Superbonus, mandatory postponement for 18 billion in compensation

On building bonus compensation, the Government still aims to narrow the scope of the game. The 2027 budget bill returns to the Superbonus, on which the majority and the Executive have always highlighted the heavy legacy in terms of burden on public finances which has reduced the margins for movement in the last four years. The maneuver now intervenes with a rule (article 37), which risks producing negative cash flow effects for banks and businesses: the 20.5 billion installment of payments linked to the Superbonus, scheduled for next year, will be spread over ten years, replicating similar measures already adopted in the past. The final effect, visible from the tables in the technical report, is that approximately 2 billion will be compensated next year; the remaining 18.5 are postponed to subsequent years. Added to this is the further restriction - in this case generalized and not only for the Superbonus - which from 2027 will see the blocking of compensations triggered in the presence of 30 thousand euros (the current threshold is 50 thousand, which had been reduced by the 2026 maneuver) of files with unpaid debts registered.

Returning to the specifics of construction bonuses, the novelty acts on invoice discounts or credit transfers. Once the super bonus work had been carried out - it should be remembered - the holders of the deductions could transform them into tax credits, to be transferred above all to banks or businesses. This mechanism has produced a gigantic mass of credits which, every year, are recovered through the F24. A few numbers give an idea: in 2024, 42 billion credits linked to construction bonuses were offset, in 2025 the offset credits amounted to 44.1 billion, an increase compared to the previous year. And there are still many credits to be compensated: in total almost 230 billion were produced, at the end of 2025 there were around 115 billion left to be used.

The general rule is that the compensations follow the annual distribution of the deductions: therefore, in the case of the superbonus works carried out until 2023, the annual installments would be four. The maneuver, however, involves a change of office. And it establishes that the annual quotas of tax credits, deriving from communications of transfer or discount relating to expenses incurred in 2023 for superbonus interventions, which can be used as compensation in 2027, will be "in turn divided into ten annual installments of the same amount". An exception is made only for credits for which, in the past, taxpayers have already availed themselves of the possibility of spreading the credit over ten years.

The effect of this innovation is clearly visible in the technical report. The compensations that can be used in 2027 for the 2023 super bonus tax credits, net of the portion for which the spreading option was exercised, are estimated at 20.5 billion euros. With the new squeeze, around 2 billion euros will be paid next year; the remaining 18.5 will be offsettable between 2028 and 2036. The measure - it must be underlined - has no effects on the state's indebtedness, because these works were already recorded in the year 2023, "corresponding to the expenditure incurred", explains the report. The effect, however, is a cash one, both for the State, which dilutes the payment of one of the last (and heaviest) installments of the superbonus, and for companies and banks that should have used these sums.

An example can make it easier to understand what will happen. A construction company that carried out work linked to the superbonus, accruing tax credits for two million euros, with a discount on the invoice, in 2023, found itself with four installments of 500 thousand euros of compensation to be recovered in the following years. The last one is scheduled for 2027. The sums that can be compensated next year, as a result of the maneuver, will not be more than 500 thousand euros but 50 thousand euros; the remaining 450 thousand will be recoverable in nine other installments, between 2028 and 2036. Without considering the loss of value produced by inflation.