Italy

Parliament

Article 55, in the Government text read on 17 October 2026, says Parliament is composed of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic.

Article 56 says the Chamber is elected by universal and direct suffrage and that there are four hundred deputies, eight of them elected in the overseas constituency. Electors who have reached the age of twenty-five on election day are eligible. The Chamber’s page “Chi elegge i deputati”, for the 19th legislature, repeats that there are 400 deputies, that the Chamber is renewed every 5 years except in the case of early dissolution, and that 8 deputies are elected in the overseas constituency.

Article 57 says the Senate is elected on a regional basis, apart from the overseas seats, and that there are two hundred elective senators, four of them elected in the overseas constituency. No region or autonomous province may have fewer than three senators; Molise has two, and Valle d'Aosta has one.

Article 59 says that anyone who has been President of the Republic is a senator by right for life, unless they decline, and that the President of the Republic may appoint as life senators citizens who have brought honour to the country by outstanding achievement. The total number of senators in office appointed by the President may not exceed five. The names of those currently in office are not copied on this page.

Latest general election

Decree of the President of the Republic no. 97 of 21 July 2022, citing the decree of the same day that dissolves the chambers, calls the election for Sunday, 25 September 2022 and sets the first sitting for 13 October 2022. It is signed Mattarella, on the proposal of the President of the Council of Ministers Draghi and the Minister of the Interior Lamorgese. In Official Gazette no. 169 of 21 July 2022 the dissolution decree is no. 96.

Page for that election

Next general election

Gap. No decree calling the next general election was read on 17 October 2026. Article 60 says the Chamber and the Senate are elected for five years. Article 61 says the next elections take place within seventy days of the end of the previous chambers, and the first sitting within twenty days of the election. This page does not turn those rules into a calendar day.

Page for the next general election

Population

The ISTAT census-population page, read on 17 October 2026, gives 58,943,464 usually resident people as the official permanent-census figure at 31 December 2024. The età 999 rows, Totale column, of the DEMO regional file at 1 January 2025 add up to the same number. The same ISTAT page says that, for elections and referendums, the official figure is in Decree of the President of the Republic no. 53 of 3 March 2023 and refers to 31 December 2021. That decree was not read for this release, so the electoral figure is not printed here.

The ISTAT list of municipalities, sheet “CODICI al 21_02_2026”, has 7,894 municipalities and 110 supra-municipal territorial units. The ISTAT page says that from 21 February 2026 there are 7,894 municipalities. That list is later than the population at 1 January 2025: the two dates are not one count.