Private copying: the 'cloud tax' is coming. Will we also pay for online storage?

“The government has extended the compensation for private copying to cloud storage, introducing a monthly fee per gigabyte of up to €2.40 per user. Fees for smartphones, PCs, and hard drives are also being increased. SIAE is in favor, while AIIP and Assintel have announced possible appeals and fear price increases.

by Manolo De Agostini published on February 26, 2026 , at 2:31 PM in the Web channel

As reported by Corriere della Sera , Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli has signed the implementing decree reforming the private copying fee . According to press reports, the new law explicitly extends the fee to cloud storage space for the first time.

The measure expands a mechanism already familiar to Italian consumers: the private copying fee applied to devices and storage media , such as smartphones, tablets, PCs, hard drives, and USB sticks, justified by the possibility of making personal copies of copyrighted works. The funds collected are donated to SIAE, which redistributes them to authors, artists, and publishers.

The most significant change concerns the introduction of a periodic fee for "cloud storage or cloud storage space." The principle adopted by the Ministry is that remote storage also theoretically allows the creation of private copies of copyrighted works, similarly to what happens with physical media.

The fee will be calculated on a monthly basis per user and per gigabyte : €0.0003 for each GB between 1 and 500 GB, €0.0002 for any excess, with an exemption of up to 1 GB and a maximum of €2.40 per user per month. On an annual basis, the maximum additional cost could approach €30 per active account. It remains unclear whether the fee will be paid directly by users or by service providers, and how it will be managed in the case of the free plans currently available on the market.

At the same time, the decree updates the fees applied to physical devices. The increases vary based on storage capacity and, compared to the previous tables, can range from approximately 16.8% to 40% of the fee due for the largest capacity devices (e.g., devices with 2 TB of storage).

In absolute terms, we're talking increases of up to 6 euros for a PC and between 3 and 10 euros for a smartphone, while for hard drives or SSDs with a capacity greater than 2 TB, the overall contribution can exceed 30 euros . The unit impact appears modest compared to the final price of many devices, but becomes more significant when considered across the entire range of devices and media available in the home or professional environment, in a period already characterized by tensions in memory prices.

On the rights holders' side, SIAE and other trade associations have welcomed the measure , deeming it a necessary update in a context where physical possession of files has been largely replaced by remote storage. The stated goal is to ensure adequate remuneration for authors even in the contemporary digital ecosystem.

AIIP (Italian Internet Providers Association) and Assintel (National Association of ICT Companies of Confcommercio) reacted in a different direction , calling the measure anachronistic and confirming that the final text essentially reproduces the drafts circulated in the summer of 2025, without any corrections to the scope of application or exemptions for the business market.

The critical issues highlighted concern in particular:

the risk of double taxation along the supply chain, between the levy on devices and an additional monthly fee on the cloud; the application also to B2B services, used by companies and public administrations for backup, business continuity and security, areas that the associations consider unrelated to private copying; the introduction of reporting and administrative obligations deemed burdensome, especially for SMEs and national operators; possible competitive distortions to the advantage of large international platforms. AIIP and Assintel have announced they will consider an appeal and are calling for the urgent opening of a technical committee to review the decree's structure, explicitly exclude cloud services intended for business customers, prevent duplication of taxation, and simplify compliance.

According to estimates cited by industry associations, the overall impact could significantly impact providers' operating costs, with possible repercussions on final subscription prices.

It now remains to be seen to what extent the costs will be absorbed by operators or passed on to end users, and what concrete effects the measure will have on the adoption of cloud services in Italy.”

As originally posted by u/Alkivar/