Italian Construction Confidence Fell to 97.5 in September as Order Books Weakened

Italy's construction confidence index dropped from 102.8 to 97.5 in September, while the sector's order-book balance slid from -4.1 to -10.9, Istat reported.

Italian construction firms turned sharply more pessimistic in September 2026. The construction confidence index fell to 97.5 from 102.8 in August, and the assessment of order books, the component that tracks work already contracted, deteriorated from a balance of -4.1 to -10.9. Istat published both figures on 30 September 2026.

The move stands out because it ran against manufacturing. While builders grew gloomier, the manufacturing confidence index rose to 91.9 from 90.2. The composite business confidence index, which blends the business sectors, eased only modestly, to 95.9 from 97.0, a reminder that the headline number hid a wide spread underneath it.

Order books weakened faster than hiring plans

Construction firms are cutting their view of demand faster than their view of employment. The order-book balance more than doubled its negative reading in a single month, from -4.1 to -10.9. Employment expectations also fell, from 10.0 to 6.1, but stayed clearly positive: builders still expect to add staff, just far fewer of them than a month earlier.

That gap matters for anyone tracking future housing supply. Order books describe contracted work, so they lead site activity by months. Hiring intentions, by contrast, reflect what firms think they will need to deliver the work they already hold. A sector that keeps hiring while its order book empties is a sector living off its backlog.

Services and households both pulled back

The weakness was not confined to construction. Market services confidence fell to 96.9 from 99.4, and retail trade to 104.5 from 106.5. Consumer confidence dropped further than any business sector, to 91.2 from 94.5, a fall of 3.3 points in a single month.

For residential demand, the consumer reading is the one to watch. Household sentiment and mortgage enquiries tend to move together in Italy, and a three-point monthly fall is the kind of move that shows up in enquiry volumes well before it shows up in recorded prices.

What Italy's own price and tax data shows

Glopra's figures for Italy, captured on 28 September 2026, put the national average asking price at 2,354 US dollars per square metre, with an average asking rent of 16.92 US dollars per square metre per month. The annual change in that national asking-price series is 5.2 percent in local-currency terms and 1.9 percent once the exchange rate is applied. Italy carries a bubble-risk score of 48, in the moderate band, and total transaction costs of about 14 percent of the purchase price. Rental income can be taxed at a flat 21 percent under the cedolare secca regime, which replaces income tax and several duties and sets no residence condition, so non-resident owners can opt into it.

These two sets of numbers are not measuring the same thing, and it would be wrong to read either as confirming the other. The Istat index records what construction firms expect, expressed as balances of qualitative answers. The Glopra series records the level of asking prices for existing homes across the whole country, holiday regions and the industrial north included. Sentiment can turn several quarters before transaction prices do, and in Italy it has done so before without prices following.

The limits of a confidence index

A confidence index is a balance of opinions, not a measured volume, and the September release does not state the base year for the series. Negative order-book balances have appeared in Italian construction before without a matching fall in completed buildings, and one month is not a trend. The opposite reading also deserves weight: with manufacturing improving in the same survey, the construction fall looks sector-specific rather than a signal about the wider Italian economy. The next release will show whether the order-book balance was a turning point or a single bad month.

Sources: Istat https://www.istat.it/en/press-release/consumer-and-business-confidence-september-2026/; Istat https://www.istat.it/en/statistical-themes/focus/economic-trends/topics/confidence-indicators/

Market data: Italy · Siracusa (Ortigia) · Sassari (province · Palermo (province)