Six issues since June 2023, almost €98 billion raised: BTP Valore is the biggest retail success in the history of Italian government bonds. It is also, thankfully, one of the easiest to understand — but it has its traps too: the «2.60% a year» that shows up as 0.65% per coupon on your statement, and the loyalty bonus that many count even when it isn’t due. Let’s sort things out, then run the numbers.
What the BTP Valore is and why it exists
June 2023: after the BTP Futura experience, the Treasury launches a new family of bonds reserved for retail savers — institutions cannot buy at issuance, only individuals and equivalents. You subscribe through your bank, post office or home banking, minimum lot €1,000, with no subscription fees (not because they don’t exist: the Treasury pays them to intermediaries, 0.5% of the amount raised, per the MEF’s official FAQ). The subscription price is always 100, at par.
Compared with the BTP Futura, the recipe was simplified where it hurt most: the loyalty bonus is no longer a bet on GDP but a fixed percentage written in the terms, and from the second issue onwards coupons arrive every three months instead of every six. The Treasury’s retail family has three branches today: the BTP Futura (2020-21, GDP-linked bonus), the BTP Valore (since 2023) and the BTP Più (2025, which replaces the bonus with an early-redemption option at mid-life — a dedicated article will follow).
Two ingredients define every BTP Valore:
- «step-up» coupons — they start at one rate and climb in pre-set steps, all fixed when the placement closes;
- a fixed loyalty bonus — from 0.5% to 0.8% of capital depending on the issue, reserved to those who subscribed at issuance and never sold (the «CUM» rule, below).
The six issues, one by one
Here they all are. Each bond has two ISIN codes: the one traded on the market and the «special» placement one, which carries the right to the bonus. A quirk about numbering: in its official announcements the MEF counts the BTP Più within the family, so the October 2025 issue is their «sixth» and March 2026 their «seventh» — we call them by name and maturity, which leave no room for ambiguity.
The coupons: all already written (and the quarterly trap)
«Step-up» means the coupon climbs in steps over time, at dates and percentages fixed once and for all when the placement closes. As with the Futura, let’s be clear: future coupons are not uncertain. Every euro from here to maturity is already written — the only difference from a fixed-rate BTP is that the amount grows according to a known table. The calculator below shows them all, date by date.
The «2.60% a year» that becomes 0.65% per coupon
The most frequent trap is arithmetic, not financial. The rates announced by the Treasury are annual, but from the second issue onwards coupons are paid quarterly: each individual coupon is the annual rate divided by four. A BTP Valore at «2.60%» pays €65 gross per quarter on €10,000 (about €57 net), not €260 in one go. It is still €260 a year — just spread over four instalments. If your statement after the first coupon shows «less than promised», this is almost always why.
During the placement, announced rates are guaranteed minimums (afterwards, they never change)
Mind the scope, because this is easy to misread: the mechanism applies only during the placement week. It works like this: a few days before the start, the Treasury announces a rate series that is a guaranteed minimum; at closing it sets the final rates, which can only confirm those minimums or revise them upwards — never lower them. So far it has happened once: the BTP Valore Mar 2032 (March 2026) was announced at 2.50/2.80/3.50 and closed at 2.60/3.20/3.80.
Once the placement closes, the final rates are carved in stone forever: if you are reading this guide with the placements over — which is almost always — the steps you see in the table are what they are and will never change, up or down. The «can only go up» concerns those taking part in a placement in progress: if in those days you find online calculations using the minimum rates, know that the real yield can only match or beat them.
The loyalty bonus: fixed, known, not for everyone
Here the BTP Valore is more honest than its Futura cousin: the bonus is a fixed percentage of capital, written in the issue terms — 0.5% for the first two, 0.7% for the third, 0.8% for the last three. No GDP, no bands, no waiting for announcements: on €10,000 of nominal, 0.8% is €80 gross (€70 net — the bonus too is taxed at 12.5%), paid in one go together with the final redemption.
Worth sizing it up: spread over the 6-year life of a recent issue, 0.8% is worth about a tenth of a percentage point per year of extra yield. Not zero, but not the reason to pick or skip the bond either — which is why the calculator shows it both included and excluded.
The condition, though, is everything: the bonus goes only to those who subscribed at issuance and never sold. Which is exactly the next section.
