“Italy Decides in 30 Days and Your Investment Moves Only After You Receive Your Visa: How the Italian Investor Visa Really Works, From €250,000“
The first thing people ask me about the Italy golden visa, officially the Italian investor visa, is what it costs. The answer surprises them. You do not pay for the visa. You promise to make an investment in Italy, the government looks at your file and says yes or no within a month, and only then, once you have arrived in Italy with the visa in your passport, do you invest. Italy looks first and takes the money later. Most other countries do it the other way round.
At Liberty we have run Italian and Portuguese immigration programs side by side for years, from our offices in Milan and Lisbon, and this is the visa our team is asked about most often now, because more and more families are considering it. So here is the whole picture, in plain language: what it is, why people choose it, what you need, how long it takes, and the mistakes we see people make.
A Visa That More and More People Are Choosing
When the program opened in 2018, Italy received seven applications in the whole year. Seven. For a long time, it was the quiet option, overshadowed by Portugal, Spain and Greece.
That has changed. According to figures reported by IMI Daily in December 2025, the number of applications has doubled in two years. In 2025 Italy received 209 applications by the first of December, a rise of about 63 percent on the year before. Between 2018 and 2020 the program averaged around eight applications a year; between 2021 and 2025 the average was around 118. The people applying come mainly from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Turkey, and most of them choose the two cheaper routes, the €500,000 company investment and the €250,000 start-up investment.
There are three reasons for the growth, and I see all three in my own meetings. Spain closed its golden visa in 2025. Portugal’s program still works well, but its processing times are long and its path to citizenship has been stretched to ten years. And Italy, meanwhile, has kept its program steady, kept its decision times short, and added a tax regime that is attractive to people with income outside Italy. Families who would once have looked only at Lisbon now ask to see Milan as well. Roughly a third of them, once we run the numbers, change their mind about which country suits them, and they are happy to have done so.
What Is the Italy Golden Visa?
The Italian investor visa gives a non-European citizen the right to live in Italy in exchange for one of four investments. It is Italy’s residency by investment program. The investment must be kept for at least two years.
The application is made online, in English or Italian, to a government committee in Rome that brings together the ministries responsible for business, the interior and foreign affairs. You do not go to a consulate until that committee has approved you.
Italy Investor Visa Requirements
Choose one of four investments:
- €250,000 in an Italian innovative start-up
- €500,000 in the shares of an Italian company
- €1,000,000 as a donation to a public project in culture, education, research or heritage
- €2,000,000 in Italian government bonds
Buying a house does not count and never has. I mention this early because many people write to me having already chosen the house.
You also need four things:
- The money. It has to be yours and available, shown with bank documents, and it has to be possible to move it to Italy.
- The source of funds. You have to explain where it came from. This is the part of the file that takes the longest, and the part people expect to be quick. Two years of bank statements are the starting point, and then whatever tells the story: the sale of a business, an inheritance, dividends, a salary history. The committee includes Italy’s anti-money-laundering authority, and they read carefully.
- A written promise to invest. You have to sign a written promise to make the investment within three months of arriving in Italy, saying exactly what you will invest in: which company, which start-up, which project, which bonds. If you change your mind afterwards, you are effectively starting again.
- Self-support. You have to show that you can support yourself and your family without touching the investment.
For the company and start-up routes, there is a fifth thing in practice: the company you invest in must be real and have historical activity, and be able to receive your money in the form you have described. Most of our work in Milan happens before anything is filed, with the company’s own lawyers, so that the committee reads a finished deal and not a hope.
How Much Does the Italy Golden Visa Cost?
The cost of the Italy golden visa is the investment itself, from €250,000. You hold it for at least two years, and its value can go up or down. The first mistake in the list below, treating the minimum as a price, is the one that matters most here.
Italy Golden Visa Processing Time: Step by Step
- Apply online. Within 30 days you have an answer.
- Collect your visa. Once approved, you have six months to go to the Italian consulate in your country and collect the visa. The visa is valid for two years, and you can enter Italy at any point in that window.
- Enter Italy. When you enter, two clocks start. Within eight days you apply at the local police headquarters for your residence permit, which is issued for two years. Within three months you must make the investment and be able to prove it. If you miss that deadline, the permit is cancelled. If you sell the investment before two years are up, it is cancelled as well.
- Renew. After two years, the permit is renewed for three more years. You apply 60 days before it expires and show that the investment is still there. That is the whole test.
One piece of advice on dates. The day you first enter Italy is the most important date in the whole process, because the three-month investment clock starts then and because Italian tax residence depends on how many days you spend in the country in a calendar year. We fix that date with our investors, often months in advance, and only when the investment is ready to close. The visa is valid for two years precisely so that you can wait.
Why U.S. and Canadian Investors Choose Italy
You get your answer before you invest. The committee has 30 days to approve you, ask for more documents or refuse. In our files that deadline has been respected. If the answer is no, you have lost some paperwork and nothing else. That alone sets the Italian program apart.
