If you are considering the Italian Investor Visa, there is one step in the process that causes more confusion and delays than almost any other. It is called the GILI certification. For many applicants, it becomes one of the most misunderstood steps in the entire Investor Visa process.
In practice, the biggest bottleneck in many Investor Visa applications is not the Italian government. It is the financial institution holding the investor’s funds.
What the GILI Certification Actually Is:
As part of the Investor Visa application, applicants must submit a certification issued by the financial institution holding their funds. This letter must confirm several key elements:
• that the account or financial instruments belong to the applicant
• that the funds are available and transferable to Italy
• that the funds derive from lawful sources
Most importantly, the financial institution must declare that it has carried out adequate checks on the client in accordance with international anti money laundering standards aligned with FATF guidance.
This is not simply a bank reference letter. It is a formal compliance attestation. And that requirement is where the difficulty begins.
Why Banks Often Refuse to Sign:
Many financial institutions are either unwilling or unable to sign the certification required for the Investor Visa program. Even when the client has held an account for many years, compliance departments frequently refuse because:
• the wording does not match their internal regulatory templates
• the bank does not want to certify AML procedures in the context of an immigration program
• compliance departments generally will not modify formal certification language for individual clients
Over and over again we see the same situation.
Clients approach the process confident that their bank will sign the required letter. They may have been a client for many years and often have a strong relationship with their banker.
In practice, that assumption rarely holds. In almost every case, the bank ultimately refuses to sign the certification, or more commonly, the bank offers to issue a letter but changes the wording to match its internal policies.
Unfortunately, once the wording is modified, the letter is often rejected by the Investor Visa Committee because it no longer matches the required declaration.
This is why the GILI certification frequently becomes one of the most significant bottlenecks in the entire Investor Visa process. The issue is rarely the legitimacy of the funds. The issue is the compliance language.
The Three Month Provenance Rule:
The official policy guidance for the Italian Investor Visa program also includes an important provision relating to the origin of funds.
If the funds have been held at the same financial institution for the previous three months, the bank declaration itself is generally considered sufficient evidence of the lawful origin of the funds. If the funds have not been held there for that period, additional documentation must be provided to demonstrate their source.
This rule often becomes relevant when funds have recently been liquidated from investments, transferred between institutions, or moved internationally.
Why Many Italian Banks Effectively Require 90 Days:
Although the Investor Visa rules themselves do not impose a mandatory waiting period, Italian banks will not issue the certification immediately after opening a new account.
Instead, they typically want to see:
• a completed onboarding process
• internal anti money laundering reviews completed
• a clear record of the funds in the account
In practice, this means waiting 90 days after the funds arrive in the account, unless there is a clearly documented liquidity event explaining the origin of the funds.
This is not written in the Investor Visa regulations. It is simply how many banks manage their compliance risk before signing a declaration of this type.
Reality Check:
Many investors approach the Investor Visa process confident that their bank will sign the required certification. They may have been a client for years, sometimes decades, and often assume their relationship with the institution will make the process straightforward.
In reality, the decision does not sit with the relationship manager. It sits with the bank’s compliance department, which operates under strict internal policies and generally will not alter formal certification language for an immigration process.
Again and again we see applicants spend weeks trying to obtain the letter from their existing bank, only to discover that the institution is either unwilling or unable to issue the required certification.
By that point, valuable time has often already been lost.
The Two Practical Ways Applicants Solve This:
In practice, there are two workable solutions.
Opening an Italian Bank Account with a Bank That Can Issue the Certification
Not every Italian bank has the internal capacity or willingness to produce the GILI certification. Some institutions handle these requests regularly, while others simply do not have the capacity to issue the certification. Working with a bank that is familiar with the Investor Visa process can often provide the most straightforward path to obtaining the required declaration.
Using a Specialized UK Based Financial Institution
There is currently one UK based online provider that is known for issuing certifications that meet the program’s requirements. Applicants sometimes use this route when their domestic financial institution refuses to cooperate. However, most UK banks do not offer this certification either, so this solution depends on a very specific provider rather than the UK banking system generally.
Why the Certification Strategy Should Come First:
One of the most common mistakes applicants make is treating the GILI certification as a formality that can be handled later in the process.
In reality, it should be one of the first strategic decisions in the Investor Visa application. The challenge is usually not proving that the funds are legitimate. The challenge is finding a financial institution that is willing and able to sign the required compliance declaration.
For that reason, it is often wise to confirm the certification pathway before beginning the application or moving funds between institutions. When this step is addressed early, the rest of the Investor Visa process tends to move far more smoothly.





