Art. 1, paragraph 910 of Law No. 205/2017 (the so-called Budget Law 2018) established that, effective from July 1, 2018, employers and private clients must pay to employees their remuneration, as well as any advance, through a bank or post office using one of the following methods of payment: a) wire transfer on the current account identified through the IBAN code specified by the employee; b) electronic payment methods; c) cash payment through the bank or post office where the employer has opened a cash account with payment order; d) check handed out directly to the employee or, in the case of a proven impediment, to a proxy. On this matter, the National Labour Inspectorate (Inl), with memorandum No. 6201 dated 16 July 2018, specified that the aforementioned payment methods concern exclusively the remuneration. Thus, also in the opinion of Inl, their use is not mandatory for money paid for other reasons, such as cash advances for expenses that the employee must bear for the company and in the provision of services (e.g. lodging, meal and travel expense reimbursement).

The Budget Law 2018 was published in the Official Gazette No. 302 dated 29 December 2017, which was approved by the Senate last 23 December and on which the Government placed its trust. The main news in the field of employment and social security include: (i) a 50% social security contribution allowance for a maximum period of 36 months and up to an annual maximum limit of Euro 3,000 in the event of hiring, starting from 01 January 2018, with increasing protections on an open-ended contract for young people under 35 years old (under 30 years effective from 2019).   The social security contribution allowance may also reach 100% if the hiring concerns a young person who has already completed an apprenticeship or carried out work-school activity at the company; (ii) the exemption from social security contributions for 18 or 12 months in the event of hiring, respectively with an open-ended or fixed-term agreement of workers who previously received relocation allowance; (iii) the increase in the dismissal contribution paid as part of a collective procedure rising from 41% (equal to Euro 1,740) to 82% (equal to Euro 2,940) of the ceiling required by NASPI for each worker. Collective dismissals are exceptions when resulting from procedures initiated no later than October 2017; (iv) the extension, for the years 2018 and 2019, of the period of Extraordinary Wages Guarantee Fund, up to the maximum limit of 12 months, for companies with more than 100 employees and of strategic economic importance also at the regional level having major occupational issues with significant excess in personnel within the territory and (v) the expansion of workers’ pool who may access the social APE and voluntary APE (Italian early retirement pension).

Read here the full text of the law.