The CUM trap: buying, selling, inheriting
The mechanism is the same as the Futura’s, and it remains the most misunderstood point. Each issue gets two ISIN codes: the «special» one (the CUM) goes to placement subscribers and carries the right to the bonus; the ordinary one is the code that circulates on the market. Whoever sells — even partially — sees the sold portion converted automatically to the ordinary code, and the bonus right on that portion is gone forever. The MEF’s official FAQ is explicit. Three practical rules follow:
- whoever buys a BTP Valore on the MOT today buys the ordinary code → no bonus, even holding to maturity: when valuing today’s purchase, only coupons and redemption count;
- whoever holds it from issuance and sells loses the right on the sold portion (buying back doesn’t restore it); the rest of the position stays on the special code and accrues the bonus pro-rata;
- to sell a bond subscribed at issuance there is one extra step: in your account the bond sits on the special code, but only the ordinary one trades on the market — so before selling, the bond must be converted to the ordinary code. The conversion is free and in theory your bank does it by itself when you place the order; in practice some banks want you to request it explicitly. If your home banking rejects the sell order, this is almost always the whole problem: call the bank and ask for the «ISIN switch».
Inheritance yes, gift no
Two opposite cases, both black on white in the MEF FAQ. With inheritance, heirs who receive the bond subscribed by the deceased keep the right to the bonus, provided they hold it to maturity. A gift, instead, counts as a sale: the recipient does not get the bonus. Securities lending also forfeits the right. The concrete case is the «remunerated portfolio» schemes some intermediaries offer, paying you a small interest to lend out your securities: in fairness, several brokers exclude CUM-coded government bonds from the lending basket — precisely so as not to interrupt the right to the bonus. But it’s not a universal rule: if you hold BTP Valore from the placement and use such a scheme, check your intermediary’s terms for which securities enter the basket. And on joint accounts: the bonus survives transfers between deposits as long as, at maturity, at least one of the original holders is still named.
A practical tip for heirs: when the securities account is transferred, check that the position stays on the placement ISIN. The right to the bonus lives in that code: if the ordinary ISIN shows up in the account after the transfer, ask the intermediary to correct it straight away, MEF FAQ in hand — at maturity it’s the code that counts, not good intentions.
Buying it on the market today
Once the placement closes, every BTP Valore lives on the MOT like any other BTP: you buy and sell at market prices, minimum lot €1,000. Unlike the Futura — issued at zero rates and now well below par — the Valore were born with coupons already in line with current rates and shorter maturities: prices move around par, a few points above or below depending on the issue and the moment. The general rule remains the one in our BTP guide: below 100 part of the return comes from redemption, above 100 the coupons «pay back» the premium along the way.
The nearest maturity has minimal duration and near-still prices; the longer ones (2032) swing more, but far less than a 2037 Futura: richer coupons and a shorter life mean a fraction of the rate sensitivity. The exact figure — issue by issue, at today’s price — is in the calculator under modified duration.
One last consideration about horizon: these are 4-to-7-year maturities, and the price swings along the way. If you’re looking for a place for cash you’ll need in a few months, you’re looking at a different category of instruments — the near-zero-duration ones we cover in our money-market ETF guide. Which instrument suits you is not for us to say: we’re only pointing out that horizon and bond duration should be looked at together.
Try it yourself: what it really returns
Pick the issue and look: the price is already filled in with the latest Milan stock exchange figure, date shown next to it — if your broker shows a different price, or you want to try a hypothetical level, just change it (comma or dot, as you prefer): everything recomputes, with the bond’s exact, dated cashflows. You get:
- the annual gross yield to maturity (the IRR);
- the net yield, with the reduced 12.5% government-bond tax rate;
- the real yield, net of your country’s inflation — the inflation is yours to set: it’s your assumption, not our forecast;
- the modified duration (how sensitive the price is to rates);
- the accrued interest at settlement and the actual outlay;
- the full coupon schedule — past and future, bonus on its date — downloadable as Excel or PDF;
- the real history since issuance: true month-end closes (source: Milan stock exchange), the running total with coupons received, and the comparison with your country’s inflation.
The advanced options also hold purchase fees and the stamp duty (the 0.2% yearly Italian one, pre-filled for Italy: the «net-net» is one click away). And if you are not tax-resident in Italy: pick your country in the selector — inflation and currency adapt by themselves, and you set your own tax rates on coupons and capital gains, which outside Italy may differ from each other.
And if you subscribed at issuance, tick the «CUM» box: the calculation switches to your bond — price 100, bonus included — and shows what you have already received and what’s still to come.
A note on precision: results use real market conventions (daily accrual of the current period, value-date settlement, compound discounting on actual days) and the engine is the same one, verified against banking-circuit calculation sheets, as our BTP Futura guide. Not a textbook approximation: the same numbers your bank would show you.
