Among those who live and work in Switzerland, many also have a business in Italy: a company, a branch, a family firm with employees hired across the border. If that is your case, you are most likely leaving a benefit on the table, simply because few people know they can use it.

Every month, by law, an Italian company with employees pays 0.30% of wages to INPS. It is a mandatory contribution meant for worker training. The point is that if this share is not directed to an Interprofessional Fund, it stays stuck in a state pot and never comes back to the company.

There is, however, a way to recover it: the Joint Interprofessional Funds (Fondi Paritetici Interprofessionali). These are bodies created in 2003 under law 388/2000 and supervised by ANPAL, which allow the company to turn that 0.30% into funded training courses for its employees, at no extra cost. A useful clarification: this refers to employees hired in Italy, those for whom the company pays INPS contributions, not staff working in Switzerland.

Joining a Fund, for example Formazienda or Fonarcom, is free, optional and revocable at any time. It is done with a simple entry in the monthly contribution report that the labour consultant already files each month, and it does not require changing consultant or payroll software. Once joined, the company can use the accrued amounts for courses in digital skills, sales, languages, safety, soft skills or tailor-made programmes, in the classroom or online.

The value depends on the number of employees and on wages, and it builds up again every year: those who do not use it, lose it. For a company with around fifteen employees we are talking about a few thousand euros a year, figures that become significant above fifty employees.

Living in Switzerland is not an obstacle. The operational side, from joining to course design through delivery and reporting, is handled by specialised firms such as Formazione Dipendenti, which coordinate directly with the company's labour consultant in Italy. For the owner, even from a distance, only a few signatures and the list of participants remain.

To find out how much your company's 0.30% is worth, you can request a free assessment on the website formazione-dipendenti.it.