The 'single glossary' of free building activity: a list of 58 works that may be carried out without any permit, adopted under art. 1(2) of Legislative Decree 222/2016. Published in Official Gazette no. 81 of 7 April 2018 and operative from 22 April 2018, it applies nationwide without regional or municipal transposition. It does not replace art. 6 of the Building Act: it makes it legible.
It concerns works falling under the free building activity of art. 6 of D.P.R. 380/2001. The glossary lists the main ones — ordinary maintenance, external paving, pergolas, certain systems — with the aim of giving certainty to designers and uniformity between municipalities. Planning, sector and protection rules continue to apply: a work listed in the glossary remains subject to the landscape, cultural, seismic and safety constraints that bear on it.
Not automatically. The glossary lists the *main* free-building works, not every possible one: the source of the categories remains art. 6 of D.P.R. 380/2001. A work absent from the list must therefore be traced back to the statutory categories, not ruled out merely because it does not appear. This is the most frequent misreading of this decree.
No, and that is why the glossary exists. Before 2018 the same work could be treated as free in one municipality and subject to notification in the neighbouring one. The decree is operative nationwide without transposition: municipal building regulations cannot reintroduce a permit where the glossary and art. 6 do not require one.
It dates from 2018, and art. 6 of the Building Act has been amended several times since — among others by Decree-Law 69/2024 ('Salva Casa'), which broadened free building activity. The list remains valid for what it contains, but it does not depict the current perimeter: for works introduced after 2018 the reference is art. 6 itself in its current wording. Before inferring anything from an absence, check the rule, not the list.
Free of the building permit, not of the other assents. If the property or area is under landscape or heritage protection, the Superintendency's or the landscape authorisation remain due where the work affects what is protected. Seismic, safety and health rules also continue to apply.