026 (v8.0), row "Napoli Greater City/ITA" 2024 — original data European Environment Agency, Air Quality Statistics

Open data

Data as of: Dec 31, 2024
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Row "Napoli Greater City/ITA", year 2024, pm25_concentration 15.118 µg/m³ at 94% temporal coverage, from eighteen stations — three suburban background, three urban background, four suburban industrial, one urban industrial, one suburban traffic and six urban traffic. The largest station network of the Italian cities in this dataset.
Notes: Read the boundary before the number. WHO publishes no city-proper row for Naples, only a "Greater City" one, and it aggregates a station centroid of 40.87367°N 14.31456°E over a footprint of 2,855,958 people against the comune's 905,050 — so this covers the whole metropolitan belt, including the industrial areas east of the city and around Pozzuoli, not the historic centre alone. Five of the eighteen stations are industrial, a mix no other Italian city here has. The comparison with Florence, Bologna, Rome and Genoa, whose rows are all city-proper, is therefore not like for like. On its own terms: three times the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³, inside the current EU limit of 25, above the 2030 EU limit of 10, and falling — 17.2 in 2020, 17.15 in 2022, 15.41 in 2023, 15.12 in 2024.

Climate comfort6/12 mo

SettleMetric — computed from the Naples 1991–2020 normals

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of: Dec 31, 2020
Verified: Aug 28, 2026
Method: Months whose 1991–2020 normals have a mean daily maximum of 15–28°C and under 150 mm of precipitation: March, April, May, June, September, October = 6. July and August are excluded for heat (30.6 and 31.2°C), December to February for cold, and November for rain — at 18.5°C it is warm enough but its 160 mm exceeds the 150 mm threshold. June qualifies at exactly 28.0°C, the top of the band.
Notes: November is the only month in the Italian set excluded by the rain rule rather than by temperature, and it fails narrowly. Because the precipitation row is an upper-bound city series (see the climate normals notes), a drier gauge could plausibly put November inside the threshold and raise this score to 7.