Tax Code for Newborns: Complete Guide 2025

When does a newborn need a tax code?

A tax code for newborns is one of the very first things Italian bureaucracy hands your child, often before you've even left the maternity ward. The codice fiscale (the Italian tax code) is the baby's identity inside every public system, and you'll be asked for it sooner than you'd expect.

Here's where it shows up almost straight away:

• 🏥 Registration with the SSN — the National Health Service
• 👨‍⚕️ Choosing a pediatrician for your child
• 📋 Civil registration at your municipality
• 💰 Birth bonuses and benefits (the birth allowance, the single universal allowance)
• 📝 Parents' tax returns, where the baby counts as a dependent
• 💳 Opening a bank account or a savings passbook in the child's name
• ✈️ Travel documents — passport, ID card, the lot

The automatic procedure at birth

Hospitals, town halls and the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate)are wired together. Because of that link, the code is generated for you in most cases, and nobody hands you a form to fill in.

How does it actually flow, step by step? Like this.

The legal backbone for all of this is old but solid — the tax code was introduced by Presidential Decree (DPR) 605/1973, which you can still read on Normattiva. Same rule, newborn or not: every person in Italy gets one unique code.

Documents you might still need

Most of the time the automatic flow does the work. But sometimes it stalls — a data mismatch, a birth outside a hospital, a manual request — and then you'll want the paperwork ready.

For the birth declaration

• ✅ Birth attestation issued by the hospital
• ✅ ID documents for both parents
• ✅ The parents' tax codes
• ✅ Marriage certificate if you're married, or formal recognition if you're not

For a separate tax code request, if it comes to that

• ✅ The child's birth certificate
• ✅ Form AA4/8, filled in (you can pick it up at the Italian Revenue Agency)
• ✅ An ID document for the parent making the request

A small tip from experience: bring photocopies as well as originals. Counter staff almost always keep one.

Where to apply for a tax code for newborns

1. Directly at the hospital (the easy route)

Most Italian hospitals run an internal registry desk that handles the whole thing — birth declaration and the automatic tax code request together. If your maternity ward offers it, take it.

2. The municipal registry office

Prefer to do it yourself, or had a home birth? You can go to the registry office (anagrafe) at your municipality of residence within 10 days of the birth and file there.

3. The Italian Revenue Agency

And if the code somehow wasn't assigned automatically, any office of the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate)will issue it on the spot. Curious what the result should look like before the card arrives? You can generate the tax code from the baby's details and keep it handy.

The newborn's health card

Once the code exists, the health card (tessera sanitaria) follows on its own, posted to your home address. No separate request. Here's what that card actually does:

• Arrives by post, usually within 15–20 days of the tax code being assigned
• Carries the tax code as a barcode on the front
• Doubles as the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) on the back
• Stays valid for six years for a child

Waiting on the plastic? A provisional certificate showing just the tax code is enough for those first pediatric visits, so the baby's care never has to wait on the post.

For everything the card covers across the EU, our health card guide goes deeper than we can here.

The full timeline at a glance

Roughly, here's how the first few weeks line up.

If the code is taking suspiciously long, you can check that a tax code is formally valid the moment someone reads it out to you over the phone.

Choosing a pediatrician

With the tax code in hand you can register the baby with the SSN and pick a family pediatrician (pediatra di libera scelta). The process is refreshingly quick:

1. Go to your local ASL (the territorial health authority)
2. Show the child's tax code and your own ID
3. Pick a pediatrician from the list available in your area
4. Registration is done on the spot

The family pediatrician costs you nothing — it's covered by the public system — and follows the child from birth up to age 14, sometimes 16. One choice, years of continuity.

Special cases worth knowing

Unmarried parents

When parents aren't married, both should be present for the birth declaration. If only one can attend, the other needs to provide written authorization.

Foreign parents

A baby born in Italy to foreign parents still receives an Italian tax code. The place-of-birth element in the code reflects the Italian municipality where the birth happened — not the parents' home country. If you're untangling a parent's own code, our guide on the tax code for foreign residents pairs well with this one.

Home birth

For births outside a healthcare facility, you'll need a birth assistance certificatefrom the midwife or doctor who was present. Without it, the registry can't proceed.

Adoption

With adoption, the tax code is assigned — or amended — when the adoption decree is recorded in the civil status registers. The timing follows the legal transcription, not the birth itself.

Mistakes parents make (and how to dodge them)

None of these are catastrophic. They're just the snags that turn a five-minute errand into a return trip.

• Filing late. Respect the 3-day or 10-day deadline depending on where you declare.
• Letting the name be misspelled. Check every letter — accents and double consonants included — because the code is built from it.
• Showing up with half the documents.
• Skipping SSN registration. Do it early; the pediatrician depends on it.
• Treating the health card casually. Losing it means a replacement run, so tuck it somewhere safe and remember where.

And if a digit looks off on any document, don't shrug it away. You can decode a tax code back into its data to confirm the name and birth details line up.

Frequently asked questions