Greece closed the tourist-visa shortcut into its digital nomad permit

Greece’s digital nomad route now begins at a Greek consulate. Until February 2026, a remote worker who had entered on a Schengen visa or without a visa could apply inside Greece for the residence permit. Law 5275/2026, in force since 6 February, repealed that paragraph of the Migration Code.

Two stages, two documents

Under article 68 of the Migration Code, Law 5038/2023, a consulate grants a national visa, type Ζ.1, for up to 12 months to a third-country national who works remotely for employers or clients outside Greece. The consulate “is obliged” to reply within ten days of the request, and the visa fee is EUR 75.

To stay beyond the visa, the holder applies before it expires for a separate residence permit, type Ι.8. The state’s regional Decentralised Administration “may” grant it for two years, provided the conditions for the visa still apply. Article 68 sets no deadline for that decision.

Applications are filed electronically with the administration for the applicant’s place of residence. The permit fee is EUR 1,000, and minors pay none. Circular 6 of 2024 from the migration ministry calls this title the digital nomads’ residence permit.

Renewal of the permit follows a separate rule. An application is due in the two months before expiry, and since Law 5275/2026 a late one may be filed up to three months after expiry, up from one, with a fine of EUR 100 for each month of delay. The first Ι.8 application is not a renewal and must be filed before the visa expires.

The paragraph that went

Article 12(7) of the Code let a nomad who had entered Greece on a Schengen visa or visa-free apply for the permit while that entry was still valid. The applicant also had to submit a residential lease or a property purchase contract in Greece.

Law 5275/2026 repealed the paragraph. The Code’s general conditions of residence require a valid national entry visa for the purpose of the stay, unless the Code provides otherwise. This means a Vietnamese remote worker now needs the national visa from the consulate before arriving.

The income test

The applicant must show sufficient resources at the level of stable income, set at EUR 3,500 a month and proved by the work contract or a bank account. For salaried work, the Code specifies the amount net of the taxes due in the country where the work is done.

The amount rises by 20% for a spouse or registered partner and by 15% for each child. A joint ministerial decision of 17 September 2024 describes the resources as net income or capital and lets the authority assess a nomad’s income monthly or annually.

The visa application includes a solemn declaration with an undertaking not to provide work, services or a project to any employer based in Greece. The Ι.8 permit gives the holder and family no right to salaried work or independent economic activity of any kind in Greece.

Family

A spouse or registered partner and unmarried children under 18 may apply for individual visas, which expire with the sponsor’s. On the visa they may not take salaried work or carry on economic activity of any kind in Greece. The Ι.8 permit may also be granted to family members, in individual permits that expire with the holder’s.

Applying from Vietnam

The Code lets an applicant file in person, by e-mail or by registered letter with the competent Greek consular authority. For applicants in Vietnam, the foreign ministry’s visa page says national-visa applications go to the Consular Office of the Greek Embassy in Hanoi, by appointment. That page is undated and still cites the 2014 migration law that the Code replaced.

Ho Chi Minh City has only an honorary consulate on the ministry’s list of missions. Two ministry pages give different street numbers on Âu Cơ Street for the Consular Office, 411 and 27-29.

Greece is not among the three states, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, that objected to Vietnam’s accession to the Apostille Convention, which took effect for Vietnam on 11 September 2026. This indicates that Vietnamese public documents bearing an Apostille fall under the Convention in Greece from that date.

Tax residence and citizenship

A person whose permanent or principal home, habitual abode or centre of vital interests is in Greece is a Greek tax resident. So is a person present for more than 183 days in aggregate in any 12 months, from the first day, under Law 4646/2019. That rule does not apply to people in Greece exclusively for tourist, medical, therapeutic or similar private purposes for up to 365 days.

The Income Tax Code, in its 2013 text, treats employment income “provided in Greece” as Greek-source income.

Greece’s 50% income-tax relief for people who transfer their tax residence to Greece, restated in Law 5222/2025, covers employment income and, by analogy, income from an individual business in Greece. For employment income it applies only if four conditions are met together, one being employment with a Greek legal entity or a Greek permanent establishment of a foreign business.

The nomad route, by contrast, requires an undertaking not to provide work, services or a project to an employer based in Greece, and the Ι.8 permit gives no right to salaried work or independent economic activity there.

The government’s services portal lists the residence titles that qualify for the seven-year route to citizenship, and Ι.8 is not among them. For holders of any other valid title it requires 12 continuous years of lawful residence. This indicates that years on an Ι.8 permit fall under the 12-year rule.

What this article has not established

How long Ι.8 decisions take in practice was not established.

How long a nomad’s renewal lasts was not established. The Code gives two years for the nomad permit and three years, renewable, for the general Ι.8.

The texts read did not settle whether years on an Ι.8 permit count toward EU long-term residence. Article 143 of the Code excludes holders of a temporary residence status from the long-term residence chapter, without saying whether Ι.8 is one.

The documents the Ζ.1 visa requires beyond those in article 68(2), and whether any needs an Apostille, were not established, because the Code leaves the general documents to a separate decision that was not read.

No Greek page read confirms how missions and immigration offices apply the Apostille Convention to Vietnamese documents.

Neither street number given for the Consular Office in Hanoi, 411 or 27-29 Âu Cơ Street, was confirmed as current.

It was not established whether Greek tax law treats a remote worker’s salary as Greek-source income, or whether later amendments changed the 2013 wording.

Nor was it established whether the tourist and medical exception to the 183-day rule can cover a remote worker.

No official consolidated text of the Code was found. The provisions cited for the nomad route (articles 68, 163(8) and 171) are read from the 2023 gazette, and neither of the two 2026 amending laws read touches them.