Is Palermo really Italy's top nomad city? The data beyond the hype

Every few months somebody tells me Palermo is "Italy's number one city for digital nomads". It comes up in travel blogs, in Italian papers and occasionally from friends in Milan who have read the headline and want to know whether I'm now rich. I live in Palermo and I'd like it to be true. That's exactly why I went back to the sources: which ranking, which year, measuring what.

Short version: the "number one" is real but narrow. Long version below, with the figures that matter if you're an ordinary remote worker rather than a senior executive on a relocation package.

Where the "number one" comes from

Almost every headline traces back to one source: the Executive Nomad Index published by Savills, the international property consultancy. It has had two editions that include Palermo.

In 2024 Palermo entered the list at 22nd, the only Italian city on it. Savills explained why: Palermo was "the most affordable major prime rental market in Italy", with prime rents 70% lower than Florence.

In the 2025 edition the list grew to 30 destinations. Savills' own summary page gives the top of the table (Dubai first for the third year running, then Abu Dhabi, Málaga, Miami, Lisbon) but doesn't mention Palermo at all. The 25th place comes from Italian press coverage of the full table, which also puts Tuscany, as a region, at 29th. So Palermo is the best-placed Italian entry, out of two.

Note the direction of travel: from 22nd of 25 to 25th of 30. Not a collapse, not a triumph. Yet the "22nd" keeps circulating as if it were current. Il Sole 24 Ore quoted it in May 2025, and Travel Off Path had Palermo "22nd globally" in January 2025. If you read "22nd" today, the article is quoting the 2024 edition.

What Savills actually measures

The 2025 index scores each city on five things: internet speed, air connectivity, climate stability, prime residential rents and overall quality of life, then combines them into one ranking. The 2025 page doesn't publish the weights; the 2024 page says prime rents counted for half. Secondary coverage adds that a destination must offer a digital nomad visa or equivalent scheme, or belong to an economic bloc that allows long stays, which Italy does.

Three details change how you should read the result.

It's a shortlist, not a census. Savills picks 25–30 destinations in advance for their "appeal and ease of access for long-term remote workers", then ranks them. "First in Italy" means Palermo was the highest Italian entry on that shortlist. Milan, Rome, Bologna and Catania were not beaten on the same metrics; they simply weren't measured.

The target is the "executive nomad". Senior, well paid, looking at the top of the market. The rents in the formula are prime rents, the luxury segment. Palermo does well because a beautiful flat in a palazzo costs a fraction of its Florentine equivalent. That's a fine thing to know if you're shopping in that segment. It tells you little about a furnished one-bedroom in Noce.

A lot is left out. The index says nothing about community size, coworking supply, how long a visa takes, or whether you can find a three-month rental. For most people reading this site, those are the questions that decide whether a stay works.

The crowd-sourced view: Nomads.com

Nomads.com, the old Nomad List, works the other way round: no shortlist, thousands of cities, scores built from members' data and reviews. It's useful for comparing a city with others you know, and treacherous for absolute numbers, because reviews can be years old and a handful of users can move an average. Its internet figures are user-reported speed tests, which mix fibre flats with hotel Wi-Fi.

The scores also change almost daily, so I'm not printing one here: a figure from the day I write this would be stale by the time you read it. You'll find the current ones in the update at the bottom.

The rankings Palermo doesn't put on posters

Every autumn two Italian newspapers rank all 107 provinces for quality of life. Neither is a nomad index, but both are useful as a counterweight.

Don't mix the two: they use different indicators and give different numbers. And remember what they measure: the life of residents across a whole province, from services and jobs to crime. A remote worker paid from abroad isn't exposed to the local job market. You are exposed to public services, though, and to everything that makes a city easy or tiring day to day. Bottom of the national table on both lists while top of a luxury relocation index: both things are true, because they measure different lives.

What it means for an ordinary remote worker

Here's what I'd look at instead of the headline, using figures published before this article.

Rent

Forget prime rents. idealista put Palermo's average asking rent at about €10.1 per m² a month in May 2025: roughly €500 for a 50 m² flat before bills. Two warnings from the same Il Sole 24 Ore piece, though: rents rose 18% between 2022 and 2023, and medium-stay housing (one to six months) is scarce. That last one is the real bottleneck. Long leases for residents and nightly lets for tourists are everywhere; the middle is hard. The housing and rentals guide explains the contract types, and my piece on mid-term rentals in Palermo goes through the platforms.

