The Investor Visa for Italy, often called the “Dolce Visa,” received 279 applications between January 1 and October 13, 2026, more than in any previous full year. Its year-to-date total passed 2025’s 229 applications in August.
Investors filed 340 applications in the 12 months to September 2026, 2.7 times the 125 filed in 2024.
Italy’s Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT) released the figures in response to a freedom of information request from the Italian Investment Alliance (IIA), which lobbies for measures to attract foreign capital and talent.
MIMIT’s dataset, which the IIA shared with IMI, covers every month since February 2018 and breaks applications down by nationality, investment route, and province.
In January 2022, the ministry’s first statistical report on the program broke down its first 64 applications by nationality, investment route, and region. The figures IMI reported in December 2025 gave annual totals only.
“I obtained this information directly from the ministry in my role as president of the association,” said Dario Montagnese, President of the IIA and Founder and CEO of Ariete Capital. “We have the data from the beginning of the program until October 2026, so it is very fresh.”
Investors have filed 899 applications since 2018. Annual volumes were in single digits until 2021, the first full year after the government’s May 2020 Relaunch Decree (Decreto Rilancio) halved the minimum investment for two of the program’s four routes.
“The program is in constant growth,” Montagnese said. “Since 2020, when the government cut the required investment in half, the number of applications has increased every year.”
Applications rose from 39 in 2021 to 117 in 2023, and growth slowed to 7% in 2024. Volumes then climbed from 125 to 229 in 2025, an increase of 83%, with Americans accounting for 59 of the 104 additional applications.
Between January and September 2026, investors filed 272 applications, 69% more than in the same months of 2025. Including October’s first 13 days, the program has received 508 applications since January 2025, more than the 391 filed from 2018 through 2024 combined.
Approvals
The program’s committee, which receives applications through the ministry’s online platform, has issued 782 certificates of no impediment (nulla osta) since 2018, equal to 87% of the 899 applications filed.
MIMIT did not break down the remaining 117 applications, which would include refusals as well as files withdrawn or awaiting a decision.
A nulla osta allows the applicant to request an investor visa at an Italian consulate. Investors then receive a two-year residence permit, renewable in three-year periods for as long as they maintain the investment, and the program sets no minimum time in Italy.
Monthly pace
Applications averaged 30 a month between January and September 2026, against 19 a month in 2025 and 10 in 2024.
May 2026 set the program’s monthly record, with 41 applications. Before this year, no month had exceeded the 28 applications filed in February 2025, and five months of 2026 have now surpassed that figure.
For 23 consecutive months, from November 2024 to September 2026, each month drew more applications than the same month a year earlier.
Year-on-year growth has slowed since the spring: Compared with the same quarter of 2025, applications rose 67% in the first quarter of 2026 and 104% in the second, then 40% in the third.
October’s figure covers only the first 13 days of the month, during which investors filed seven applications. At that pace, October would close with about 17 applications, short of the 25 filed in October 2025, and end the 23-month streak.
November and December were the two busiest months of 2024, and the fourth quarter accounted for 34% of that year’s applications and 30% of 2025’s.
Extrapolating the January to September monthly average gives about 363 applications for 2026. Reaching that figure would require 74 applications in November and December if October closes at about 17, against 43 in the same months of 2025.
American majority
Americans filed 160 of the 279 applications in 2026. The US share has risen from 34% in 2024 to 44% in 2025 and 57% this year.
This year’s 160 American applications eclipse the 125 that all nationalities combined filed in 2024, as well as the 92 that US citizens filed in all the years before 2025.
British applicants form the second-largest group, with 172 applications since 2018. Their numbers have plateaued at 36 in 2024, 49 in 2025, and 39 so far this year.
Since 2018, Americans have filed 39% of all applications, and Americans and Britons together 58%.
Turkey has moved into third place for 2026, rising from one application in 2024 to 17.
Together, applicants from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia filed 76% of this year’s applications.
Russians formed the largest group in 2022, with 36 of 92 applications, before Italy suspended the investor visa for Russian and Belarusian nationals in the summer of 2023. MIMIT’s data record one application from a Russian national in 2026, without showing how the ministry handled it.
Applicants have come from 48 countries and territories since 2018, and nine applications came from citizens of Caribbean and Pacific states with citizenship by investment programs: Saint Kitts and Nevis (four), Antigua and Barbuda (two), and Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu (one each). Nothing in the data shows how those applicants acquired their citizenship.
Investment routes
The company route, now set at €500,000 (approximately US$558,000), accounts for 703 of the 899 applications, nearly four in five. Its share fell from 85% in 2025 to 68% in 2026 as more investors chose the innovative startup route.
Company-route applications reached 191 by October 13, three fewer than in all of 2025.
Applications for the startup route, now set at €250,000 (approximately US$279,000), reached 79 by October 13, against 32 in all of 2025 and 50 between 2018 and 2024 combined. That doubled the route’s share of applications, from 14% to 28%.
Montagnese attributes part of that growth to the arrival of more investment products designed around the program’s requirements.
Only 32 applicants have opted for the €2 million (approximately US$2.2 million) government bond route since 2018, and three for the €1 million (approximately US$1.1 million) philanthropic donation.
Listed shares
“Most investors choose the €500,000 option, and in practice they buy shares of the largest Italian companies on the stock market,” Montagnese said. “It is the most liquid option, and it is just a stock market transaction that brings nothing new to Italy in terms of investment.”
MIMIT’s figures do not distinguish listed from unlisted companies or record the amounts invested. The IIA estimates that investors have put about €395 million (US$441 million) into Italy through the program since 2018, including about €216 million in listed shares.
According to Montagnese, the IIA has asked the government, in a proposal to amend the law, to remove the listed-share option and to allow investors to obtain permanent residence without physical presence in Italy.
“We are doing a study of the economic impact with an Italian university,” Montagnese said. “Its purpose is to make clear that if we take out that option, there will be a very large impact on the Italian economy, because much more investment will go into companies that create jobs and invest in Italy.”
Destination provinces
The data also record the province each applicant elected as Italian domicile.
This year, Milan drew 143 applications, 51% of the 2026 total, up from 36% in 2025. Rome’s share has fallen from 26% of applications in 2021 to 3% so far in 2026, with 16 applications in 2024, 14 in 2025, and nine by October 13.
Florence follows Milan with 95 applications, and five Tuscan provinces (Florence, Lucca, Siena, Arezzo, and Pisa) together account for 175, or 19%. Counting Milan and Como, Lombardy has drawn at least 394, so Lombardy and Tuscany together account for at least 63% of all applications. Both figures are minimums, because MIMIT lists only the 15 most popular provinces.
Most of these investors do not live in Italy, according to Montagnese. Each gives biometric data for the residence permit at the police headquarters (questura) of the province they chose.
“If the questura in that province is not well equipped, it can slow down your process,” Montagnese said.
