The sentence for money laundering in Italy
Italy punishes laundering more heavily than most of the offences that generate the money. The base range starts at four years, which places it above the thresholds governing pre-trial custody and most alternatives to prison.
Provision: Art. 648-bis c.p.
Checked 15/08/2026.
What you are facing in custodial terms
Article 648-bis carries four to twelve years in prison and a fine of €5,000 to €25,000.
A separate, lower range of two to six years and a fine of €2,500 to €12,500 applies where the money or property derives from a summary offence punishable above a defined threshold. That second range was added when Italy implemented the EU laundering directive in 2021, and it exists because the reform widened the range of predicate offences considerably.
The sentence is increased where the offence is committed in the exercise of a profession — the provision targets bankers, accountants, notaries and lawyers with privileged access to the movement of funds. It is reduced where the predicate offence itself carries a maximum below five years.
Your options
At a four-year minimum, the routes that depend on a low ceiling are closed from the start. What remains turns on reducing the sentence rather than avoiding a conviction.
- Trial on the papers removes one third. On a four-year floor that is a meaningful number.
- Attacking the predicate offence. Laundering requires proceeds of a crime. If the predicate collapses, or is shown to carry a maximum below five years, either the offence fails or the reduced range applies.
- Recharacterisation. Whether conduct is laundering, handling stolen goods, or self-laundering is often genuinely arguable, and the three carry different ranges.
Financial exposure
The fine is the smallest part of it. Confiscation of the proceeds does the real damage and can reach assets well beyond the sum said to have been laundered.
Preventive seizure typically arrives at the start of the investigation, before any finding of guilt, and can freeze accounts and property for the duration. Challenging a seizure is a separate proceeding with its own short deadline, and it generally has to run in parallel with the defence of the main charge rather than after it.
Effect on your right to stay in Italy
A sentence in this range sits comfortably within the territory where a conviction supports revocation of a residence permit and removal from Italy.
For a non-EU national the exposure is direct. For an EU national the test is different and higher — removal requires grounds of public security assessed against personal circumstances — but a laundering conviction is precisely the kind of finding on which that assessment turns.
There is a separate professional consequence: a conviction of this kind will normally end authorisation to practise a regulated financial or legal profession in Italy, and may be reportable to a regulator in your home jurisdiction.
Common questions
How many years for money laundering in Italy?
The base range under article 648-bis is four to twelve years in prison plus a fine of €5,000 to €25,000. Where the proceeds derive from a summary offence, the range falls to two to six years with a lower fine.
Provisions relied on
- Art. 648-bis c.p.
- D.lgs. 195/2021 (attuazione dir. UE 2018/1673)
Checked 15/08/2026. Italian sentencing provisions change; if you are reading this long afterwards, ask us to confirm.