The cost of living in Italy experiences constant growth and families consequently have less and less margin of choice on how to spend their money.
In 2025 the obliged expenses reached 42.2% of the total expenditure, equal to over 9,300 euros per capita on an average total expenditure of 22,114 euros. These are those expenses related to goods and services that it is impossible to do without: home, bills, health, transport and insurance.
Home and bills the heaviest voices
Summing up, every 10 euros spent by the Italians over 4 euros concern the obliged expenses.
This is what emerges from an analysis of the Confcommercio Study Office which, considering the period 1995-2025, highlights a dynamic that is now structural and growing 5.2 percentage points in thirty years. The upward tendency of the obliged expenses Herod The purchasing power of the Italians reduces the freedom of consumption and brakes the economic growth of the entire country.
In detail, the house continues to be the main obligatory expenditure item, with 5,171 euros per year (+109 euros compared to 2024). Follow insurance and fuel (2,151 euros) and energy (1,651 euros).
From 1995 to today, the price index of obliged expenses has grown by 132%, more than double compared to that of marketable goods (+55%). To weigh more was the cost of energy, rising of 178% in thirty years, despite a slight slowdown in the last year.
Free increasingly compressed consumption
So we read in the report:
If I have to spend more to buy the same amount of goods and services necessary, I will reduce the share intended for other consumption in the event that the available income does not grow in the same measure.
The result is greater prudence in discretionary consumption, a lower risk propensity and slower economic growth, with repercussions also on well -being and personal satisfaction.
Services in recovery, traditional assets down
On the side of the marketable assets, the study detects a partial recovery for services related to leisure (134 euros more per capita), such as catering and tourism, but a further flexion for traditional assets (less 57 euros), food included. The trend is due not only to fixed costs, but also to the demographic drop and the change in consumer habits.
For the president of Confcommercio, Carlo Sangalli, the phenomenon represents a structural obstacle to the resumption of consumption:
For Italian families, the constant increase in obliged expenses is a strong obstacle to the resumption of consumption. It is necessary to act on rates and taxation to strengthen the purchasing power and relaunch the economic growth of our country.
The risk is therefore that of a serious chronic stagnation of internal demand, with negative effects not only on GDP, but also on the quality of life of citizens.
The weight of inflation on purchasing power
As regards food, the framework is completed by the National Consumer Union, which highlights how an inflation equal to 1.7% means, for a couple with two children, it translates into a total rise in the cost of living equal to 608 euros on an annual basis, and of these 375 are go to food products and soft drinks.