How to read the results
The IRR (yield to maturity) is the rate implied by the bond’s cashflows: it combines the coupons — each with its own amount, since they grow — and the difference between the price you pay and redemption at 100, distilling them into a single annual rate. It’s the only honest yardstick for comparing bonds with different coupons, but it is not a promise of realised return: the amount you actually end up with also depends on where you reinvest the coupons as they arrive (the IRR’s implicit assumption is that they earn the IRR itself) — the same limitation as your broker’s figure.
If you prefer hard cash to rates: the calculator’s Excel export has a «cumulative» column that adds up, euro by euro, everything going in and out until maturity — what you paid, what comes back, no reinvestment assumption. It’s the «kitchen-table count» (cit.), and often the most concrete way to understand a bond.
The net applies 12.5% to coupons, bonus and any capital gain. The real answers the question that matters: «how much do I gain in purchasing power?» — and depends on future inflation, which nobody knows: that’s why you set that field.
Modified duration deserves two more lines, because it’s the number many discover only after the damage is done. It says, to a first approximation, how much the price moves for each percentage point of change in market rates — in both directions. An example with duration 5: rates up one point → price down about 5% (on €10,000, five hundred euros on paper); rates down one point → price up by the same. On large moves the linear estimate is approximate, but the order of magnitude holds. Two honest caveats: first, markets move on expectations — prices absorb cuts and hikes before central banks actually deliver them, so by the time «the ECB cuts», the price has often moved weeks earlier; second, all of this only concerns those who might sell early — hold to maturity and you get 100 back regardless of what rates did in between. Accrued interest, finally: buying between two coupon dates you advance the seller the accrued part, recovered at the first coupon — with quarterly coupons it’s always small. The full theory behind all these numbers is in our BTP guide.
The comparison: fixed-rate BTPs and step-up siblings
The natural question: «and against a normal BTP of the same maturity?». That comparison can be made exactly, because all cashflows are known on both sides — a fixed rate is just a one-step step-up. The tool below lines up a Futura, a Valore (or Più) and a fixed-rate BTP of your choice by ISIN: same engine, same inflation, same tax rate, loyalty bonuses excluded because buying on the market today you’d be entitled to none of them.
An instructive experiment: at issuance the Treasury has historically offered the Valore a slightly more generous yield than the fixed-rate BTP of equal maturity — a thank-you to retail, and good politics. On the secondary market that edge tends to get absorbed into the price: the comparison above shows it with today’s numbers, IRR against IRR. And the comparisons you won’t find here? With CCTs and BTP Italia one cannot be honest: their future coupons depend on rates and inflation that don’t exist yet — we prefer no number to an invented one.
How a placement works (for the next issue)
The BTP Valore is not auctioned: it is issued directly on the MOT platform, in a placement window normally lasting five trading days. The useful rules, all from the MEF FAQ and announcements:
- fixed price at 100 for everyone, first day to last: no rush to «catch the good price»;
- no cap: every request is filled in full — no first-minute scramble needed;
- the Treasury may close early (never happened so far, but allowed), with broad notice: for absolute certainty, buy within the first three days;
- final rates are set at closing: they can only confirm or raise the guaranteed minimums announced beforehand;
- interest accrues from the first-accrual date (a few days after the placement ends), not from your order date. A concrete example: you order €10,000 on the opening Monday — the money leaves your account immediately, but until the first-accrual date it earns not a cent of interest. Paying on day one doesn’t «buy» extra coupon days: at most it parks your money a few days longer;
- only individual savers may take part: institutions come in later, on the secondary market, without the bonus.
When the Treasury announces the next issue, this page will pick it up automatically in the table and the calculator as soon as the final rates are official.
The risks, in plain sight
No investment is risk-free, and a «simple» bond is no exception: knowing the risks beforehand is the only way to decide with a clear head. For a BTP Valore they are:
- Rate risk (price). If market rates rise, the bond’s price falls — and vice versa. It only concerns those who might sell before maturity: the measure is the modified duration explained above, and on the Valore it is contained (short maturities, coupons in line with issuance-time rates).
- Inflation risk. Coupons are fixed: if inflation rises more than expected, the real return shrinks or turns negative. It’s the most underrated risk because it never shows on your statement — the calculator’s «expected inflation» field exists precisely to look it in the eye.
