Outdated fiscal printers, new legislations: Italy's future is cloud fiscalization

The regulatory push: what's changing in transaction data management

In recent years, transaction data management in Italy has entered a phase of deep transformation, driven by regulatory evolution that is progressively reshaping the relationship between payments and fiscalization. Recent measures, such as the mandatory logical link between payments and fiscalization, mark a key step toward greater data integration, allowing the separation between payment collection and fiscal certification to be overcome and unlocking new levels of automation.

From digital payments to cloud fiscalization: what's changing for merchants

The progressive phase-out of the paper receipt, at the center of public debate and the most recent policy directions, is the most visible manifestation of a change that has already happened. Transaction data has been digital since 2019, and the receipt has progressively lost its fiscal value, increasingly turning into a tool for the consumer. In this context, printing becomes optional rather than mandatory, while the spread of software solutions makes it possible to manage proof of purchase digitally, simplifying and integrating the process.

The change, however, is not only about tools but about the very role of fiscalization in operational processes: from a separate, hardware-dependent system to an integrated component of digital flows, increasingly flexible, updatable, and cloud-oriented. This is especially true in a context where payment behaviors are also evolving rapidly. Cashless is now part of daily life: TEHA's 2026 Cashless Community Report shows that 64.2% of Italians use digital payments daily or several times a week. In parallel, merchant acceptance of cashless methods has reached near-total levels (98%), and for a growing share of businesses cashless already represents over 50% of revenue.

These dynamics converge on a single point: the need to integrate payments and fiscalization within a single, more efficient, scalable digital infrastructure. In this sense, regulatory developments accompany a structural transformation in which transaction data management is increasingly becoming a native function of digital systems, built on data, automation, and software.

From hardware to cloud: businesses are digitalizing fiscalization

A key turning point is the regulatory opening to cloud solutions for transaction data management. With Legislative Decree 1/2024, art. 24, the Italian Revenue Agency for the first time recognizes the possibility of using cloud solutions to generate and transmit fiscal data, marking a break from the traditional hardware-based model.

This is a significant shift, allowing businesses to overcome some of the main limitations of fiscal printers: from maintenance management to technical updates, all the way to the constraints tied to physical infrastructure. Cloud solutions make it possible to integrate fiscalization directly into POS and payment systems, simplifying operations, reducing costs, and making the entire chain more efficient.

The advantages of the cloud over telematic cash registers

The market is in a transition phase. Even as some uncertainty remains around the clarity of the regulatory framework and the need to support businesses through this change, interest in more flexible, scalable models is growing. Companies increasingly recognize the benefits of cloud fiscalization: 59.4% point to speed and automation, while more than 60% value system integration and improved operational efficiency. To these advantages, a significant economic impact is added: cloud solutions remove the dependency on fiscal printers and reduce the costs of purchase, certification, and maintenance. As a result, the move to the cloud can generate savings of up to 50% compared with traditional telematic cash registers.

The companies most informed about Legislative Decree 2024

According to fiskaly's 2025 research, which surveyed merchants on their perception of the cloud for managing fiscal data (corrispettivi telematici), awareness of the new possibilities introduced by the 2024 Decree, which opens the door to cloud solutions for transmitting fiscal data is widespread but not yet uniform. Overall, around 76.4% of merchants say they have at least heard of it. Larger businesses, with more than 49 employees, stand out as most aware: in this segment, 25.4% report being "very informed" and 19.3% "fairly informed."

Looking at industry sectors, infographic 1 shows that the highest levels of awareness are among businesses in tourism and HoReCa: 84.7% of those operating in this sector say they are informed about the legislative decree. Retail merchants follow closely (84%), then automotive body shops (81.3%) and apparel (81%). Within retail, certain verticals stand out: 64.6% of merchants in personal services and 51.8% of those in consumer electronics report greater familiarity with software solutions.

Which businesses are adopting the cloud for fiscal data

According to data from the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate), 95% of businesses still rely on a fiscal printer today. However, interest in migrating to more advanced and scalable technologies is high: based on the fiskaly survey, nearly one in two businesses plans to adopt a cloud-based solution for managing fiscal receipts in the coming months.

That said, significant differences persist depending on company size. The businesses least likely to consider transitioning from traditional fiscal printers to cloud-based solutions are the smallest ones: 31.5% of companies with fewer than 9 employees state they have no intention of adopting these tools. For micro-enterprises, the move to the cloud requires not only technological readiness but also guidance and clarity on the operational and regulatory side.

Infographic 2 shows that adoption of cloud tools is uneven among merchants as well. When asked by fiskaly about their willingness to consider transitioning to the cloud, 90.9% of apparel businesses said they plan to do so. Adoption is also strong in automotive body shops (89%) and tourism/HoReCa (84.7%). Personal services, consumer electronics, and retail report cloud usage rates of 69.6%, 68.9%, and 53.3% respectively.