The paper also quoted a cost of living 20% lower than Rome and 35% lower than Milan. Plausible, and also the kind of average that hides your actual rent.

Internet

Savills scores internet speed at city level. Il Sole 24 Ore reported 5G coverage for 97% of the urban population. In March 2026 La Sicilia, citing FiberCop data, reported that Palermo province has Italy's highest average traffic per line, over 340 GB a month. People here use their connections hard; none of this tells you what reaches your flat. In old palazzi it can change from one floor to the next. Before signing, ask whether the line is FTTH (fibre to the home), FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) or FWA (fixed wireless), and check the address. The internet, fibre and SIM cards chapter shows how.

The airport

Air connectivity is one of Savills' criteria, and it's a real strength: Il Sole 24 Ore counted direct flights to 32 European and UK destinations in high season. Mind the qualifier. If you'll be flying in January, check the winter schedule for your routes rather than the summer map. Getting to and from Punta Raisi is covered in transport and airports.

Coworking and people

Savills doesn't count desks. When Il Sole 24 Ore asked local organisations what holds Palermo back, "few public spaces for flexible work" was on the list. In February 2026 Remote Tribe wrote that coworking culture in Sicily "has not really taken off", that some spaces closed after the pandemic, and that no huge English-speaking nomad scene is waiting for you.

That matches the history. Magneti Cowork in Via Amari, often called Palermo's first coworking, announced its closure in 2022; Magnisi Studio reopened the space, and in May 2025 it hosted the founding meeting of Nomad Sicily, a network of local organisations working on remote work. There are private spaces to choose from: PMO Coworking between the Massimo and the Politeama, Changes near Teatro Massimo, neu [nòi] in the Kalsa, Cre.Zi. Plus inside the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Moltivolti in Ballarò. Enough for a remote worker; not a scene like Lisbon's.

The demand signal is there. The first Italia Nomad Fest, held at Villa Niscemi in March 2026, expected about 200 international guests staying an average of 15 nights, with organisers estimating over €300,000 in direct spending (La Sicilia, 6 March 2026). Those are expectations and estimates, not counts, but they're the right kind of number to watch.

My reading

Palermo is the only Italian city that has made Savills' shortlist two years running, and it's the best-placed Italian entry in 2025. That's a fair thing to say. "Italy's top city for digital nomads" is not, because nobody compared it with the rest of Italy on the things that matter to most nomads.

What the index does capture is real: sunshine, a busy airport, and a top-end housing market that's cheap by European standards. What it misses is what you'll actually spend your first month on: finding a three-month flat, checking a line, finding a desk and some people. On those, Palermo is decent and improving, with obvious gaps.

Before you decide, do your own scoring:

• Price a flat in €/m² in two or three neighbourhoods; my Palermo neighbourhoods guide helps you pick them.
• Ask the landlord for the line technology and check the address.
• Look up winter flights for the routes you actually use.
• Book a coworking day pass in your first week before committing to a month.
• When you read a ranking, check the edition, the year and what it measures.

If you're torn between the two big cities, Palermo or Catania puts them side by side, and the Palermo city page brings it all together.

Update November 2026.

• No 2026 Savills index. As of 4 November 2026 Savills' Impacts page lists only the 2025 edition; no newer index has been published. Late in May 2026 Balarm (25 May) and Greenme (30 May) covered the same 2025 result, under headlines calling Palermo Italy's first destination for digital nomads. It's the 25th place described above, not a new ranking.
• Nomads.com, seen 4 November 2026: Palermo 3.23/5, 356th worldwide, 307 reviews, estimated cost $3,937 a month, average internet 18 Mbps (user-reported). Catania 2.96/5, 1018th. Palermo's position among Italian cities on the site couldn't be verified because the Italy list didn't load.
• Rents now: mercato-immobiliare.info gives €10.2/m² a month (updated 2 November 2026); Numbeo gives €618 for a one-bedroom flat in the centre and €414 outside (31 October 2026).
• Desks now: our directory lists 12 active coworking spaces in Palermo and 3 unconfirmed. PMO publishes €25 a day or €200 a month for a shared desk, VAT excluded. All prices are in the 2026 coworking census.
• The Comune's view: in June 2026 the city's innovation councillor, Fabrizio Ferrandelli, said at Forum PA that Palermo is becoming an attractive destination for digital nomadism (BlogSicilia, 11 June 2026). No figures were given.
• Italia Nomad Fest returns to Villa Niscemi from 6 to 14 March 2027.