Shopping in San Marino, from the Falciano outlet to Torta Tre Monti

San Marino has long had a reputation as somewhere people drive up to shop. Part of that rests on something real, the absence of VAT, and part is habit. Here’s what’s actually documented, how the outlet’s tax-free works with its exact numbers, and what I’d take home, which isn’t really clothes.

Why does San Marino have a cheap reputation?

Because it doesn’t charge VAT. It levies an imposta monofase, a single-stage tax run by the tax office and paid when goods enter the country rather than at every sale. A private website says it’s usually lower than Italian VAT, which is why clothes, shoes, perfume and electronics can come out a little cheaper.

That’s as far as I’ll go. I couldn’t find the rate of the single-stage tax in any official source, and there’s a widely repeated figure I can’t verify, so I won’t tell you everything is a set percentage cheaper. There’s more on this in money in San Marino. What does have official numbers is the outlet’s tax-free scheme, and here Brexit works in a British shopper’s favour.

Tax-free at the San Marino Outlet, with the small print

The outlet takes the tax off immediately, at the till in each shop. Residents of non-EU countries, which now includes the UK, get 15% off. EU residents get 5%. Italians and Sammarinese are excluded. To qualify, your spend in each shop has to exceed €258.23 after discount, and the card you pay with must be a credit card in your own name, and you leave a copy of your passport and of the card.

A quick example to show the scale. On a €300 purchase in a single shop, a UK resident saves €45 and a Spanish visitor €15. It won’t change your trip, but if you were going to buy something substantial anyway, doing it here and in one shop pays off. Split the same €300 across two shops and neither reaches the minimum, so you’d get nothing back at all.

What the outlet is like and how to get there

The San Marino Outlet is at Strada degli Angariari 41 in Falciano, in the Serravalle district. By its own count there are 50 shops, discounting between 30% and 70% all year round, a quarter of an hour from Rimini, with doors open from 10:00 to 20:00 seven days a week. There’s free covered parking with eight EV chargers, left luggage, a cash machine, a children’s area and a baby-feeding room, and dogs on leads are welcome, which is rarer than you’d think and which I cover with the other rules in visiting San Marino with a dog.

By public transport it’s even easier. The Rimini shuttle has its own stop, Dogana San Marino Outlet, 26 minutes from the station, and if your ticket runs to the Città you can break the journey here and resume it later for free with a voucher from the Info Point. The timetable is in my Rimini bus guide. AASS bus line 47 also comes out here.

One warning that saves confusion. The Serravalle Designer Outlet that turns up in so many searches isn’t in San Marino at all but in Serravalle Scrivia, in Piedmont. The one here is the San Marino Outlet.

What I’d bring home

First, a Torta Tre Monti, from La Serenissima, a firm that presents itself as making cakes by hand since 1942. It’s a round layered wafer with cocoa and hazelnut cream and a dark chocolate rim, with pistachio and coffee versions too. The name comes from the Three Towers. The shop is at Via XXV Marzo 67, and the country’s other sweets are in San Marino food.

Next, stamps and coins. They’re the most authentically Sammarinese thing you can buy, and I explain them in San Marino coins and stamps. A private website also mentions hand-painted ceramics, wrought iron and lace, and an origin mark, the Marchio di origine e tipicità, created in 1995 to identify things made in the country. I’d look for that mark before paying for anything sold as local craft. For a bottle, the winery’s own shop in Borgo Maggiore beats the old-town souvenir shelves, as I explain in San Marino wine.

Markets and sales

If you like markets, Borgo Maggiore holds one on Thursday mornings in Piazza Grande, plus an antiques fair on the third Sunday of the month between March and December. Sales, according to a private website, start in summer at the end of June or early July and in winter somewhere between Christmas and Epiphany, frequently ahead of Italy.