Money and taxes

Cost of Living in Florence (2026)

By Alessandro MichelizziFacts checked October 24, 2026

Average household spending, Tuscany (2025)

€3,108 a month; median €2,632 (ISTAT)

Average asking rent (Q3 2026)

€21.7 per m² a month, about €1,300 for 60 m² (Idealista)

Single room (summer 2026)

€627 a month on average (Immobiliare.it Insights)

Bus and tram pass

€42.20 a month, or €31 with an ISEE discount (from August 1, 2026)

TARI 2026, couple in 70 m²

€218.80 a year, before the provincial levy

Water, resident household (2026)

€55.14 a year fixed, plus €2.00 per m³ in the first band (Publiacqua)

Voluntary health service enrollment

At least €2,000 a year, where it applies

How much it costs to live in Florence

ISTAT, Italy's national statistics institute, does not publish household spending for Florence itself. Its closest figure is for Tuscany: €3,108 a month per household in 2025. The median was €2,632, so most households spent less.

That is about 12% above the national average of €2,782, and slightly above the Centro (central Italy) average of €3,052. Lazio, Rome's region, came in at €2,980.

Two things to know before you compare this with your own budget:

• It includes imputed rent. ISTAT adds an estimate of what owners would pay to rent their own home. In Tuscany that was €700 a month, 22.5% of the total. If you rent, your real rent replaces it.
• It excludes taxes. Income tax and other taxes are not counted as consumption.

Compared with the national average, Tuscan households spent more on restaurants and hotels (€210 against €164 a month) and on transport (€371 against €294). They spent slightly less on food (€539 against €552).

If you are applying for a visa, the visa sets its own minimum income, separate from living costs. See the elective residence visa guide.

Rent: the cost that decides your budget

Idealista, the property portal, put Florence's average asking rent at €21.7 per m² a month in the third quarter of 2026. That was up 1.1% on the previous quarter and second only to Milan (€22.4). Rome stood at €19.2.

At that average, a 60 m² apartment asks about €1,300 a month. La Nazione, using the same report, put a 70 m² apartment at about €1,519.

Where you live moves the figure more than anything else. In Idealista's August 2026 data, the historic center averaged €24.6 per m². The cheapest of the city's 7 macro-areas were Rifredi (€16.3) and Isolotto-Legnaia (€16.5).

If you only need a room, Immobiliare.it Insights put a single room at €627 a month on average in summer 2026.

These are asking prices on current listings. Data on signed leases is older and lower: SUNIA, a tenants' union, found open-market 4+4 leases (4 years, renewable for 4) in Florence averaged €13.34 per m² in 2024. Condominium fees and utilities come on top of the rent.

Zone-by-zone rents, deposits, agency fees and the short-term rental rules are in Apartments for Rent in Florence.

Electricity and gas

Energy prices are set nationally, so Florence follows the national picture. ARERA, Italy's energy regulator, publishes reference prices for "vulnerable" customers in its protected services:

• Electricity: 43.43 cents per kWh, taxes included, from October 1, 2026. ARERA puts a typical customer's 2026 spending at €665.38, about €55 a month, for 2,000 kWh a year.
• Gas: 162.02 cents per cubic meter for September 2026. At that price, ARERA's typical 1,100 cubic meters a year would cost about €150 a month.

Most households buy on the mercato libero (free market) instead, and the price depends on the offer. How to compare offers on the Portale Offerte, ARERA's free price-comparison site, is covered in the cost of living in Italy guide. Setting up contracts is in Setting Up Utilities in Italy.

Water: register as a resident

Publiacqua runs the water service in 46 comuni (municipalities) across the provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and Arezzo. It operates Florence's main treatment plants, at Anconella and Mantignano.

Its 2026 tariff charges households by bands of yearly use, with a lower rate for residents:

Small equalization charges of about €0.10 per m³ apply to every category. Larger households get wider bands at the same rates.

