Italy golden visa for startups investing €500K

Italy launched its golden visa scheme in Dec 2017, as a part of its 2017 Budget law.

Foreign entrepreneurs who invest 500,000 euros in innovative italian startups qualify for two year residence permit to live and work in Italy.

Italy Startup Visa (ISV)

Italy’s startup visa (ISV) scheme was inspired by one of the proposals of the “Destinazione Italia” plan, a national strategy launched by the Italian Government in late 2013 to attract foreign investment and enhance the competitiveness of Italian companies.

The Startup visa scheme facilitates the visa issue procedure for highly qualified non-EU entrepreneurs who intend to start an innovative startup in Italy.

Eligible conditions

An innovative startup is a limited company, unlisted, which fulfils the following requirements:

a)  it is newly incorporated, or it has been operational for less than 5 years;
b)  it has its headquarters in Italy or in another EU/EEA country, provided it has at least a production unit or a branch in Italy;
c)  it has an annual turnover lower than €5 million;
d)  it does not distribute profits, nor it did so in the past;
e)  it has as exclusive or prevalent corporate purpose – as stated in the deeds of  Lisbon Council, 2016 Guidelines to the Italia Startup Visa programme 20/03/2018
incorporation – the production, development and marketing of innovative goods or services of high technological value;

f)  it is not the result of a merger, split-up or selling-off of a company or branch;
g)  lastly, its innovative character is identified by at least one of the following criteria:

• at least 15% of the greater value between annual costs and turnover can be attributed to R&D activities;
•  at least 1/3 of the total workforce are PhD students, holders of a PhD or researchers; or, alternatively, 2/3 of the total workforce must hold a Master’s degree;
•   the enterprise is the holder, depositary or licensee of a registered patent (industrial property), or the owner and author of an original registered software.

h) Personal finances must have 100,000 euros or more.

Residence permit

Nationals of non-EU member states or Schengen area countries may apply for the startup investor visa.

The two-year residence permit, renewable for further three-year periods (leg. decree 286/1998, art. 26-bis, par. 5) and issued to investor visa holders after they arrive in Italy.

The conditions for issue and maintenance of the permit are:

•  the investment or donation declared in the visa application must be made within three months of the date of entry into Italy;
•  the original investment must be maintained for the entire permit validity period.

If one of these two conditions is not satisfied, the investor residence permit may be revoked, even before the envisaged expiry date, and renewal is not permitted.

Special tax regime

The 2017 Budget Law contains numerous other incentive measures, primarily fiscal in nature and specifically for individuals who intend to move to Italy. For example, an investor visa holder can opt for a special tax regime for new residents. Pursuant to the new art. 24-bis of the Income Tax Laws Consolidation Act (“TUIR”, DPR 917/1986), individuals who transfer their tax residence to Italy may opt to pay an annual substitute tax of € 100,000 on income produced abroad, if they have not been tax- resident in Italy for at least nine taxation periods over the previous ten years. If this option is extended to family members, the annual substitute tax is € 25,000 per family member. The maximum duration of the scheme is 15 years.

Startups in Italy

• Italian newly-launched companies recognised as innovative startups were 7,398 on 30 June 2017 almost double the number compared with two years before
• 151 non-EU citizens (about 252 applicants from 34 countries) have obtained a self-employment visa through the Italia Startup Visa programme, in order to launch their innovative business in Italy.
• Innovative startups received over €477 million in bank credit in the last 3.5 years
• Innovative startups and SMEs raised around 12.5 million euros in 109 equity crowdfunding campaigns, more than half of which (59) were launched over the past 12 months.
• The total workforce employed by innovative startups and SMEs totalled 46,107 people, considering both shareholders and employees.

 

Official websites