Istat data tells us that the institutions we trust most are the fire brigade, the police force and the President of the Republic. Then, especially in Northern Italy, trust in local administrations prevails over regional, national and European ones. The institution we trust the least continues to be political parties.
The Istat multipurpose survey “Aspects of everyday life” allows us to evaluate how much Italians (from 14 years of age) believe that institutions act effectively in the collective interest. Trust is measured on a scale from 0 to 10, where:
- 0 indicates total distrust
- 10 indicates complete trust
This scale also allows us to observe how trust has changed over time: today, in fact, we have a historical series over ten years long (2012–2024), which allows us to identify stable trends and significant changes.
The first interesting fact that emerges is that trust in institutions changes little in the long term. The positions in the ranking have in fact remained surprisingly stable over the years. For example, since 2012 almost 90% of Italians declare that they trust the Fire Brigade (i.e. assign them a trust score of 6 or higher).
Even in 2024 (the most updated data), the Fire Brigade confirms itself as the most appreciated institution, with very high levels of trust: more than two thirds of Italians assign them a vote of confidence between 8 and 10.
In second place we find the police forces, who maintain very high levels of trust: around 40% assign a very high vote of confidence (8-10) and another 33% give sufficient votes (6-7). However, compared to 2023 there was a slight decline among the most confident, with a reduction of more than two percentage points in the highest ratings.
The Presidency of the Republic confirms itself in third place, with 45% of Italians giving it very high confidence (8–10) and a further 23% giving it a sufficient score (6–7). Even in this case, however, a slight decline is observed compared to the previous year.
In the middle of the table we find the judicial system, which is given moderate trust: in 2024, 44% of Italians gave it a score between 6 and 10. This percentage interrupts a growth that began in 2020 and culminated in the peak of 2023 (46%). Another interesting aspect concerns the territorial distribution: the judicial system is the only institution towards which the levels of trust are higher in the South than in the North.
Moving down the ranking, the Italian Parliament and the European Parliament are aligned:
- Italian Parliament: 40.8% votes ≥ 6
- European Parliament: 40.2% votes ≥ 6
This is an important change: in 2018 the gap between the two was still significant, but the progressive increase in trust towards the Italian Parliament managed to eliminate it.
Another relevant fact concerns government institutions: the closer they are geographically to citizens, the more we tend to trust them. Specifically, if we compare the percentage of Italians who assigned a vote of confidence at least equal to 6, we obtain:
- Municipal administrations: 50%
- Regional administrations: 41%
- National government: 37%
Furthermore, levels of trust in municipal administrations are higher in small municipalities: 56% of citizens gave votes between 6 and 10 in municipalities with up to 10 thousand inhabitants, compared to only 38% recorded in metropolitan municipalities. All these differences therefore suggest that territorial proximity matters a lot in the perception of institutions.
Despite having recovered consensus in recent years, political parties remain the least trusted institution throughout the country:
- just over 1 in 5 citizens expresses trust (6-10)
- over half give insufficient marks (1–5)
- more than 1 in 5 give a rating of 0
The data do not reveal significant differences between men and women, while both age and educational qualifications appear to be two relevant factors. In particular, the older you get, the more trust in institutions grows, especially towards the President of the Republic and the police forces.
Graduates, on the other hand, are more trusting of the President of the Republic and the European Parliament, while the various levels of government and political parties record relatively higher levels of trust among those with lower qualifications.
Putting all this information together, a rather clear picture emerges: Italians tend to trust more those who act concretely and visibly in the area (such as firefighters, law enforcement agencies and local administrations) and less those who operate on levels perceived as more distant or abstract. The only exception to this trend seems to be the President of the Republic: despite not being a territorially close figure, this apparent anomaly can be explained by considering his super partes role, less linked to political conflict and more to respect for constitutional rules.
