How to Verify a Company in Italy? An Ultimate Guide

Italy is a member of the European Union and has a forward-looking approach to business identity verification. The country is a gateway to a diverse European market that guarantees business growth. Italy is the hub of economic activities. It opens several ways for doing business, including trade, machinery, fashion, textile, pharmaceutical, online gaming, and several other industries. Where Italy offers several opportunities to business owners, vigilant jurisdiction is required to verify a company in Italy.   

Being a member of the European Union, Italy has specific restrictions to verify business as legitimate and comply with local and foreign regulations. In 1978, Italy was recognized as the first country to criminalize money laundering. Also, they introduced its first anti-money laundering AML law in May 1991. Italy is a front-fighter in eliminating financial crimes; therefore, business identity verification is inevitable before doing business there. If you’re a business owner, financial organization, or small business considering how to verify a company in Italy, this three-minute guide will help you understand the challenges in the business verification process and simplify the company verification process.

How to Verify if a Company is Registered in Italy?

A local or foreign business person can investigate the legal status of the company in Italy. Italian Business Register is the public registry that maintains a record of every company registered in this country. The Italian business registry is maintained by the Italian Chamber of Commerce, which plays a significant role in keeping companies’ registers, lists, and records. Each region in Italy has its own Chamber of Commerce, represented by Unioncamere, the Italian Union for Chambers of Commerce. A Chamber issues certificates of incorporation to every company to keep a record of its legal status. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Verify a Company in Italy

• When you open the Italian Business Register site, you can enter the company’s name and select its type, including Corporation and partnership, Sole proprietorship and more, Startup, or All. 

• You can also type the company’s registered name, whether in English or Italian, on both versions of the website. 

• In a few seconds, you get quick results, including the company’s address, email address, and legal type. Additionally, you can pick the show map option to head directly to the company’s address.  The register shows you can access company reports in English, but it is paid.

• On the homepage of the Italian Business Register, there is an option to extract the list of companies in Italy. After clicking on this option, the advanced input parameters appear, including company type and legal form, place, activity, and additional criteria. To get the companies listed in the results, the website requires a log with an authentic user account. 

Challenges to Verify a Company in Italy

When the business person tries to verify a company in Italy on your own, he/she may face several challenges. 

• Website Dual Versions: 

In Italy, the single-parent Italian Company registry website has two domains, one in English (Italian Business Register) and the other in Italian (Registro Imprese). When a user follows the Italian one, it also gives the option to translate it into English. 

• Language Barrier

The public register site is available in English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish, which creates a challenge for you. The website’s language automatically converts into Italian after every search.  In the search bar of the site’s Italian version, the parameters are slightly different than those of the English version. 

• Captcha Error

On both versions of the Italian company register website, you may experience a captcha error, which causes the website to log you out after a while. 

• Paid Documents

The public registry shows the documents, including the Company Report and the Last Annual Account, which are available but paid.

Also Read: How to Verify a Company in Hungary? An Ultimate Guide

How to Verify an Ultimate Beneficial Owner UBO in Italy?

Every jurisdiction has different thresholds for its ultimate beneficial owners when it comes to ownership. In Italy, the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) is a person or group that holds 25% or more of the company’s assets and voting rights. In the public database, the structured UBO information is unavailable, and the UBO Register launched in October 2023 is under suspension. For this reason, the evaluation of the ownership status on your own multiplies the challenge for the business person.

Conducting AML Checks on businesses in Italy

The Italian government is vigilant for anti-money laundering AML regulations on which requirements of the Know Your Business (KYB) depend. To verify a company in Italy, there are two categories of AML checks: one applies to the company, and the other applies to the identities behind that. In the AML screening, the following checks are applied over business and business persons including directors, beneficiaries, and shareholders.

• • Sanctions List Check: The sanction list contains information about identities and companies that are affected by government sanctions. The European Commission maintained its own sanction list containing all individuals, entities, and bodies subject to EU restrictive measures.

• Watchlist Check: It is an official list that contains information about terrorists, money launderers, and criminals. 

• Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) Check: This company check is conducted against the foreign and domestic Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) list. 

• Adverse Media Check: It involves checking the negative news on media databases to identify sanctioned businesses or individuals behind that. 

Also Read: How to Verify a Company in the Netherlands? An Ultimate Guide

Italian Business License and Certificate Verification 

In Italy, the regulatory bodies issue licenses and certificates to businesses depending on their nature and type.  To verify a company in Italy, it is crucial to scrutinize the license and permits of the business so you can make informed decisions.  

• Agenza delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM)

Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) is also known as the Customs and Monopolies Agency.  ADM is a regulatory and supervisory authority that issues a list of certified companies operating in specific sectors under the agency’s jurisdiction, such as tobacco and gaming. It is authorized to impose sanctions in several sectors, including Customs, Energy, Alcohol, Tobacco products, and Public Gaming, where it evaluates and collects duties and taxes. The ADM may issue warnings about companies or individuals involved in fraudulent or illegal activities.

• Banca d’Italia

Banca d’Italia (Bank of Italy) supervises financial institutions, including those involved in fintech, ensuring they comply with national and European regulations. The Bank of Italy occasionally issues warnings about entities that are not authorized to provide financial services in Italy. 

• Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali 

The Ministry of Agricultural, Food, and Forestry Policies (MIPAAF) oversees the agricultural and food sectors, including the wine industry. It is responsible for setting and enforcing standards related to wine production and quality.  

The KYB – Your Partner In Business Success

If you need to verify a company in Italy, you will face the hassle of website dual versions, language barriers, captcha errors, and other license verifications. The challenges multiply when you have to visit several regulatory bodies’ portals to check the legal and financial status of the business in question. To mitigate such challenges, rely on fast and secure middleman service providers like The KYB experts to verify a company in Italy.

The KYB is the unified platform consolidating data from 25+ official data sources to verify a company in Italy. With our real-time data integration, multiple integration methods, including blazing-fast API, and record-keeping, you can find help verifying a company’s legal and financial status. Our accurate business verification solutions in Italy provide turnover, profits, balance sheets, revenue, products, date of incorporation of the company, tax code, VAT number, and a list of all companies. We verify businesses operating in finance, corporate, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, e-commerce, and multiple industries with extensive databases of 300M+ companies covering 250 countries and states.

Trust The KYB and get in touch today to verify that business in Italy will help to grow by staying compliant with international standard regulations.