An apparatus for manufacturing panels made of foamed plastic material includes a supporting framework for a device for feeding a plate-like element to be cut to at least one cutting station and a device for unloading the plate-like element cut into panels from the cutting station. The cutting station includes a supporting structure for at least one cutting wire that forms, along its own extension, a cutting portion designed to contact the plate-like element to be cut, a component for the relative motion of the cutting portion with respect to the plate-like element to be cut, there being also, upstream of each cutting station, an incision station having at least one first incision blade adapted to provide, at at least one face of the plate-like element to be cut, a respective incision at the region designed to be contacted by the cutting portion of the cutting wire.