- Issuer risk (and the spread). The debtor is the Italian Republic: redemption at 100 holds as long as the state honours its debt. Default is remote but not theoretical, and well before default there is the spread: in moments of distrust towards Italian debt (2011 comes to mind) bond prices fall even with ECB rates unchanged. Hold-to-maturity investors ride the storm on paper; those forced to sell in the middle pay for it. And a point almost nobody makes: since 2013, euro-area government bonds maturing beyond one year — BTP Valore included — carry collective action clauses (CACs): in a hypothetical debt restructuring, a qualified majority of bondholders can approve changes to the bond’s terms (maturity, coupons, principal) binding even on those who voted against. Being a «family» bond grants no special protection.
- Liquidity risk. These are retail-only bonds: they trade less than an ordinary BTP on the MOT and the bid-ask gap can be wider. Practical rule: always use limit orders, never «at market».
- Currency risk (only if you think in another currency). The bond is in euro: for a Swiss or UK resident the final result also depends on the exchange rate, which can matter more than the coupons. The calculator flags it when you pick a non-euro country.
Listing them isn’t pessimism: it’s the piece of information you need in order to decide. And the diversification caution counts double here — you don’t concentrate everything on a single issuer, however sovereign.
Taxes (and the ISEE)
As a government bond, the BTP Valore enjoys the reduced regime: 12.5% (instead of 26%) on coupons, loyalty bonus and any capital gain, plus the 0.2% yearly stamp duty on the securities account. A detail often missed: coupons and bonus are capital income — past capital losses in your tax «backpack» cannot offset them. The price gain (buying below 100 and redeeming at 100), instead, is «other income» and losses do offset it. The full picture is in our BTP guide.
Two exemptions complete the picture. First: like all government bonds, the BTP Valore is exempt from inheritance tax — and remember that inheritance also transfers the right to the bonus. Second, the ISEE (the Italian household means-test indicator): since 2024 the law excludes government bonds (together with postal savings) from the calculation up to €50,000 per household; implementation arrived with the 2025 decrees. For specific situations — thresholds, timing, edge cases — check with a tax professional: we flag that the rule exists, we don’t replace those who apply it.
Frequently asked questions
Are future BTP Valore coupons certain?
Yes, all of them: percentages and dates of every coupon to maturity are fixed at placement closing and never change. And the loyalty bonus, unlike the BTP Futura’s, is a fixed percentage known from day one.
Why is the coupon on my statement smaller than the promised rate?
Because the rate is annual and coupons (from the second issue onwards) are quarterly: each payment is a quarter of the annual rate. «2.60%» on €10,000 is €65 gross per quarter — €260 a year, as promised, in four instalments.
If I buy a BTP Valore today, will I get the loyalty bonus?
No. The bonus lives on the «special» placement ISIN, which doesn’t exist on the market: whoever buys on the MOT buys the ordinary code, without the bonus, even holding to maturity. When valuing today’s purchase, only coupons and redemption count.
If I sell only part, do I lose the whole bonus?
No: the conversion to the ordinary code affects only the quantity sold. The rest stays on the placement code and accrues the bonus pro-rata.
What about inheritance or gifts?
Two opposite cases (official MEF FAQ): with inheritance the heirs keep the right to the bonus, provided they hold the bond to maturity; a gift counts as a sale and the bonus is lost. In both cases the inheritance-tax exemption stands.
What happens if I sell before maturity?
You sell at the market price of the moment, which can be above or below what you paid: the certainty of redemption at 100 holds only at maturity, and a sale at a loss can eat up the coupons collected so far. If the bond has been in your account since issuance, selling also forfeits the bonus right on the sold portion, forever.
Why can’t I sell my BTP Valore from home banking?
Almost always because the position is still on the placement ISIN: selling requires the (free) switch to the ordinary code. It is meant to be automatic, but some intermediaries want it requested explicitly before accepting the order.
Is the BTP Valore inflation-linked?
No: coupons are fixed and rising, set at issuance. The bond indexed to Italian inflation is the BTP Italia — a different instrument. If inflation rises, Valore coupons stay put: the calculator shows the effect on your real return.
Is it better to buy at issuance or on the market?
Not a question we answer — it depends on your goals, horizon and portfolio. The facts: at issuance you pay 100 with no fees and get the bonus; on the market you pay the going price (above or below 100) and there is no bonus. The honest yardstick is the net IRR on real cashflows — which the calculator gives you in both scenarios.
What taxes apply to a BTP Valore?
12.5% on coupons, loyalty bonus and capital gains (the reduced government-bond rate), plus the 0.2% yearly stamp duty. It is exempt from inheritance tax and, up to €50,000 per household, excluded from the ISEE calculation.