AGCom Codice di Condotta audit — Italy influencer compliance for non-Italian brands

How the audit works

The audit cross-references the AGCOM Codice di Condotta (Delibera 197/25/CONS, adopted 23 July 2025, published 5 August 2025), the minors-protection guidelines, and TUSMA. Each rule maps to a binary question with severity level (critical / high / medium) and legal citation. Final verdict is compliant / with warnings / non-compliant.

AGCOM runs automated checks on the first 3 hashtags of sponsored posts and on video overlays. AGCOM registry obligation kicks in above 500K followers on any platform OR 1M average views in the past 6 months. Fines double for minors-targeted content (€600K max).

This is operational guidance based on the published text. Not legal advice. For high-value campaigns or sensitive categories (gambling, crypto, alcohol, medicine), validate with qualified Italian counsel.

How a non-Italian brand audits an Italian-creator campaign against AGCom Codice di Condotta in 6 passes

Non-Italian brand teams running paid campaigns to Italian creators or Italian audiences in 2026 should run every booking through a six-pass AGCom audit before contract signature, because the joint brand-creator liability built into Delibera 197/25/CONS (adopted 23 July 2025, published 5 August 2025) means a UK, US, German, or other non-Italian brand is equally exposed to the €250,000 general sanction ceiling and the €600,000 minor-protection sanction ceiling regardless of where the brand entity is established. The test for AGCom jurisdiction is the audience country, not the brand or creator residence — if the campaign reaches an Italian audience, AGCom rules apply.

The six-pass workflow runs:

(1) confirm the creator's tier versus the AGCom threshold — 500,000 followers on any single platform OR 1 million average monthly views over the past 6 months on Italy-distributed content triggers the mandatory albo registration; below that threshold the disclosure obligations still apply but registration does not;

(2) check the AGCom Elenco influencer publicly to confirm the creator's registration status under Delibera 197/25/CONS — booking an over-threshold creator who is not registered is a contract-stage compliance failure;

(3) verify the creator's prior Italian-campaign disclosure samples and confirm `#pubblicità` or `#adv` sits in the first three hashtags AND, for video content, in an on-screen overlay — English `#ad` or `#sponsored` alone fails AGCom regardless of audience demographics;

(4) flag minor-targeted content for stricter handling — if the audience demographic is under 16 OR the creator is under 16, the doubled €600,000 sanction ceiling applies and additional content categories (gambling, alcohol, tobacco, restrictive diet) are prohibited entirely;

(5) build the joint-liability clause into the contract — under the Codice di Condotta the brand is co-liable with the creator for non-compliance, and the contract clause documenting brand-side compliance verification is part of the audit defence;

(6) document the audit log for the campaign retention pack — AGCom enforcement queries can land months after campaign end, and the audit log is the brand's primary defence against joint-liability exposure.

The Collabios AGCom audit widget above runs the six checks in 5 minutes; outside the Collabios marketplace, in-house counsel needs to run them manually for each Italian-creator booking.

How a non-Italian creator with Italian audience implications stays AGCom-compliant

Non-Italian creators (UK, German, French, Spanish, Arabic-speaking diaspora) with material Italian audience shares face the same AGCom Codice di Condotta obligations as Italian creators, because the Codice's jurisdiction follows the audience country rather than the creator's nationality or residence. The five practical implications are:

(1) disclosure language follows the audience country — a UK creator with a 40% Italian audience share posting a paid collaboration must include `#pubblicità` or `#adv` in the first three hashtags of the Italian-targeted variant of the post, in addition to whatever ASA / CAP disclosure satisfies the UK audience share; for cross-audience posts the safest practice is to stack disclosures (`#ad #pubblicità #publicité`) in the first three hashtags rather than risk Italian audience falling through a UK-only `#ad`;

(2) albo registration applies if the Italian audience share crosses the 500,000-follower or 1M-monthly-views threshold against Italian-distributed content over a 6-month rolling window — a non-Italian creator with 400K followers globally but 700K monthly views on Italian-language content over 6 months triggers the mandatory albo registration under Delibera 197/25/CONS;

(3) minor-audience stricter rules apply when the Italian audience segment skews under 16 OR when the creator is under 16 — content categories prohibited for minors (gambling, alcohol, tobacco, restrictive diet) cannot be promoted to the Italian audience even if they are legal to promote to the UK or German audience on the same post;

(4) joint brand-creator liability means the creator carries personal sanction exposure separate from the brand's exposure — a UK creator producing non-compliant content for an Italian audience faces direct AGCom action up to €250,000 general or €600,000 minors-protection, independent of any contract indemnification from the brand;

(5) AGCom applies the audience-country test in practice, so a non-Italian creator with a primarily Italian audience is treated the same as an Italian creator under the Codice di Condotta.

The Collabios AGCom audit widget above runs the same checks for non-Italian creators as for Italian creators — the test is identical because the regulator's test is identical.

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