Buy a house in Tuscany, get 30,000 euros in aid

The regional government gets serious about repopulating the small highland towns on its territory

Moving to Tuscany, buying a house, and drinking Chianti at sunset? Sounds like a cheesy movie plot, doesn’t it? Well, life sometimes gets more wonderful than fiction after the Tuscan regional government announced a call to subsidize people willing to buy a house in small local highland towns and make it their primary residence.

Here’s the kicker, the government’s financial contribution to successful applicants ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 euros! The new scheme, called ‘Residenzialità in montagna 2024’ (Residence in the mountains 2024), is the Tuscany Region’s way of attempting to stem growing rural depopulation and abandonment.

This goes much further than the usual practice of selling houses for 1-3 euros, as done by other rural localities in Italy as a way of attracting new inhabitants and investors. Whereas in those cases, the price is symbolic, and the buyers are expected and mandated by contract to invest their own funds into renovating the properties to make them livable, Tuscany actually helps potential buyers bridge the financial gap that may prevent them from realizing their dream of settling in the countryside.

These are the conditions for the subsidy

The mountainous communities in Tuscany are mainly located in the northern part of the region which forms part of the Apennines. The first condition is that potential residents must choose to buy a house in a town that has less than 5,000 inhabitants, and there are 119 such communities to choose from.

What’s more, applicants have to be Italian citizens, EU citizens, or non-EU citizens holding a residence permit lasting no less than 10 years.

Buying the house means making it your primary residence and not just using it as a holiday home or a place to rent out. That’s why the offer excludes people who are already residents of other Tuscan highland communities.

Applications can be made using the online form on the Tuscany Region website (in Italian) and must be submitted by 13:00 CET on 27 July.