Business investments in cloud solutions for fiscal compliance

While cloud adoption is still consolidating, the investment side reveals an even more interesting dynamic: fiskaly's data shows that most businesses have a positive outlook for the future. Nearly 70% have already made or planned structured investments in this direction, or intend to do so in the future.

Infographic 3, focused on sectors, shows significant differences that reflect varying levels of digital maturity and operational complexity. Tourism and HoReCa (78.1%), consumer electronics (76.2%), and automotive body shops (75.9%) lead the transition to cloud solutions. Apparel follows (71.9%), at an advanced stage of the adoption journey, driven by increasingly digital business models. Smaller, but still meaningful, is the share of businesses investing in personal services (61.6%) and retail (60.6%).

Where Italian businesses are betting on the cloud

From a geographic perspective, cloud adoption for sending fiscal data to the Revenue Agency follows distinct dynamics, clearly visible in infographic 4 across awareness of the 2024 Decree, willingness to use the technology, and investment in the sector. fiskaly's 2025 Cloud and Corrispettivi Observatory paints a picture of multiple speeds.

When it comes to awareness of Legislative Decree 2024, the most informed businesses are concentrated in central Italy and in the south and islands: 81.2% and 79.4% respectively report being aware of the regulation, while 31.1% of companies in the northwest and 36.6% in the center describe themselves as "very or fairly informed." Lower figures are found in the northeast (27.6%) and the south and islands (26.8%).

In terms of willingness to use the cloud, differences are more nuanced. The share of businesses that say they use, or intend to adopt, these technologies reaches 71.1% in the northeast, 69.9% in the south and islands, 69.1% in the center, and 68.4% in the northwest. The south, however, has the highest share of businesses already using the cloud or planning to implement it by 2026: 25.5%.

Finally, on investment, the northwest stands out for its higher share of businesses planning to allocate capital to this technology, even if not yet formalized (74.1%), followed by the center (73.8%), the south and islands (66.4%), and the northeast (64.9%).

Toward cloud fiscalization: the role of SIGN IT and the fiskaly ecosystem

The data from the Cloud Fiscalization Observatory points to a clear direction: the transition to cloud-based fiscalization solutions is no longer a possibility but a structural shift already underway. In this scenario, solutions like fiskaly SIGN IT are emerging as technology enablers that meet the new market demands for integration, automation, and compliance. Specifically, SIGN IT lets you generate, sign, and transmit transaction data without dedicated hardware, connecting POS systems, payment platforms, and ERP software directly to the Italian Revenue Agency. The result: real-time, compliant fiscalization, integrated into operational flows, that reduces technical complexity, accelerates development time, and adapts more quickly to regulatory change. For retailers and chains, this approach means centralizing transaction data management, improving data control, and standardizing processes across multiple locations. Removing hardware constraints also helps cut maintenance costs and simplify daily operations, making management more efficient, scalable, and consistent with the digital models already adopted in payments and business management.

fiskaly SIGN IT supports the business of different types of merchants:

• fintechs and payment solution providers can embed fiscalization within their platforms, leveraging a solution that combines payment collection and fiscal compliance in a single digital flow;
• POS vendors benefit from an API-first solution, integrable in days and scalable across distributed architectures, that removes hardware complexity and reduces development time and cost;
• retailers and chains can standardize fiscal management across all stores, improve reporting, and reduce errors through greater centralization of fiscal functions.

It is also a tool suited both to small businesses with a single checkout and a limited number of daily transactions (shops, bars, artisans) and to more structured operations with multiple locations, high transaction volumes, and distributed cloud architectures.

A digital infrastructure from fiskaly for every need

SIGN IT is part of a broader ecosystem of fiskaly solutions, designed to cover every digital fiscalization need:

• fiskaly SUBMIT IT pairs payment terminals and cash registers, removing the complexity of managing TID codes and the related communication. It meets the most recent regulatory requirements (including the 2025 Italian Budget Law) and automates the connection between devices, eliminating the risk of penalties and ensuring full operability with any hardware.
• fiskaly RECEIPT enables the dematerialization of paper receipts and integrates seamlessly with the ecosystems your customers already use, including Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. Unifying payments and fiscalization simplifies operations and delivers clear added commercial value for merchants. Every transaction becomes leaner and more modern, with a forward-looking experience that goes well beyond regulatory compliance.
• fiskaly SAFE is ideal for those already using fiskaly SIGN or fiskaly DSFINVK DE. It automates the entire archiving process with one-click activation from fiskaly HUB, storing fiscal data in full compliance with no manual effort.

Together, these solutions help build a fully digital, flexible fiscalization infrastructure, ready to support businesses and developers through the transformation underway.

Methodological note

The Cloud Fiscalization Observatory by fiskaly analyzed the evolution of cloud fiscalization in Italy, investigating the state of the installed base of telematic cash registers deployed between 2019 and 2020 and surveying, in collaboration with Format Research, a sample of around 500 retail and hospitality businesses to observe awareness, willingness to use, and investment in software solutions for cloud fiscalization among Italian merchants, at the national level and by macro-region and industry sector.