A law about job preservation and paid leave for workers suffering from cancer, disabling, and chronic illnesses was published in the Official Gazette on July 18, 2025 (Law 18 July 2025, n. 106).
The Law n. 106/2025 will come into force on August 9, providing provisions favoring employees having cancer or suffering from disabling and chronic diseases on job preservation and recognition of paid leave for health check-ups and treatments.
The regulations apply to employees working for both public and private employers, suffering from cancer, disabling or chronic diseases, including rare ones, leading to a level of disability equal to or greater than 74% as certified by a general practitioner or specialized doctor, working in an accredited public or private health facility.
The concerned employees can ask for a leave period, continuous or fragmented, not exceeding twenty-four months. During this leave, they keep their job position but do not receive a salary and cannot do any work activity.
The leave is compatible with concurrent enjoyment of any other economic or legal benefits, and its utilization begins at the expiration of other allowable justified absence periods, with or without pay.
Also, after the leave period, they have a right to priority access to remote working where possible, according to section 1, paragraph 4, of the law.
The same beneficiaries, under Article 2, also have the right to enjoy, from January 1, 2026, additional annual ten hours leave, with recognition of an economic allowance and fictitious coverage for time used for visits, examinations, chemical-clinical and microbiological analyses, and frequent medical treatments.
The visits and examinations have to be prescribed by a general practitioner or a specialized doctor working in an accredited public or private health facility.
In the private sector, employers directly pay the allowance and then recover it by adjusting the contributions due to the social security body.
Funds are also established by the law for creating and granting degree awards dedicated to the memory of patients with oncological diseases and for the management and enhancement of the technological infrastructure of INPS.
