Domicilio, residenza and the vocabulary of personal status

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Swiss and Italian law also define the place where a person lives in different ways. Under Art. 23(1) CC "il domicilio di una persona è nel luogo dove essa dimora con l'intenzione di stabilirvisi durevolmente" (the domicile of a person is the place where he or she resides with the intention of settling there permanently).¹ Italian law distinguishes two concepts in Art. 43 c.c.: the domicilio is the place where a person has established the principal seat of his business and interests, and the residenza is the place of habitual abode.² The Swiss domicilio is therefore closer to the Italian residenza than to the Italian domicilio. The difference has tax consequences, because Italian tax residence has traditionally been linked to registration in the population registers, to the domicilio and to the residenza in the civil law sense, and since 2024 to a revised definition of domicilio as the place where a person's personal and family relations mainly develop. Chapter H.II describes that reform. A Swiss document that certifies an Italian client's "domicilio" in Lugano proves something different from an Italian document that records his "residenza".

Fiduciario, dispendio and patriziato

Three further terms illustrate how Swiss Italian vocabulary reflects Swiss institutions. The Ticinese fiduciario is a licensed professional. Under the cantonal law of 1 December 2009, in force since 1 July 2012, the activity of the fiduciario commercialista (accountant and corporate service provider) and of the fiduciario immobiliare (real estate agent and manager) requires an authorization, which is granted to natural persons and has a personal character. A limited authorization exists for currency exchange.³ In Italy the società fiduciaria is a company that holds assets in its own name on behalf of clients under a mandate, regulated since 1939 and, for the larger ones, supervised by the Bank of Italy. The Italian client who hears fiduciario thinks of a nominee holder of shares, while the Ticinese fiduciary is often an accountant and corporate service provider. Chapter E.III treats both professions.

The imposizione secondo il dispendio is the Swiss lump-sum taxation. Article 14(1) of the Federal Direct Tax Act allows natural persons who do not have Swiss citizenship, become subject to unlimited tax liability in Switzerland for the first time or after an absence of at least ten years and do not carry on gainful activity in Switzerland to pay, instead of income tax, "un'imposta calcolata sul dispendio" (a tax calculated on expenditure).⁴ The Italian counterpart for new residents, the imposta sostitutiva on foreign income under Art. 24-bis TUIR, is a fixed annual amount and has a different structure. Italians often call both regimes "flat tax", a term that hides their differences. The patriziato, finally, is a public-law corporation of the members of old local families that administers collective property such as forests, pastures and alpine meadows. The Dizionario storico della Svizzera describes it as the legal successor of the medieval vicinanza in Ticino. Ticino counts some 200 patriziati in 111 municipalities, governed by the Legge organica patriziale of 28 April 1992.⁵ Italian law knows comparable collective rights under the name of usi civici and proprietà collettive, but no corporation of this kind. An Italian client who acquires land in a Ticinese valley may be surprised to find a patriziato as neighbour or as owner of the access road.

Notes

1. CC, Art. 23(1), Italian text (Codice civile svizzero), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/filestore/fedlex.data.admin.ch/eli/cc/24/233_245_233/20240101/it/ html/fedlex-data-admin-ch-eli-cc-24-233_245_233-20240101-it-html-5.html. ↩
2. Brocardi.it, "Art. 43 Codice civile – Domicilio e residenza", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-primo/titolo-iii/art43.html. ↩
3. Canton of Ticino, Divisione della giustizia, "Fiduciari", https://www4.ti.ch/di/dg/fiduciari. On Italian società fiduciarie see Law No. 1966 of 23 November 1939 and Art. 106 of the Consolidated Banking Act (TUB) for those entered in the separate section of the register. ↩
4. Federal Act of 14 December 1990 on Direct Federal Taxation (DFTA), SR 642.11, Art. 14(1), Italian text (Legge federale sull'imposta federale diretta, LIFD), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/filestore/fedlex.data.admin.ch/eli/cc/1991/1184_1184_1184/20250101/ it/html/fedlex-data-admin-ch-eli-cc-1991-1184_1184_1184-20250101-it-html-3.html. ↩
5. Basil Sieber, "Comune patriziale", Dizionario storico della Svizzera (DSS), version of 16 February 2005, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/026443/; Wikipedia (Italian), "Patriziato (Svizzera)", https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriziato_(Svizzera), consulted as a last resort for the figures (200 patriziati in 111 municipalities) and for the Legge organica patriziale of 28 April 1992. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.