The Right to Disconnect: What the Law Actually Says in Italy and Europe

In at least eleven European countries, some form of law protects the right to disconnect. But eleven countries also means eleven different models, and in Italy the right is far more limited than some headlines suggest.

This guide sets out what the rules actually require: the European framework, the position in Italy, what changed under Law 34/2026 and why there is no such thing as an “offence of hyperconnection.”

What the law says in Europe (and what it doesn’t)

Let’s start with the facts, because here it’s easy to confuse what is written with what actually happens.

According to the Labour Research Department, already by April 2024 eleven EU member states had some form of regulation on the right to disconnect: Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. Eleven countries, eleven different models. And it’s precisely the variety that tells us something.

France was the pioneer. With the Loi Travail of 2016, in force since 2017, it requires companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate rules on disconnection. But pay attention to what it actually imposes: penalties apply for the failure to negotiate, not for a substantive violation of the right. Translated: French law obliges you to sit down at the table, not necessarily to honor the agreement.

At the opposite end, Ireland chose a single non-binding code of conduct: no obligation, no penalty. Belgium and Portugal, instead, have real legislation, with penalties aimed directly at companies.

And the Union as a whole? There is still no specific binding directive. Following the European Parliament’s January 2021 resolution, the Commission ran a two-stage consultation on telework and the right to disconnect across 2024 and 2025. By September 2026, the issue had become part of the path towards the Quality Jobs Act: the second-stage consultation of the social partners remains open until 28 September, with an EU proposal expected by the end of the year. The work is further advanced, but specific EU legislation is not yet in place.

Do more laws mean more rights?

Eurofound, the Union’s tripartite agency, tackled the question from its most practical angle: does regulation really deliver, in concrete terms, the right to disconnect?

The figure the survey returns is the one that should give policy writers pause. Eight workers out of ten — in companies with and without the right to disconnect — regularly receive work communications outside their hours. The presence of the rule, on its own, does not move the number. Something else changes: where a disconnection policy exists, workers report higher satisfaction and fewer stress-related disorders; where it doesn’t, headaches, anxiety and tension grow. The difference, in short, isn’t made by the right on paper: it’s made by how seriously that right is taken by the organization.

The European Parliament, citing the same research, adds the technological piece: those who regularly use digital tools remotely are more than twice as likely to exceed 48 working hours a week than those who work on site. Technology isn’t neutral: it stretches the day whenever no one decides where to draw the line.

Italy’s Law 34/2026: what changes

And so we come to Italy, where the topic turned hot for a precise reason.

It’s worth saying where we start from. As Il Sole 24 Ore reconstructed while analyzing the Eurofound report, in Italy the law does not recognize disconnection as an explicit right: it defers its regulation to individual bargaining between employer and worker, and only for agile work at that. A right delegated to agreement, in short, not guaranteed as such.

Against this backdrop comes the news. On 7 April 2026 the Law of 11 March 2026, no. 34 entered into force, the so-called “Annual SME Law.” Article 11 amends the Consolidated Safety Act (Legislative Decree 81/2008): for agile work carried out away from premises controlled by the employer, it requires a written notice at least once a year setting out general and specific risks, with particular attention to the use of display-screen equipment. Failure to deliver that notice is a criminal offence.

And here a misunderstanding that circulates a lot needs to be cleared away, because it is exactly the kind of alarmism that confuses. There is no “offence of hyperconnection”: the law does not punish the boss who writes an email at 10 p.m. The offence is the failure to deliver the notice — a limited procedural obligation, punishable by two to four months’ arrest or a fine of between €1,708.61 and €7,403.96. Neither “hyperconnection” nor “right to disconnect” appears in article 11, so the provision does not create a new general right not to be contacted. That distinction matters whenever a headline promises the “end of evening emails by law.”

In Italy, moreover, Bill S. 1290 is pending in the Senate — the so-called Sensi Bill, presented on 6 November 2024 and assigned to the 10th Committee, with examination not yet begun — proposing at least 12 consecutive hours of no contact after a shift and an administrative penalty of €500 to €3,000 for each worker contacted in violation. It is a bill, not an active law — but it clearly signals the direction the topic is moving.

Where the law ends

The rules are not pointless. By requiring negotiation, the French model has at least forced companies to sit down at the table. Company policies, too, can make visible a boundary that would otherwise remain implicit.

But the law sets a framework; it cannot decide which behaviors an organization rewards every day. A formal right only matters when exercising it does not leave someone looking less available, less committed or less ambitious.

That is the subject of my essay on how leaders’ behavior turns after-hours availability into the norm: the 10 p.m. message, the meeting scheduled over lunch and all the unwritten rules that end up carrying more weight than a policy.

The law can recognize the right to disconnect. Company culture decides whether people genuinely feel free to exercise it.