A dossier from the Centro Studi di Unimpresa Irpinia Sannio, reported by NTR24, describes a steady thinning of everyday commerce across the provinces of Avellino and Benevento. Between 2019 and 2025, the two provinces together recorded 3,081 fewer activities: 1,730 fewer in Irpinia and 1,351 fewer in the Beneventano.
The same dossier reports that 75 municipalities across Irpinia and Sannio lost at least one basic commercial service, a category that includes food shops, bars, artisan workshops and micro-services. The report links the trend to commercial desertification and the disappearance of basic services in smaller communities.
An estimated 257 million euros in lost local spending
The dossier estimates a reduction in local consumption of 257 million euros over the 2019-2025 period: 145 million euros in the province of Avellino and 112 million euros in the province of Benevento.
That figure is an estimate attributed to the local dossier. The full dossier, its methodology and the underlying municipal data were not available in the reporting acquired, so the precise statistical perimeter of the activities counted — including the distinction between closures, transfers and reclassifications — cannot be verified from the material reviewed.
The reporting also does not identify which 75 municipalities are involved, nor which specific service was lost in each municipality.
Depopulation adds pressure
The local dossier points to a shrinking active population as a source of pressure on services. National demographic data provides broader context for that pattern.
According to ISTAT, the population of Italy's inner areas fell by 5% between 2014 and 2024, with declines of 6.3% in peripheral municipalities and 7.7% in ultra-peripheral municipalities. ISTAT associates these areas with reduced accessibility to essential services.
ISTAT's mapping for the Strategia Nazionale per le Aree Interne (SNAI) 2021-2027 places more than 4,000 municipalities and about 13.3 million residents in inner areas. The national figures describe a general context; they do not measure the same geography or the same 2019-2025 interval as the Irpinia-Sannio dossier.
A wider national pattern
The difficulty of access to commercial services extends beyond Sannio and Irpinia. At the end of 2024, 206 Italian municipalities had no retail trade establishments at all, and 425 had no food establishments, according to Unioncamere.
In small Italian municipalities, the density of local retail units was 9.24 per 1,000 residents, 12.8% below the national average. As with the demographic data, the national retail figures offer general context rather than a direct measure of conditions in Avellino and Benevento.
What remains clear from the evidence reviewed is the scale reported locally — thousands fewer activities, dozens of municipalities with at least one basic service gone, and a substantial estimated loss in local spending — set against a national backdrop in which fewer services make it harder for small communities to retain everyday commercial life.
