Hosting with PEC for professional firms: technical differences and what to check before migrating
Ten-year retention, provider logs and pricing compared: what changes between standard email hosting and hosting that must also support PEC.
UptimeMag editorial team · 30 October 2026 · 3 min read
Anyone managing the website of a professional practice or Italian SME eventually faces the same question: can I move the domain to another hosting provider if active PEC mailboxes are hosted on it? The technical answer is almost always yes, but PEC and standard email are not the same thing, and treating them the same way during migration creates retention gaps that nobody notices until they matter in a dispute.
Why hosting with PEC is not just any email hosting
Certified Electronic Mail (PEC) is not a commercial product like traditional email: it is a system defined by Italian Presidential Decree 11 February 2005, No. 68 as "any electronic mail system in which electronic documentation is provided to the sender attesting the sending and delivery of electronic documents", with transmission valid for legal purposes. This entails three concrete technical differences compared to any IMAP mailbox.
The first is retention. The regulations require a retention period of at least 10 years from the date of the last registration: all PEC messages, sent and received, must be archived for this period. Standard email hosting has no such constraint: if you delete a mailbox after cancellation, at worst you lose personal messages.
The second is logging. The difference is more technical and less well known: sector technical regulations impose on providers the obligation to retain operational records for a minimum period of thirty months, after which providers are legally authorised to delete such records. In other words: the PEC provider does not keep logs forever, they keep them 30 months. Someone who needs to prove a delivery receipt from 5 years ago cannot rely on the fact that the provider will retrieve it for them automatically: they must already have conserved that proof themselves, in a compliant retention system separate from the simple mailbox.
The third difference concerns SLAs: a PEC provider is listed in a public register and subject to service continuity rules different from a normal email service provider, because the failure to deliver a PEC message has legal value.
Who offers PEC in Italy
The main authorised providers in Italy include Aruba PEC, Poste Italiane (Postecertifica), InfoCert (Legalmail), Libero Mail PEC, Virgilio PEC, Register.it, IONOS and LetteraSenzaBusta (SuperPEC), all registered in the public list of PEC providers maintained by AgID. On Aruba's official price list, consulted on 30 October 2026, the Standard PEC mailbox with 1 GB storage costs €9.90 + VAT per renewal year (€5.00 + VAT in the first year), whilst the Pro PEC option with 5 GB (2 GB mailbox plus 3 GB archive, with SMS notification and mobile app) costs €25.00 + VAT per year; additional space, whether mailbox or archive, costs €5.00 + VAT per GB per year. Those working with integrated hosting and PEC find offers from Register.it and IONOS as well: before comparing prices, however, it is worth checking each provider's price list on the same day, because several providers apply a promotional price in the first year that rises significantly at renewal.
What to ask before moving a domain with active PEC mailboxes
Before starting the transfer of a domain that has linked PEC mailboxes, it is worth putting these questions in writing to both the current and new provider:
- Is the PEC hosted on the same account as the domain or is it a separate service connected via MX records? If it is separate, the domain transfer does not affect it.
- Who is the accredited PEC provider (verifiable in the public AgID list) and remains the same after the site migration, or does that change too?
- Where are messages older than 30 months stored, given that beyond that period the provider may have already deleted the operational logs?
- Does the new hosting provider offer a separate compliant retention service, or does this need to be activated elsewhere?
- What is the expected downtime window for the MX records and who bears contractual responsibility in case of messages lost during the changeover?
On these points the answer is not a matter of hosting but of the accredited PEC provider: for the legal validity of individual communications or for specific doubts, it is always best to contact the PEC provider or a legal consultant, not the hosting control panel.
Written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked by the editors (EU AI Act, art. 50).