SPID with Poste Italiane becomes paid: how much it costs and when it will be paid

The SPID with Poste Italiane officially becomes paid: this is what the company announced to its users with an email, which confirms what had already been hypothesized last October. The annual fee will be 6 euros, which must be paid within 30 days of the deadline under penalty of suspension of the digital identity.

Poste Italiane, however, is not the first provider to become paid: the most recent example is InfoCert, which in July 2025 introduced a fee of 5.98 euros per year. This change, however, will involve many more Italians, given that 72% of SPID identities are managed by PosteID, i.e. approximately 28.7 million users.

Alternatively, new users will be able to decide to opt for one of the 7 providers that remain free or definitively switch to the CIE (Electronic Identity Card), which the government aims to transform into the central pillar of the Italian digital identity, together with IT-Wallet.

SPID with paid PosteID: what changes now

The new measure came into force on January 1, 2026, although payment does not have to be immediate. In the case of new users, the first year of use will be free: all others will have to pay a fee of €6 per year, but only when their identity expires, which varies from user to user based on the date on which the SPID was created: 30 days before this expiry, users will receive an email with instructions.

In case of non-payment, however, the digital identity will be suspended, and will then be permanently deleted after 24 months. The expiry date can be consulted directly in the PosteID app, in the “Manage Account” section.

As anticipated, this is an important change, especially for Poste Italiane’s coffers: the company, in fact, manages 72% of the digital identity market, equal to 28.7 million total users. Considering the annual fee of €6, this is a revenue of 172.2 million euros.

PosteID, however, has recognized categories exempt from paying the fee, namely:

• minors;
• users at least 75 years of age;
• residing abroad;
• owners of the professional use of the Digital Identity.

The news was not communicated to users in advance, but it appeared yesterday, 1 January 2026, on the dedicated Poste Italiane page, as visible in the image below.

How much does SPID cost now: the table with provider prices

But how much does it cost to do the SPID now? In the table below we have made a summary of all the providers: the reference is only to the annual fee possibly foreseen by the certification bodies and not to the costs to be incurred for the different registration and authentication methods. Furthermore, we only compared the services aimed at private citizens and not those designed for professionals and companies.