Identifies, in an annexed table, the administrative regime of every building and commercial activity: for each operation it states the applicable permit (free activity, CILA, SCIA, SCIA in lieu of the building permit, building permit) or procedure (notice, silence-as-consent, authorisation). It is the reference tool for identifying the correct process.
It concerns the administrative procedures for starting economic activities and for building works. The annexed Table A reviews them one by one, in separate sections: commercial and similar activities, building, environment. For each entry it states the applicable administrative regime, any concentration of regimes and the legal references. For designers, Section II — devoted to building — matters most: it is the mapping table between type of intervention and required permit.
Legislative Decree 222/2016 does not decide what may be built: the Consolidated Building Act says that. It decides how you ask for it. It is a survey — activity by activity — of the applicable administrative regime, and it was born to answer a question that previously had no single answer across the country: for this intervention, do I need a CILA, a SCIA or a building permit?
The enabling provision is Article 5 of Law 124/2015, the Madia reform, and the implementing decrees should be read as a pair. Legislative Decree 126/2016 — 'SCIA 1' — worked on the how: unified forms, common filing rules, single and conditional SCIA within Law 241/1990. Decree 222 — 'SCIA 2' — worked on the what: which regime applies to which activity. The first supplies the instruments, the second says when to use them. Citing one for the other is the commonest mistake.
The heart of the decree is Table A, provided for by Article 2. It is divided into sections — commercial and comparable activities, building, environment — and for each entry it states the regime, any concentration of regimes, and the legal references. For designers, the building section is what counts: it is the crosswalk between type of intervention and title required.
| Regime | What it entails | When it typically applies |
|---|---|---|
| Free activity | No title to file. Other constraints remain — landscape, structural, health and hygiene — which free building work does not cancel. | Ordinary maintenance, temporary works, interventions listed in the single glossary. |
| CILA | A notice certified by a professional. Work may start at once; the authority issues nothing. | Extraordinary maintenance touching neither structural parts nor elevations. |
| SCIA | A certified report with drawings. Effective on filing, with the authority retaining powers of check within the statutory terms. | Heavy extraordinary maintenance, conservative restoration and rehabilitation, some renovations. |
| SCIA in lieu of a building permit | Same form as a SCIA but replacing the permit. Some effects — including fitness for use and the sanctions regime — follow the rules of the permit. | Heavy building renovation, new construction implementing detailed executive plans. |
| Building permit | An express title: work cannot begin until it is issued. | New construction, urban restructuring, works on listed buildings where the law requires it. |
This is the mechanism the decree invokes continually in the table, and the one that most changes life for whoever files the application. Where an intervention would require several consents, the applicant files one and the lead authority takes on obtaining the others.
It must be understood for what it is: it does not simplify the substance — every consent is still due, and a constraint does not vanish because the filing is single — but it moves the work of chasing them from the private party to the administration. It is a redistribution of burden, not deregulation, and reading it as an amnesty from obligations is the fastest way to end up with a stalled application.
Article 1(2) is the one that produced the single glossary of free building work: it provides for its adoption by decree of the Minister for Infrastructure in concert with the Minister for Simplification, within sixty days, subject to agreement in the Unified Conference. The glossary arrived with the Ministerial Decree of 2 March 2018 — some months past the sixty days — and it is today the most used instrument of the system this decree designed.
Article 1(3) says something worth knowing before turning to a consultant: the lead authorities provide free of charge the advisory activity needed for the examination of the activities listed in the table, subject only to registry fees. It is a right, not a courtesy of the desk.
Article 1(4) recalls instead Article 52 of the Cultural Heritage Code: the municipality, in agreement with the region and having heard the heritage authority, may delimit zones of particular value in which the exercise of certain activities is prohibited or subject to authorisation. It is the reminder that surveying the regimes does not override protection.
They are two successive implementations of the same delegation. Legislative Decree 126/2016 ('SCIA 1') worked on the *how*: unified forms, common filing rules, the single and conditional SCIA within Law 241/1990. Legislative Decree 222/2016 ('SCIA 2') worked on the *what*: the activity-by-activity review of which regime applies. The first provides the tools, the second says when to use them.
Use it with the date in mind. The table depicts the regimes as of 2016, and D.P.R. 380/2001 has been amended several times since — among others by the 2024 Salva Casa decree, which broadened free building activity. It remains a valuable mapping tool for understanding the logic and for interventions untouched by the amendments, but where the permit is in doubt the source is the current text of the Building Act, not the table.
That where an intervention would require several assents, the applicant files only one and the lead administration takes care of obtaining the others. It is the principle behind the single SCIA, and it substantially changes the workload: it is not a simplification of substance — all the assents remain due — but of who has to chase them.