Italian tax code (codice fiscale): calculate and check

How the codice fiscale is calculated

The rules are in articles 2 to 7 of the Decree of 23 December 1976. The 16 characters are, in order:

• 3 letters for the surname: the first three consonants; if there are not enough, the vowels; then X.
• 3 letters for the first name: as for the surname, but with four or more consonants it takes the first, third and fourth.
• 2 digits for the year of birth and 1 letter for the month: A January, B February, C March, D April, E May, H June, L July, M August, P September, R October, S November, T December.
• 2 digits for the day of birth: women add 40, so the 5th becomes 45.
• 4 characters for the place of birth: the cadastral code of the municipality, or Z plus three digits for a foreign country.
• 1 check letter, calculated on the first 15 characters with two conversion tables, to catch typos.

Born in an abolished, merged or renamed municipality

The place code is the municipality's cadastral code. When municipalities merge, a new municipality with a new code is created. For example Acquarica del Capo (LE), code A042, has been part of Presicce-Acquarica, code M428, since 15 May 2019.

The tool uses the historical archive of municipalities published by the National Register (ANPR), which lists each municipality's name, province and cadastral code with start and end dates. If you enter the date of birth, the version of the municipality in force on that day comes first, with the province of the time for municipalities that moved to a new province.

If your official code has a different cadastral code, the one assigned by the Agenzia delle Entrate prevails.

Born abroad

For people born abroad the place code is a Z followed by three digits, different for each country: for example Z404 for the United States and Z112 for Germany.

The list comes from ISTAT's SITUAS portal, which also includes countries that no longer exist such as Yugoslavia (Z118), the Soviet Union (Z135) and Czechoslovakia (Z105), plus the codes of the ANPR foreign countries table. If you were born in a country that later split, you will find both the historical country and today's ones: choose the one on your documents. The code assigned to you prevails.

Omocodia: when the code has letters instead of digits

Two people with the same surname, name, date and place of birth would get the same code. In that case the Agenzia delle Entrate assigns a different code: as article 6 of the decree provides, it replaces one or more digits, starting from the right, with a letter (0=L, 1=M, 2=N, 3=P, 4=Q, 5=R, 6=S, 7=T, 8=U, 9=V), and the last character is calculated on the changed code.

No calculator can know whether your code was changed this way. The check, on the other hand, recognises letters in place of digits and still reads the date and place of birth.

Calculated code and official code

The official code is the one assigned by the Agenzia delle Entrate and printed on the health insurance card (tessera sanitaria) or on the assignment certificate. For newborns, the municipality assigns it when registering them, through ANPR.

To find out whether a code really exists and matches certain personal data, use the free check service of the Agenzia delle Entrate.

Official sources

• Decree of 23 December 1976 on the coding of taxpayers in the tax register (Department of Finance, in Italian)
• Agenzia delle Entrate: frequently asked questions on the codice fiscale (in Italian)
• Agenzia delle Entrate: codice fiscale check service (in Italian)
• National Register (ANPR): historical archive of municipalities (in Italian)
• National Register (ANPR): decoding tables, Table 2 foreign countries (in Italian)
• ISTAT: codes of foreign territorial units (in Italian)

Rules checked on 11 October 2026.

Information guide: it does not replace the instructions of the Agenzia delle Entrate. LiftyUP is not affiliated with the Agenzia delle Entrate or the Ministry of the Interior.