No capital contribution
Italy Elective Residence Visa
€32,000 a year of passive income. No investment, no donation, nothing to finance.
Italy for someone living on income they no longer work for. It asks €32,000 a year and no capital — but the permit is renewed ANNUALLY rather than every two or three years, which is the part that decides whether this suits you.
What it asks for
The gate is income, not capital. There is no sum to transfer and nothing to hold for a qualifying period.
Main applicant
€32,000 a year
Spouse or dependent parent
€38,000 a year for a couple, so roughly €6,000 more rather than a percentage
A stated figure rather than an indexed one, and consulates apply it with discretion — several expect meaningfully more than the published minimum before they are satisfied. Treat €32,000 as the floor at which an application becomes possible, not the level at which it becomes likely.
What it actually costs
You must not be out of Italy for six continuous months, and the permit is renewed every year.
The permesso di soggiorno runs twelve months at a time and each renewal asks again for the income, the housing and the insurance. Absence of six continuous months or more breaks the permit. Permanent residence comes at five years and citizenship at ten.
The Italian investor visa asks €250,000 into an innovative start-up and holds it two years. This asks for no capital at all and considerably more of your time — an annual renewal cycle against a two-year investment hold.
Income that counts
- Pension income, state or private
- Dividends from shareholdings
- Rental income from property
- Interest and income from financial investments
- Annuities and trust distributions
Income that does not
- Employment income, from anywhere — the visa is for people who have stopped working
- Self-employment or freelance income
- Income that depends on you continuing to do something for it
Where the income comes from
Consulates apply this route with unusually wide discretion: the same file can succeed in one consulate and fail in another, and several expect income well above the stated €32,000. Combined with an annual renewal, it is the most administratively demanding of the routes on this site despite not asking the most money. Speak to an Italian immigration lawyer about your own consulate before assuming the published figure is the figure.
How long it runs
Entry visa
Issued by the consulate
Applied for where you are resident; discretion is exercised here.
Permesso di soggiorno
1 year
Applied for within eight days of arrival.
Renewal
1 year
Annually, re-evidencing income, housing and insurance each time.
Permanent residency. Eligible after five years of continuous legal residence.
Citizenship. Ten years of legal residence, with a B1 Italian language requirement. Shorter periods apply to those with Italian ancestry or an Italian spouse, which is a separate route from this one and often a faster one where it is available.
Tax
Living in Italy makes you tax resident on worldwide income, and Italy runs two regimes that change what that means. A foreign pensioner who moves to a southern municipality can elect a flat 7% on all foreign-source income for ten years — and Law 34/2026, in force from 7 April 2026, raised the eligible town size from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, which widened the map considerably. Separately, article 24-bis offers a lump-sum substitute tax on foreign income for up to fifteen years; the 2026 Budget Law raised it to €300,000 a year plus €50,000 per family member for anyone transferring residence from 1 January 2026, with earlier entrants grandfathered at €100,000 or €200,000. Which of the two applies, if either, is the largest variable in this route and a question for an Italian tax adviser.
Not for you if
- You intend to keep working in any form — this visa is for people who have stopped
- An annual renewal cycle, each one re-evidencing everything, is more administration than you want
- You need certainty at the application stage, which consular discretion does not give you
- Neither Italian tax regime would apply to you, leaving worldwide income taxed in full
- You would be absent from Italy for six continuous months or more
Better than the investment route when
- You are a foreign pensioner and a southern municipality suits you — 7% for ten years is the case this is built around
- You intend to live in Italy rather than hold a permit you rarely use
- You would rather not put €250,000 into an Italian start-up to get residence
- Italian ancestry might give you a faster route, and this buys time while you establish it
The other way into Italy
€250,000 into an innovative start-up, held for two years, and roughly seven days a year of presence. It is the same country and a different price: capital instead of your time. Which of those you would rather pay is the whole decision.
Italy Investor VisaThe same idea, in 4 other countries
Every one of these asks for income rather than capital, and none of them pays me anything to place it. What differs is how much income, how long you have to be there, and what you get at the end.
Portugal
D7 Visa
€920 a month
You have to live there. This is a residency visa, not a residency permit you visit.
Spain
Non-Lucrative Visa
€2,400 a month
More than 183 days a year, which makes you Spanish tax resident on worldwide income.
Greece
FIP Visa
€3,500 a month
183 days a year, every year. This is not a permit you visit.
Malta
Retirement Programme
€7,500 minimum tax, no minimum income
Ninety days a year on average, which is the lightest presence on this site.
So who manages the money that qualifies you?
This visa does not ask you to invest anything. It asks you to prove €32,000 a year arriving, and to keep proving it — at every renewal, for five years, and then for five more if you want the passport. The capital behind that income has to survive a decade of markets while paying out the whole time, and it has to do it in a currency that may not be the one you are spending.
That is not an immigration question and your lawyer will not answer it. It is the question I am qualified to answer, and the one nobody in this market seems to ask before the application rather than after it.
What a million euros sustains for thirty years
The highest draw each shape sustains with under a one-in-ten chance of running out, after a 1% running cost, with the income rising 3% a year. The first two are within a rounding error of each other. The cautious one costs €9,030 a year, for life — because a portfolio you live on needs growth to replace what leaves, and safety is bought by giving up exactly that.
This route asks for €32,000 a year. On the strongest shape above, that implies capital of roughly €900,000 — comfortably inside what a million euros produces, which is why this test is rarely the binding constraint.
Simulated on returns from 2007 onward, drawing whole historical years at random. One regime, not a forecast — and two limits push the failure rate down, so read it as a floor on the risk rather than a bound.
There is nothing to finance on this route and nothing for me to sell you on the visa itself. If you are weighing it against the investment programme, or wondering whether the income behind it will still be there in year seven, that is what the assessment call is for — $100, 30 minutes, and you leave with a direction rather than a brochure.
Book an assessment call — $100Figures checked 2026-09-22 against secondary sources and correct as published then. Thresholds indexed to a minimum wage change annually, and immigration rules change without notice — confirm against the relevant government body before you commit to anything.