Special Economic Zone

Zona Economica Speciale - ZES UNICA

As of Jan. 1, 2024, the Zona Economica Speciale per il Mezzogiorno - ZES ( in Italian) is established, which includes all municipalities in the regions of Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Apulia, Sicily and Sardinia. As of November 3, 2025 the area is expanded to include the municipalities of Marche and Umbria as well.

The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is an area in which, with regard to investments and business development activities, the conduct of economic and entrepreneurial activities may benefit from favorable financial and administrative conditions:

• the recognition of the investment tax credit to companies that carry out the acquisition of capital goods: machinery, plant and equipment or land and real estate instrumental to investment
• administrative simplification, which implies, where provided, a reduction in the investigation time and thus more speed in obtaining a "single permit" to start the activities to be carried out (art. 15 D.L. 124/2023).

The administration responsible for issuing the single permit is the ZES Mission Structure, within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which acts as the competent authority for the purpose of granting the unified authorization.

The Sportello Unico Digitale ZES - S.U.D. ZES (in Italian) is the platform for submitting applications for single permit under the special procedure dedicated to business projects related to new investments or concerning business development located in the ten regions included in the Special Economic Zone for Southern Italy.

To directly access the S.U.D ZES platform and fill out an application to obtain the single authorization, it is necessary to select the municipality of interest:

Regulatory references:

• Prime Minister's Decree (?) of XX October 2025, extension of the Single SEZ for Southern Italy to the territories of Umbria and Marche.
• Prime Minister's Decree of 29 December 2023 , Single SEZ Dedicated Unit and extension of the Extraordinary Commissioners
• Prime Minister's Decree of 20 November 2023 , Establishment of the Single SEZ Dedicated Unit
• Decree-Law no. 124 of 19 September 2023 "Urgent provisions on cohesion policies, for the relaunch of the economy in the areas of southern Italy, as well as on immigration" (23G00137), CHAPTER III "Single SEZ", converted with amendments into Law no. 162
• Decree-Law of 10 August 2023, no. 104 "Urgent provisions for the protection of users, in the field of economic and financial activities and strategic investments", coordinated with the Conversion Law of 9 October 2023, no. 136
• Decree-Law of 09 August 2022, no. 115 "Urgent measures on energy, water emergency, social and industrial policies", converted with amendments by L. 21 September 2022, no. 142
• Decree-Law of 31 May 2021, no. 77 "Governance of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and initial measures to strengthen administrative structures and accelerate and streamline procedures" converted with amendments by L. 29 July 2021, no. 108
• DPCM 25 January 2018 Regulation on the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ)
• Decree-Law No. 91 of 20 June 2017 "Urgent provisions for economic growth in the South of Italy", converted into Law No. 123 of 3 August 2017 "Conversion into law, with amendments, of the Decree-Law No. 91 of 20 June 2017, containing "Urgent provisions for economic growth in the South of Italy"
• Regulation (EU) No.1315 of 11 December 2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council "Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network"
• Legislative Decree No. 114 of 31 March 1998 "Reform of the regulations relating to the commerce sector, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 4, of Law No. 59 of 15 March 1997"
• Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990 "New rules on administrative proceedings and the right of access to administrative documents"