Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi announced the change on Thursday.
The statement appears to contradict earlier signals sent by the new Italian government.
Late in June, Italy’s defence minister Elisabetta Trenta said she affirmed to US national security adviser John Bolton that Rome aimed to reach NATO’s spending target.
The majority of NATO countries are expected to reach the target by 2024.
But at the last NATO summit, Trump demanded the hike in defence spending “immediately”.
Trump has also considered insisting on raising the limit to four percent.
He has also suggested that NATO allies “owe” the US large sums of money for decades of US “protection”.
But the US itself, despite spending almost twice as much on defence than all other NATO countries combined, falls short of Trump’s desired target.
The White House said US military spending in 2017 was “only” 3.6 percent of GDP.
The NATO summit was hailed by Trump as a major victory since he supposedly encouraged other NATO allies to spend “more equal” defence spending.
But it seems not all allies were actually willing to spend more.
After the summit, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, “while Berlin understands peace and security come at a price”, focusing more on “respect for the international rules and order” would do the trick better than additional spending.
He said in tweet: “Four percent spent on military spending will, however, not make our world any more secure.”
In 2014, only three allies met the pledge with the US’s 3.58 percent contribution eclipsing that of other members.
Only Greece and the UK joined the US with the target, spending 2.32 percent and 2.14 percent respectively.
In June 2017, six EU countries hit the 2 percent target: the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania and Poland.
Romania and Poland scraped across the line at 2.02 and 2.01 percent.
France is the next closest to meet the defence spending target having contributed 1.79 percent in 2017.
Meanwhile, Lithuania trails closely behind at 1.77 percent.