pagoPA is a national platform for making payments to any type of public body in Italy. Launched in 2012, the platform has been managed since 2019 by pagoPA S.p.A.—a state-owned business founded to help distribute digital services across Italy. pagoPA has transformed the management of Public Administration payments in Italy and, in this article, you can learn more about what the service is, how it works, and its advantages.

What’s in this article?

• What pagoPA is
  
• pagoPA payments: How they work
  
• Making payments with pagoPA
  
• The advantages of using pagoPA
  

What pagoPA is

pagoPA is a platform that enables both private individuals and businesses to make digital payments to the Public Administration easily and quickly. With pagoPA, private individuals can make payments to Italian public institutions through participating payment service providers (PSPs), choosing from various payment methods depending on their specific needs.

Using pagoPA, private individuals can pay duties, taxes, utilities, fees, stamp duties, fines, license fees, and any other type of payment to central and local Public Administrations. These include schools, universities, local health authorities, INPS (National Institute for Social Security), and the Italian Revenue Agency, as well as other entities, such as publicly owned businesses and public service managers.

These various institutions, for their part, use pagoPA as a centralized and readily available system to manage revenue and reconcile payments. This system helps to save time and resources, while ensuring improved payment tracking and a simple and fast customer experience.

Use of the platform has grown exponentially over the years, exceeding one billion transactions since 2016, for a total value of over €225 billion, and with an average transaction amount of €203. The main categories of creditor institutions that use the pagoPA service are utilities, central Public Administrations, the ACI (Italian Automobile Club), municipalities, schools, and regions.

pagoPA payments: How they work

First, it’s important to know that there are two types of pagoPA payments:

• Spontaneous: These are namely payments made on the initiative of a private individual (e.g., following a service request).
  
• Expected: These are payments requested by an institution in relation to a preexisting debt position (e.g., stamp duty, municipal taxes, utility bills, rent, university fees, or copayments for health services).
  

What the IUV code is

The pagoPA payment process is the same in both cases: to make the payment, customers require a code called the Unique Payment Identifier (IUV). This is a number that allows the institution to associate the single payment made by the customer to the payment request or the debt position.

The creditor institution generates the IUV code, which the customer can find in the payment notice they receive (usually with the wording “Codice Avviso,” or payment notification code: Codice Avviso is an 18-digit number which contains the IUV code). When private individuals make a spontaneous payment, the system automatically generates the IUV code at the time of the payment request.

What a payment notice is

The payment notice (or payment slip)—which, for expected payments, the institution in question sends directly to the customer—is a document that contains the information needed to make a payment using the pagoPA platform. This information includes: the creditor institution; the cardholder or individual responsible for making the payment; the payment information (including the IUV code, the amount payable, and the expiry date of the payment notice); the reason for the payment and the amount; the payment methods; the bar code; and a QR code for data acquisition using an optical reading device.

The goal of the payment notice is to create a standard document at the national level for all creditor institutions, simplifying payments for both private individuals and businesses—and guaranteeing a multichannel approach (i.e., allowing customers to make payment for the notice across all the relevant channels).

Making payments with pagoPA

Private individuals and businesses have many options at their disposal to make a pagoPA payment, both online and offline (i.e., using physical channels). Here are the main methods available for both online and offline payments.

Making an online pagoPA payment

Customers can access the platform using various methods, depending on the institution to which the payment must be made. No single form of authentication is therefore available. Currently available to customers are both free-access services (which, for example, allow customers to make payments by entering the IUV code) and services that require a weak form of authentication (by simply registering on the portal) or a strong form of authentication (SPID, CNS, or CIE). In most cases, institutions request authentication to allow customers to check the details of their debt position and their payment history.

Following the identification of the IUV code and other information found on the payment notice, the private individual or business can choose their preferred payment method. There are several options available for online payments:

• Through home banking, where the customer accesses their bank’s services and makes the payment directly from their current account using the CBILL circuit (a service offered by banks, through which private individuals and businesses can view and pay pagoPA payment slips and payment notices online. CBILL supports both online payments and payments made at ATMs that support the service).
  
• On the creditor institution’s website, choosing from the options provided and the transaction manager.
  
• Through payment apps (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Satispay, BANCOMAT Pay, PayPal, etc.), by scanning the QR code connected to each pagoPA payment notice.
  
• Through the online payment services integrated with the pagoPA platform.
  
• Through the IO app, made available by public services.
  

Making an offline pagoPA payment

Customers can also make pagoPA payments using physical channels. Here’s where to go to make a payment:

• The bank, at participating branches or at ATMs that support the service
  
• An Italian post office (Poste Italiane), using either the pagoPA QR code or the PA postal slip
  
• Affiliated businesses that display the pagoPA logo, such as tobacconists, supermarkets, newsstands, bookshops, cafés, etc.
  
• Private post offices
  

How much does it cost to pay with pagoPA?

pagoPA payments usually involve a cost that varies depending on the selected banking institution. To allow for greater transparency, the pagoPA website provides customers with a cost calculator: simply enter the amount, the channel, and the payment method to see the fees charged by each banking institution.

However, there are various options that allow customers to make pagoPA payments without incurring any fees. These include SI conto! CORRENTE service offered by Banca Sistema; the DB Contocarta service offered by Deutsche Bank, Banca Raika Ritten, Banca Intesa Sanpaolo (from the creditor institution’s website by choosing “Conto Corrente”); Revolut; Tot; and Qonto.

The advantages of using pagoPA

The pagoPA platform has allowed private individuals and businesses, as well as the Public Administration, to benefit from several advantages. Here are the most important ones:

Advantages for private individuals and businesses

• Simpler and faster payments to the Public Administration
  
• Availability of multiple payment channels
  
• Ability for customers to receive digital payment alerts on their favorite apps or channels (e.g., by email or text message)
  
• Access to payment information that is always up-to-date, with an accurate indication of the amount owed (e.g., if the amount changes over time due to late payment interest or other penalties, the system will always show the updated amount)
  

Advantages for the Public Administration

• Efficient and economical payment management
  
• Real-time monitoring of amounts collected
  
• Availability of multiple and faster collection channels
  
• Lower transaction costs
  
• Automatic reconciliation of amounts collected
  
• Resource savings (such as paper, ink, etc.), leading to greater environmental sustainability
  

The pagoPA platform has significantly simplified the management of payments to the Public Administration in Italy—for both private individuals and businesses, as well as for public institutions. For businesses, in particular, managing payments as easily and quickly as possible and having access to the payment methods best suited to the specific type of business is of the utmost importance. If you want to learn more about how Stripe can help you manage payments and grow your business, get started now.