Happy International Workers’ Day!
Oops, I did it again.
Just after leaving the Milan airport last month, I got clocked doing 120 kilometers an hour in a 110 kph zone. Yes, that’s 6.21 miles per hour over the speed limit.
I’m no speed demon. As a matter of fact, I’m more of an overly cautious, defensive driver.
But as European traffic laws and electronic surveillance of drivers become increasingly stringent and robust, people like me are ticketed more frequently, often because we simply don’t realize we’ve entered a new speed limit zone.
The most frustrating thing about Italian speeding and traffic tickets is that they are incredibly difficult to pay from abroad. And by the time you receive the official ticket (not just the notice from the rental car agency), you’ve already accrued penalties that drive up the cost from around €50 to nearly €200.
Here’s the good news. It used to be that you had to pay a local authority via a bank wire. Now, Italy has implemented a new portal called Pagopa.
But here’s the catch. When the rental agency forwards the notice about the ticket, it includes the ticket reference number but does not include the code for the recipient of the money (the local authority who processes the payment).
Hoping to avoid subsequent penalties for late payment, I wrote to the Pagopa help email asking for assistance. They responded the next day and provided the second code I needed. And voilà, I paid my ticket on time! A miracle! At least in my experience…
A good friend recently told me that he was able to pay a ticket using PayPal. But in his case, he was already 60 past the payment due date and so he had to pay the extra fines.
It’s great news about Pagopa.
But for the first time ever, I managed to avoid the extra fines.
Thank you, Pagopa! You are awesome!
Do Bianchi 
Music to my ears!! Almost every single time I go to Montalcino, I get a ticket on the road from Rome to Grosseto while others cars are whizzing by me at a very high rate of speed. And I am always so careful with the crazy change in speed limits along that road. SO incredibly frustrating 😵💫..I am convinced that they only give them to rental cars (because the license plates all start with the same letters from what I have been told?) AND by the time they show up at my house, they are crazy expensive. Maybe this will at least allow me to save a few euros in fines! Grazie for the tip, Jeremy and hope you are all well! Michele
I wonder if Grosseto (like some towns in the USA) depends on traffic tickets for a significant part of municipal revenue. I too have had no luck finding a way to pay a ticket from Grosseto. I’ll try our suggestion. Thanks.
Thank you for sharing your story. I am now inspired! I am experiencing the exact same situation, however, from the Comune di Milano. Today just received the email from the rental car agency that included “the notice” for the infraction. I would like to pay now and hopefully can pay within the grace period. I have a reference number that is short – not quite 15-18 digits, and no payee tax code (I found one on the Comune di Milanos website, not sure if this is the one needed for tickets though). I reached out to PagoPA via email and havent heard back just yet. Fingers crossed!
Thanks for this post. I am going through this exact same situation for a speeding ticket in Venezia. It was a rental car and apparently, they got me speeding at 89Km/h on a 70Km/h literally, 20 mins before I returned the car in Venice. I don’t have any recollection of speeding during my entire road trip (Milan, Como, Dolomites, Venice). I got the notice in my hand (living in California) 3 months after this incident. I spent quite a bit of time trying to pay and no luck yet. Also, it gives me the option to pay reduced amount or higher amount without clear instruction on which one applies to me based on date. It is a rip off if they expect me to pay bunch of late fees, when the first notice arrived in my hands just yesterday. I will contact Europcar and Pagopa to get the payee tax code to make this payment.
I have not caused any traffic violation in USA (driving for 20 years), yet every time I drive in Europe, I seem to be the unlucky one to get a ticket.
I just received a letter/mail notification up to the country I live at… I got into the website but I’m not sure since when should I count the 5 or 60 days in order to pay the discount… The ticket was issued by september 2024, and just got to my hands today June 13th… The rental car have not communicated anything to me… Any help on which one should I pay? It allows me to pay both.. plus there is a second document which says something about I should send personal information copies ??