Dto 1 July 2026 the rules on the management of one’s TFR change. If until now, in the absence of an explicit choice that directed him towards a pension fund, the severance pay automatically remained in the company, starting from the beginning of the month the mechanism is reversed for new hires. But not only: the choice will become obligatory within defined times. The objective is to strengthen complementary pensions, i.e. the systems that support the public pension.
TFR: what changes from 1 July 2026
To understand what will happen soon, you need to know how it has been until now. So far, in fact, the choice on severance pay could be postponed or don’t be particularly aware. From 1 July 2026, however, everything changes for new hires: the decision whether to leave one’s severance pay in the company, as happens today in most cases, or to allocate it to a pension fund, will have a precise timeframe, i.e. two months. If no choice is made within this period, the so-called “silence-consent” will be triggered. But in this case the TFR will automatically be allocated to a pension fund.
The pension fund chosen “by default”
When the automatic mechanism is triggered, the pension fund to which the severance pay will be directed will be the one provided for by the collective labor agreement, i.e. the agreement that regulates the sector in which one works. If there was no specific fund, we will move on to funds already identified by the legislationlike the Fondo Cometa fund, one of the best known in Italy. Once you enter a pension fund, money does not disappear and does not change nature: they always remain the worker’s, but are invested over time to try to make them grow. At any time, however, you can change your mind about how to invest or how much to pay.
From 1 July 2026, severance pay will become increasingly linked to supplementary pension provision. (Getty Images)
Larger companies under new rule
The reform does not only affect workers, but also large and very large companies. Another important change, in fact, concerns the TFR which, in these cases, it will no longer remain “in the company” but will be managed by a public fund linked to INPSthat is, the body that deals with social security and pensions in Italy. It must be said that, however, the nature of severance pay does not change, which always remains a right of the worker. Only “where” it is kept and managed pending final settlement changes.
From the “automatic TFR in the company” to the new balance
However, the biggest change, in reality, is perhaps more cultural than bureaucratic. For years the mechanism was almost “automatic in reverse”: the severance pay remained in the company as a default choicewhile an explicit step was needed to allocate it to supplementary pension provision. An approach that has made severance pay a sort of implicit choice for a long timemore suddenly than really decisive.
A push towards supplementary pension
The direction of the 2026 reform instead moves in the opposite direction. The goal is to push more and more people to build a supplementary pension from the beginning of the working career, reducing the cases in which the severance pay remains unchanged without a conscious decision. In this way, the severance pay will stop being a sum “awaiting termination of employment”but it will increasingly become a piece of a retirement future built step by step.