Visa certificates: what is different
Passport details, the embassy or consulate, and stating the amount in a foreign currency.
A visa certificate collects the same assets and liabilities as any net worth certificate, and says something quite specific about them. It is drafted to the ICAI Handbook on Certificates by Chartered Accountants (October 2025), Annexure III(ii) — "Certificate on Net worth where no books of account have been maintained (For VISA Application purpose)".
When to use it
When the certificate is going to an embassy, consulate or high commission in support of a visa application, and the individual keeps no books of account — which is the ordinary position for a salaried or retired applicant.
What it actually says
Nothing positively. It concludes that nothing has come to your attention to make you believe the Statement disagrees with the documents you examined. That is a limited-assurance conclusion, stated negatively, and it is the whole of the assertion.
Warning
This certificate does not say the net worth is correct. It says the Statement the individual prepared agrees with the deeds, statements and demat holdings you asked for. The difference matters if it is ever questioned.
The nine procedures
The format prints nine procedures, lettered a) to i), and the Conclusion refers back to them by paragraph number. They are not optional garnish — a negative conclusion resting on no stated work tells a consular officer nothing.
They name what you obtained for each category: original deeds or a valuation report for property, invoices and bank statements for vehicles, bank statements for balances, the depository's demat statement for shares and mutual funds, a valuation report for jewellery, loan statements and credit-card statements for liabilities, confirmations from the parties to any loan, and inquiries of the individual.
Note
OptiVida prints all nine, always. They describe the work the format assumes you did, so removing one would misdescribe the engagement rather than shorten it.
What is different in the form
Only Basic Information changes from a general-purpose net worth certificate:
- Date of the Individual's Request Letter
III(ii) opens with the individual's own request — "… vide letter dated …" — not with an engagement letter. There is no engagement date to enter, because the format never mentions one.
- Type of Visa
Paragraph 1 names it: "for submission to … in connection with …". Phrase it to follow that sentence, e.g. "a Schengen short-stay visa".
- Passport NumberOn each individual
A mission identifies the applicant by passport, not PAN.
- Embassy / Consulate Name
The mission the certificate is addressed to.
- Embassy Address
- Foreign Currency
- USD, CAD, EUR, GBP or AUD. Optional.
- Exchange Rate
The rate you certify at. Required if you set a currency.
Steps 2 to 6 — assets, liabilities, review — are exactly as documented for a net worth certificate.
The enclosed Statement
The certificate encloses one table in the handbook's own categories, with its six columns: S. No., Particulars, Identification details, Cost, Market Value / Value considered for Net-worth, and Basis of valuation.
Your assets are folded into the handbook's five lines — Immovable Property, Movable Property, Bank Balances, Investments, Other Assets — and your liabilities into its three: Loans, Credit Card Balances, Other Liabilities. Anything you entered with a Loan Type of Credit Card lands on the second line; Other on the third.
Basis of valuation is filled in for you, and it is not invented: each line states the evidence the format's own procedure prescribes for that category, so the Statement and the procedures cannot drift apart.
Why Cost shows a dash
OptiVida collects market values, not historical cost. The handbook's cost column is contextual — the net worth is struck from the "Value considered for Net-worth" column — so it prints a dash rather than a figure you never gave. You can type one in the editor before exporting.
The itemised schedules still print beneath the Statement. The handbook's "Identification details" column cannot hold twelve bank accounts, and the annexures are how that column is honoured at scale.
Stating a foreign-currency total
Set a currency and a rate and the certificate states the total in both rupees and that currency, naming the rate applied.
Warning
The rate is yours, and it appears on the certificate as your figure. OptiVida applies precisely what you type — it does not look up a market rate, and it will not notice a rate that is stale or a decimal point in the wrong place.
Leave both blank if the mission has not asked for a converted figure. Rupees only is perfectly normal.
Several applicants on one certificate
The Individuals list takes more than one. A family applying together is usually one certificate naming each applicant with their own passport number, and a single combined net worth.
Check what the mission has asked for. Some want a separate certificate per applicant.
Note
A client record stores a passport number, so selecting an existing client fills it in. It is worth adding it to the client the first time rather than retyping it on every visa certificate.
Last updated 22 Sept 2026
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