Golden Investor Visa Italy: Why choose Italy

By introducing a visa for individuals who intend to make significant investments in strategic areas for the Italian economy and society – in accordance with the international best practices in the field – the Italian Government reaffirms its commitment to making Italy increasingly attractive to international flows of human and financial capital. This objective has been pursued since 2014, with the introduction of the Italia Startup Visa, aimed at facilitating the visa issue procedure for highly qualified non-EU entrepreneurs who intend to launch an innovative startup in Italy. It was confirmed by the introduction of the National Plan“Industria 4.0” (booklet) in 2016, which earmarked € 18 billion to encourage productive investments, particularly in research, development and innovation.

Investor Visa for Italy applies and improves all the innovations introduced by the now well- established startup visa (monitoring reports). Like the Italia Startup Visa program, it is intended to significantly simplify the procedure to issue entry visas, by embracing three main distinctive principles:

• Centralisation: although the procedure involves a number of administrations, there is a single contact point between the applicant and the Italian State. A dedicated inter- institutional committee is in charge of the main coordination operations; its Secretariat, set up at the Ministry of Economic Development, has the task of managing all communications with visa applicants.

• Digitisation: the entire procedure is carried out on line, through a dedicated IT platform, used for all communications between the visa applicant and the administration. As a result, applicants can manage the entire procedure remotely and without the need for intermediaries until the issue of the visa, which takes place in person at the Embassy or Consulate responsible for the area of residence of the applicant.
• Speed: the applicant is notified of the outcome of his/her visa application within 30 days of sending the complete documentation. As a result, the time required for the entire migration process is significantly reduced.

The Italian Government has devised the Investor Visa for Italy as a form of both a reward and an incentive.

The visa is only issued in circumstances that can be defined, for various reasons, as of public interest. These may be a large investment in medium/long-term Government bonds, equity financing to an Italian limited company – with particular focus on new high-tech enterprises (i.e. the innovative startups referred to in decree-law no. 179/2012) – or a philanthropic donation in key areas for the present and future of Italy: culture, research, protection of the environment, management of migratory flows.

Secondly, by significantly streamlining the entry visa procedure, the Investor Visa for Italy programme appears to be in line with recent body of legislation to strengthen the competitiveness and the attractiveness of the Italian productive fabric.