The coating liquid for forming porous silica according to the present invention is characterized by preferably containing a partial hydrolysis-condensation product of an alkoxysilane compound, a surfactant and an organic ampholyte, and by having a metal content of not more than 50 ppb. Conventional coating liquids for forming porous silica have such a problem that porous silica films formed therefrom may have poor regularity in micropore alignment when the shelf life of the coating liquids are long. On the contrary, the coating liquid for forming porous silica of the present invention is excellent in self-life stability. Namely, the quality of porous silica formed therefrom is hardly affected by the length of self-life period of the coating liquid. Consequently, the coating liquid is expected to contribute to the stable preparation of porous silica films which cause no shift in capacitance or voltage when exposed to an electric field, have regularly aligned uniform micropores, and are preferably used as an optically functional material or an electronically functional material.