Poste Italiane turned a free identification service into a subscription

Poste Italiane is the Italian national postal service provider. Among other services, Poste Italiane provides a service of digital identification to Italian nationals and residents. Starting from 2026, this service was turned into a yearly subscription.

Background

Information about the product/service history to provide the necessary context surrounding the incident

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Poste Italiane (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpɔste itaˈljaːne], lit. 'Italian Post', abbr. PT) is the Italian postal service provider. Besides providing postal services, Poste Italiane offers communications, postal savings products, logistics, and financial and insurance services throughout Italy.

The Public Digital Identity System (SPID - Sistema Pubblico d'Identità Digitale) is the single system for accessing online services by the Italian public administration and its member private individuals with digital identity. Citizens and businesses can access these services with a unique digital identity that allows them to be accessed and used from any device. It was introduced to address the proliferation of online services, which forced citizens to have an ever-increasing number of login credentials, and to increase the digitalization of services.

Change from a free to a subscription model

In January 2026, Poste Italiane announced that the SPID service would convert to a subscription model.

Poste Italiane will introduce a €6 annual fee for its PosteID-enabled SPID service, starting from the second year of activation; the first year remains free. Certain groups, including those over 75, minors, residents abroad, and professional users, are exempt. Users will receive email notifications before payment deadlines, and unpaid accounts will be suspended but reactivatable. These changes apply to pre-existing users too.