- Minimum amount €50,000 — set by law, not by your turnover
- Minimum duration 36 months, with no renewal due when the term ends
- A surety bond (polizza fideiussoria) instead of cash tied up in a bank
- Filed with the competent provincial office of Agenzia delle Entrate
- Required only of non-EU and non-EEA companies using a fiscal representative
Who has to provide it
The guarantee applies to businesses established outside the European Union and outside the European Economic Area that hold an Italian VAT number through a fiscal representative and want to be included in — or stay in — the VIES register.
It does not apply to every foreign company. EU and EEA businesses follow a different route and are not subject to it. Nor is it triggered by turnover: the requirement follows from where your company is established and how it is registered in Italy, not from how much you sell.
The requirement took effect on 14 April 2025. Companies already in VIES at that date had sixty days — until 13 June 2025 — to file, and those who did not were put through an exclusion procedure. New applicants have had to meet it from the outset.
What the law asks for
- Amount — a minimum insured value of €50,000. It is a floor fixed by law. An insurer may price the premium against your profile, but the guaranteed amount does not scale with revenue.
- Duration — at least 36 months from the date it is delivered to the Revenue Agency. It does not have to be renewed when that term expires.
- Accepted forms — a deposit of government securities, a bank guarantee, or a surety bond (polizza fideiussoria) issued by an authorised insurer.
- Filed with — the provincial office of Agenzia delle Entrate covering your fiscal representative’s tax domicile.
Cash deposit or surety bond
All three forms satisfy the requirement equally. They differ in what they cost you while they run.
A deposit locks €50,000 of your own capital for three years. A surety bond is issued by an insurer against a premium, leaving that capital in your business. For a seller funding inventory ahead of a European launch, that difference is the whole point: the compliance outcome is identical, the working capital is not.
We arrange the surety route, prepare the filing and submit it on your behalf. Where a client prefers a bank guarantee or a securities deposit, that works too — the choice is yours, and we file whichever you pick.
From application to active VIES
- Eligibility review — we confirm whether the requirement applies to you at all, which depends on your place of establishment and on how you are registered in Italy.
- Documents and underwriting — corporate documents and KYC are collected once, then used for both the guarantee and the VAT file.
- Guarantee issued and filed — the guarantee is issued in your name and delivered to the competent provincial office of Agenzia delle Entrate.
- VIES activation — we follow the application through and tell you as soon as your number is valid for intra-community transactions.
The Revenue Agency’s own review time is not something any provider controls. What we can do is file a complete case, track each step, and come back to you promptly when the office asks for more.
What the guarantee does not do
VIES activation makes your Italian VAT number valid for intra-community transactions. It does not, on its own, clear you to trade everywhere in Europe without further registrations.
Whether you also need to register in another member state depends on the physical facts of your supply chain — where stock is held, where goods are imported, where they move between warehouses — and on whether your B2C sales can be declared through the OSS scheme or have to be reported locally. Amazon’s Pan-European FBA is the common case where stock crosses borders and additional registrations follow. We assess the real movement of goods before recommending a structure.
Legal basis
The requirement was introduced by Decreto Legislativo 13/2024, which added paragraph 7-quater to Article 35 of D.P.R. 633/1972. The criteria were set by the Ministry of Economy and Finance decree of 4 December 2024, and the operational rules by the Agenzia delle Entrate’s Provvedimento n. 178713 of 14 April 2025.
For the wider picture — how VIES works across the EU and why national rules differ — see our guide to VIES for non-EU companies. For the Italian procedure step by step, see how to register for Italian VAT and VIES.
To learn more about our compliance, visit italy4vat.com.
Non-EU Amazon FBA sellers moving inventory between EU warehouses, non-EU B2B exporters supplying Italian customers, and any non-EU business that needs an Italian VAT number activated for intra-community transactions.
The guarantee is one step inside a single accountable process. The firm that arranges it is also your fiscal representative, so eligibility, documents, filing and VIES activation are handled by one team answering to the same Revenue Agency office.
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