Debt collection in Italy has reached record levels, returning liquidity to the economic system equal to 1% of the national GDP. This is stated in the XVI Unirec report, created with Nomisma and published in May 2026. Behind this phenomenon there are millions of unpaid bills, suspended mortgage instalments, non-performing personal loans, unpaid fees and loans. But there is also a structural change: debt is no longer an extraordinary event, but an ordinary component of the economic management of families and businesses.
Debt collection, millions of cases in Italy
According to the report, in 2025, 51.8 million cases were entrusted to debt collection companies, 12% more than in 2024 and the highest figure in the last six years. The overall value of these credits reached 188 billion euros, equivalent to 8.3% of Italian GDP.
In fact, 69% of the cases entrusted to collection companies concern families, compared to 31% relating to businesses. This means that almost seven out of ten cases concern ordinary citizens struggling with daily financial difficulties.
Why Italian families get into debt
In recent years, inflation has eroded purchasing power, while the rise in interest rates decided by the European Central Bank has increased the cost of money. Translated into real life it means heavier mortgages, more expensive loans and greater difficulty in meeting deadlines.
Added to this is the high cost of energy, which has especially affected domestic users: electricity and gas have once again become one of the most problematic items in family budgets. In fact, bills are today among the credits most frequently entrusted to collection companies. Those who have taken out a variable mortgage have seen their monthly installment increase by up to hundreds of euros. An increase which, for many families, meant the transition from sustainable management to a situation of suffering. Furthermore, cars, household appliances, travel and installment purchases have supported consumption in recent years, but today many families find themselves managing a sum of micro-financing that becomes difficult to sustain.
22 billion euros recovered
While the debts grew, in 2025 the specialized companies recovered 22.3 million cases, 15% more than in 2024. The amounts collected reached 22 billion euros (about 1% of the Italian GDP), with an increase of 5%.
In the same period, each employee managed an average of 4,615 cases, 15% more than the previous year (also thanks to the use of digitalised systems). Automation, artificial intelligence, predictive tools and portfolio segmentation have made recovery faster and more efficient. Standardized activities are now managed by software, while human operators intervene in the most complex cases. This model improves results, but also opens up new challenges: the sustainability of workloads and the need for increasingly specialized figures.
The debt map, region by region
In terms of number of debt collection practices, in 2025 Campania surpassed Lombardy: 6.4 million against 6 million. However, the Lombardy region remains first in terms of economic value of entrusted credits, equal to 29.8 billion euros.
Completing the top five:
- Lazio;
- Sicily;
- Emilia-Romagna.
The majority of entrusted credits are concentrated in these five regions. However, income fragility and the high incidence of widespread small debts weigh more heavily in the South. In the North, higher economic exposures prevail, often linked to businesses, productive activities and larger mortgages.
