EU approves EUR 5.4 billion Italian State aid scheme for the International Register maritime-transport regime

Mechanism

Italy's "Registro Internazionale" (International Register) is a long-running tonnage-tax-adjacent regime (legal basis: Decree-Law 457/1997, as amended) that trades reduced corporate tax, withholding-tax credits and seafarer social-security exemptions for EU/EEA-flag registration. The scheme lapsed and required fresh EU State aid clearance to continue; the Commission's 7 May 2025 decision (Case SA.111368) reauthorises it for a full ten-year term retroactive to 1 January 2024, through 31 December 2033. The EUR 5.4bn figure is the total budget appropriation reported across that ten-year window, not an annual figure — averaging roughly EUR 540m/year.

Severity rationale

Severity is set at 3 (national-scale industrial subsidy, no direct inbound/outbound trade restriction) anchored on the disclosed EUR 5.4 billion / 10-year budget envelope (~EUR 540m/year), comparable in order of magnitude to other EU member-state sectoral subsidy schemes rated 3 in this register (e.g. the EUR 3.1bn Spanish cogeneration CHP scheme). It is not rated higher because the measure is a domestic tax/social-contribution relief regime with no export control, tariff, or market-access restriction component — it does not directly constrain third-country trade.

Downstream implications

• Reinforces the EU-flag-registration incentive architecture already seen

in other member states' tonnage-tax regimes, keeping Italian shipping capital (and associated shipyard/maintenance demand) inside the EU/EEA flag pool rather than flagging out to open registries.

• Applies to cruise-line shipboard concessionaires as well as cargo/tanker

operators, broadening the subsidy's reach across Italy's maritime services sector.

Open questions

• No public breakdown yet of the EUR 5.4bn split between corporate-tax

relief, withholding-tax credits, and social-security exemptions.

• Unclear whether take-up data (number of vessels re-flagged into the

International Register) has been published since the 2025 reauthorisation.