The resident tariff applies only when Publiacqua has you on file as resident. You can check your account with your codice utente (customer code) on its website. If you are not listed, send its self-certification form to commerciale@publiacqua.it or hand it in at a Publiacqua office.

TARI: Florence's waste tax in 2026

TARI (tassa sui rifiuti, waste tax) is set by each comune. Florence's city council approved its 2026 rates on July 28, 2026. When you register residence, the city's guide for migrants says you must also declare the home you occupy for TARI.

The tax has two parts: a rate per square meter and a yearly amount that depends on how many people live in the home. Sinistra Progetto Comune, an opposition group on the council, published tables on the city's website built from Annex A of the tariff proposal the council approved (DPC/2026/00047). The figures exclude the provincial levy (TEFA).

For 2026, the per-person part rose 19.2% and the per-m² part fell about 6%, as La Nazione also reported. Larger households in smaller homes therefore pay more of the increase. The total cost the tariff must cover rose from €129.6 million in 2025 to €135.8 million.

How the 2026 bill is paid matters if you arrive mid-year:

1. The first 2 installments, due April 30 and July 31, were calculated on 2025 rates.
2. The balance, due December 2, 2026, carries the whole 2026 increase.

The ISEE (Indicatore della Situazione Economica Equivalente) is Italy's income and assets indicator. La Nazione reports that the city kept a full TARI exemption for households with an ISEE under €9,000. How TARI works nationally is in TARI: Italy's Waste Tax.

Getting around: bus and tram costs

Autolinee Toscane (AT) runs Florence's buses. One urban ticket covers the buses and both tram lines. Fares in force from August 1, 2026:

• Single ticket: €2.00, valid 90 minutes in Florence
• 10 rides: €18.20
• Monthly pass: €42.20, or €31.00 with an ISEE discount
• Annual pass: €342.80, or €287.50 with an ISEE discount and €278.70 for students

Where the ticket also works on trains inside the city, and how the contactless option differs, is in Living in Florence.

Health care costs

What you pay depends on your permit. By law, some foreign residents join the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN, national health service) on the same terms as Italians. This covers people who work and holders of work or family permits.

Other legal residents must buy health insurance valid in Italy or enroll voluntarily in the SSN. The city's guide for migrants confirms that a permit issued on an elective residence visa allows voluntary enrollment.

• The minimum is €2,000 a year, about €167 a month, under article 34 of Legislative Decree 286/1998.
• The amount is based on income. The law counts the previous year's total income, in Italy and abroad.
• It covers dependent family members, according to the same article.
• In Florence, ASL Toscana Centro (the local health authority) takes voluntary enrollments by email at iscrizionivolontarie.firenze@uslcentro.toscana.it.

Details are in Voluntary SSN Enrollment.

Monthly cost components with sources

This table lists components, not a full budget. Phone, internet, condominium fees and private insurance are left out because no single source covers them.

Common problems and fixes

Asking strangers for a monthly budget. Students, researchers and people moving for work regularly ask on Florence's subreddit what a realistic month costs. Start from the rent for your zone, since it varies most, then add the components above.

A rent that hides the bills. Rents discussed on Florence's subreddit are regularly quoted "bills included", with utilities as a rough estimate, or "plus utilities" with no figure. Ask the landlord to list rent, condominium fees and utilities separately in writing, with the last 12 months of bills.

Water billed at the non-resident rate. The fixed charge and the first-band rate are both higher for non-residents. After you register residence, check your account with your customer code and send Publiacqua's self-certification form if needed.

A larger TARI bill in December. In 2026, the first 2 installments used 2025 rates and the December 2 balance carries the full increase. Set aside the difference, especially in a larger household.

Comparing Florence with a regional average. ISTAT's €3,108 covers all of Tuscany and includes imputed rent for owners. Build your own figure from Florence rents instead of scaling the regional total.

Do you need help with this?

Most people can build a Florence budget from these sources on their own. It gets harder when you are comparing Florence with other cities while also securing a lease and a visa from abroad.