Opening an online store in Italy: the mandatory notifications before your first sale

Anyone searching for «opening an online store: mandatory notifications» has usually already answered the question that comes before it, whether a VAT number is needed at all (I wrote about that in selling online without a VAT number: when you can and when you can't), and wants to know what stands between deciding to sell and actually being allowed to. The honest answer is that there are two notifications to file before the first sale, resting on different laws and answering different questions. Anyone selling goods at retail online must file a SCIA with the SUAP of their municipality; anyone running the activity as a business must also register with the Business Register, which produces the REA number. These are two distinct obligations, not the same filing under two names.

The SCIA to the SUAP for selling goods online

Retail sales by mail order or other remote-communication systems, the category Italian law uses for e-commerce, is governed by article 18 of legislative decree 114/1998. Until 2010 the rule required a prior notice to the municipality and a mandatory 30-day wait before selling could start. Article 68 of legislative decree 59/2010, which implemented the EU services directive, repealed that part of the rule: today the notice is filed with the one-stop shop for productive activities (SUAP) of the municipality where the seller has residence, if an individual, or the registered office, if a company, and the activity can start immediately, with administrative checks carried out afterwards. This mechanism, still called a "declaration of business start" in the 2010 text, took the name SCIA (certified notice of business start) with the corrective decree 147/2012, in line with the broader reform of this procedure. Legislative decree 222/2016, which reorganised the administrative regimes of hundreds of activities, confirms this one as subject to SCIA (sources consulted on 20 October 2026).

The notice must declare, as paragraph 3 of the same article 18 still requires, possession of the moral and professional requirements of article 5 of decree 114/1998 and the merchandise sector involved. This is not an isolated formality: for particularly serious or repeated violations, article 22 of the same decree lets the mayor order the suspension of sales activity for up to twenty days.

Separately, registration with the Business Register

Having a VAT number is not the same as being registered with the Business Register, and it's a misconception just as common as the one about a revenue threshold for selling online. Anyone running a commercial activity, and selling online on a habitual basis counts as one, falls under the intermediary trade of goods referred to in article 2195 of the civil code, which requires registration with the Business Register held by the Chamber of Commerce. Article 2196 of the same code sets the deadline: within 30 days of the business's actual start. The whole register rests on article 8 of law 580/1993, with the implementing regulation of presidential decree 581/1995, which also governs the REA, the directory that produces the number later shown on the site alongside the VAT number.

In practice, anyone opening a sole proprietorship files the SCIA with the SUAP and the Business Register registration in the same electronic submission, through the ComUnica platform, together with notices to the Revenue Agency, INPS and INAIL. They remain, however, two obligations resting on different laws: one concerns the authorisation to sell that kind of goods in that form, the other the legal publicity of the business with the Chamber of Commerce.

Selling only digital services follows a different path

Not everyone selling online needs the SCIA described above. Article 4 of legislative decree 114/1998 defines retail trade as the activity of someone who professionally buys goods and resells them to the final consumer: a definition built on the buying and selling of goods, not on providing a service. A circular from the Ministry of Industry from 2000, never contradicted on this point by later interpretations, says so explicitly: the obligation concerns only those who buy products to resell them, not those who provide a service. A consultant selling blocks of hours, an agency selling ad campaigns, a software house selling a managed subscription all fall outside this specific SCIA's scope, because they don't buy and resell goods.

This doesn't mean no obligation applies to them at all: a VAT number is still required under the general rules, and if the activity has a business form, Business Register registration described above still applies. It only concerns this specific notification tied to selling goods. One case remains a genuine grey area, and should be stated as such: a digital product sold as a downloadable file, an e-book or licensed software, has no certain administrative answer on which side of the line it falls. In that case, rather than ruling out the obligation by analogy, it's worth checking directly with your SUAP or accountant: it's the kind of detail where erring on the side of caution beats convenience.

Where to start

If you're about to open an online store selling goods, the practical order is this: first check whether your activity requires a VAT number, then file the SCIA with the SUAP and the Business Register registration together, ideally in the same ComUnica submission. Once operating, one last check remains, about the site itself rather than the municipality: which data, among VAT number, registered office and REA number, you must show online and where, which I wrote about in VAT number, registered office, REA: the mandatory data on your company's website. If you want to take stock of your activity's digital setup before starting, we can talk about it in the digital check-up; otherwise write to me, a couple of lines are enough to figure out where to start.