Nearly 677,200 Foreign-Led Businesses in Italy; Chinese Sole Proprietors Pass 50,000 as Prato Leads the Country
On 9 October 2026, Unioncamere and InfoCamere published an analysis of business-register data: as of 30 June 2026, businesses led by foreign citizens in Italy numbered 677,188, about 12 percent of all businesses registered in the country. The figures come from the Business Register (Registro delle Imprese) and were processed by InfoCamere under the Futurae project, promoted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies and Unioncamere.
In the first half of the year, 37,140 foreign-led businesses were created and 21,043 ceased operating, a net balance of 16,097 more businesses. Of these firms, 79 percent are led by people from outside the European Union. Sole proprietorships still account for about 70 percent of the total, but limited companies (società di capitali) grew by 11 percent over the past twelve months and now number more than 160,000. At the end of 2025, about 35 percent of foreign-led businesses had already been operating for more than ten years.
Among sole proprietors, the three largest groups are Moroccan (53,364), Romanian (52,541) and Chinese (50,166), together accounting for 32.4 percent of foreign sole proprietors; Albanian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani owners together make up 20 percent, and Egyptian, Nigerian and Senegalese owners 10.5 percent. The report notes that Chinese entrepreneurs are concentrated in manufacturing and recreational services, Romanians in construction and Moroccans in commerce.
Regionally, Lombardy has the largest number of foreign-led businesses in absolute terms (136,603), followed by Lazio (77,355) and Emilia-Romagna (62,341). The North-West concentrates 32.7 percent of the national total and grew 1.5 percent over the year, while the South fell 3.6 percent, with Campania and Calabria showing the clearest declines. Tuscany has 66,553 foreign-led businesses, 17.1 percent of its regional total — the second-highest share in Italy after Liguria's 17.6 percent.
The province of Prato has the highest incidence in the country, at 33.7 percent (up from 32.7 percent in June 2025), followed by Trieste (20.8 percent) and Imperia (18.8 percent), with Florence fourth at 18.7 percent. Prato's figures are directly linked to its Chinese community: among the province's sole proprietorships, Chinese owners represent 67.2 percent of foreign proprietors (68 percent a year earlier). In Fermo, in the Marche region, Chinese owners account for 27.3 percent of foreign sole proprietors.
Sources: Unioncamere and InfoCamere Business Register data (Futurae project), reported by La Voce d'Italia on 9 October 2026 and by T24 Economia (Il Sole 24 Ore group) on 9 October 2026.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：Sailko / Wikimedia Commons（CC BY 2.5）