You do not have to live in Italy to keep the Italy golden visa. This is the point people most often misunderstand, so let me be clear. The visa gives you the right to live in Italy. It does not oblige you to. To renew the residence permit, the only thing you have to show is that the investment was made as promised and is still in place. Where you spent the last two years is not part of the test. We have investors who run businesses on other continents and spend a few weeks a year in Italy, and they renew without difficulty. There is one important exception to this, which I explain below: if you want permanent residence or an Italian passport, you do have to live here.
You can work. The permit lets you run a business or work as a professional in Italy from day one. Your spouse and children can join you.
Italy Flat Tax and the Investor Visa
The tax question is separate, and that is a good thing. Italy has a special flat tax for people who move their tax residence to the country: instead of paying Italian tax on income earned abroad, you pay a fixed sum each year, currently €300,000 for anyone who moves from January 1, 2026, plus €50,000 for each family member. It lasts up to fifteen years.
It has nothing to do with the visa. An investor visa holder can choose it or not, and someone who arrives on a different visa can choose it too. Keeping the visa decision and the tax decision apart is the most useful thing a family can do at the planning stage. U.S. citizens remain subject to U.S. tax on worldwide income, so coordinate Italian and U.S. advice before you decide.
Italy Golden Visa and Citizenship
Many people ask whether the investor visa leads to permanent residence and, one day, to an Italian passport. It can. But those are different steps, with different rules, and the difference is simple: to keep the investor visa you do not need to live in Italy; to get permanent residence or citizenship you do.
Permanent residence in Italy, the EU long-term residence permit, requires five years of living here. You can travel, but the law is strict about absences: no single absence of six months or more, and no more than ten months away in total across the five years. You also need a modest income, a suitable home and a basic Italian language test. A family that has spent a few weeks a year in Italy has kept its investor visa and has not built up a single qualifying year towards permanent residence.
Italian citizenship by naturalization takes ten years of legal residence for most non-European citizens, four for EU citizens. Legal residence means being registered as a resident with your local town hall and actually living there, continuously, right up to the day you apply. There is also an Italian language exam. The investor visa makes those years legal; it does not shorten them.
So the honest summary is this. Keep the investment and you keep the visa, wherever you live. Want permanent residence, plan to live in Italy for five years with limited time away. Want the passport, plan for ten years of real, registered residence and learn the language. Families who understand that at the start are the ones who are not disappointed later.
Italy vs Portugal Golden Visa
Among the European golden visa programs, the Portugal golden visa is the one many investors compare with Italy. Both programs now point to roughly ten years for citizenship for most non-EU investors. Portugal’s revised nationality law took effect on May 19, 2026, and raised the residence period from five years to ten, counted from the date your first residence permit is issued. Italy’s naturalization route already required ten years of legal residence.
The difference lies elsewhere. The Italy golden visa gives you a decision within 30 days, asks you to invest only after you have your visa, and does not test your time in Italy when you renew the permit. Our Milan and Lisbon offices compare the two programs side by side for each family.
The Mistakes I See Most Often
- Treating the minimum as a price. The €250,000 or €500,000 is the smallest investment you will hold for at least two years, in something whose value can go up or down. Bonds and donations carry the fewest surprises; start-up shares carry the most. Which of the four you would be comfortable holding without a visa attached is a question for your financial adviser before it is one for me.
- Mixing up the tax clock and the visa clock. The flat tax follows tax residence, which follows days and registration. The visa follows the investment and the police headquarters. Two files, two calendars. Keep them apart and you keep both.
- Assuming the years count. They count for renewing the investor visa. They count for permanent residence and citizenship only if you are actually living in Italy.
- Expecting the house to count. It does not.
After years of seeing the European programs up close, I think the Italian investor visa is one of the more honest ones. It asks for a real investment, it decides before you pay, it tells you the deadlines in advance, it lets you live where you like while you hold it, and it never pretends to be a shortcut to a passport. Its one hard edge is the calendar. For a family that wants Italy for reasons that would still be there without the visa, that is a fair deal, and the numbers say more families are reaching the same conclusion every year.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does the Italy golden visa take?
The committee decides within 30 days. After approval you have six months to collect the visa. Once in Italy, you apply for the residence permit within eight days and make the investment within three months of entry.
Can I buy real estate for the Italy golden visa?
No. The four routes are start-up shares, company shares, a donation to a public project and government bonds.
Do I have to live in Italy to keep the investor visa?
No. Renewal requires proof that the investment is in place. Living in Italy is required only for permanent residence or citizenship.
Can my family join me?
Yes. Your spouse and children can join you.
What is the minimum for the Italy golden visa?
€250,000, invested in an innovative start-up.
Start Your Italy Golden Visa Application
If you are weighing Italy, or Italy against Portugal, our offices in Milan and Lisbon look at the two side by side. Start that conversation at libertylex.com.