JURISDICTION FILE
Italian commercial debt collection requires patience, cultural intelligence, and a decreto ingiuntivo that most foreign agencies have never heard of — let alone filed. Our Milan team has filed thousands.
Italy presents a unique collection environment. Payment culture is slower than Northern Europe — average B2B payment terms are 67 days, and actual payment often extends beyond 90. This is not always malicious; it is partly structural and partly cultural. But when a debtor crosses the line from slow payment to deliberate avoidance, Italian law provides powerful instruments. The decreto ingiuntivo (injunctive decree) is a court-issued payment order that can include a provvisoria esecuzione (provisional enforcement) clause — meaning the creditor can seize assets before the debtor’s appeal is even heard. InterStation’s Milan office deploys this instrument regularly, in Italian, through Italian tribunali.
HOW WE COLLECT HERE
Formal payment demand in Italian, citing the debtor’s obligations under the contract and Italian late payment legislation (D.Lgs. 231/2002). Professional, firm, culturally appropriate. Italian debtors respond to competence — not aggression.
Court-issued payment order via the Tribunale competente. If granted con clausola di provvisoria esecuzione, enforcement can begin immediately — even if the debtor opposes. This is one of the most powerful collection instruments in European law.
Seizure of bank accounts (pignoramento presso terzi), movable assets, or real estate. Executed through ufficiale giudiziario. Italian enforcement is thorough once the decree is obtained.
LEGAL INSTRUMENT SPOTLIGHT
Injunctive Payment Decree — Codice di procedura civile, Articles 633-656
The Italian legal system is often caricatured as slow. This is not entirely fair — and it is certainly not true for the decreto ingiuntivo, which can be obtained in as little as two weeks. The key is knowing which tribunale has jurisdiction, which judge handles commercial matters, and how to draft the ricorso (application) in proper legal Italian with the right supporting documentation. InterStation’s Milan team does this daily. They also understand something that no amount of legal research can teach: how Italian business culture handles debt. A debtor in Rome negotiates differently from a debtor in Turin. A family-owned manufacturer in Brescia operates by different rules than a Milan-based trading company. Cultural fluency is not an accessory. It is the mechanism.
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