Greece Golden Visa

Under Circular 9 of 24 September 2024, which instructs on the application of Article 100 of Law 5038/2023 as amended by Article 64(1) of Law 5100/2024, the threshold varies by area.

The higher tier covers the Attica Region, the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki in the Central Macedonia Region, the Regional Units of Mykonos and Thira in the South Aegean Region, and islands whose population at the most recent census exceeds 3,100.

There the minimum acquisition value at the time of acquisition, and the total contractual rent, are set at EUR 800,000.

The circular states expressly that Euboea counts as an island area and falls under the EUR 800,000 figure. For the remaining regions of the country the figure is EUR 400,000.

Two new constraints bite harder than the threshold itself. The first is that the minimum investment value must sit in a single property, a rule now extended to every case.

The second is that for built property, or property for which a building permit has been issued, the main spaces must measure at least 120 square metres; this restriction does not apply to unbuilt land or to property for which no building permit has been issued

The outcome is a permanent residence permit for investors, coded Β.5, granted under Article 100 of Law 5038/2023 as amended by paragraph 1 of Article 64 of Law 5100/2024. Two features shape it.

First, the minimum investment must sit in a single property — a restriction now extended to every case rather than some.

The notion of one property may take in a storage room and parking spaces, but only where three conditions hold together:

They are bought under the same sale contract, they sit in the same building, and they are ancillary spaces; their price counts toward the total investment but does not count toward the 120 square metres of main space required where that minimum applies.

Second, and this is the rarer constraint: property acquired in full ownership by a third-country national for the initial grant or the renewal of an investor permit is forbidden to be let short-term within the sharing economy, and forbidden to be sub-let.

The prohibition reaches only short-term letting under Article 111 of Law 4446/2016, that is a contract of less than sixty days providing no services beyond accommodation and bed linen; long-term letting to tourism businesses with further services provided is not caught.

What is worth keeping here is the reach of the ban rather than its sanction: because the ban touches only short-term letting as defined above, it does not close off long-term letting, including to a tourism business that supplies further services.

The full set of three prohibitions under Article 100(7A), and the sanctions attached to them, sit in the residence-condition cell of this table.

A EUR 250,000 route exists but it is tied to two hard dates.

That route is the purchase of property whose main spaces change use to residence, and the change of use must be completed before the application for the permit is submitted, and must itself have been completed after 5 April 2024, the date Article 64 of Law 5100/2024 entered into force.

The change of use may be carried out by either the buyer or the seller.

The same EUR 250,000 figure also covers property consisting of a listed building to be restored or reconstructed.

That limb carries an obligation reaching beyond the grant: an additional condition for the first renewal of the permit is the completion of the full restoration or total reconstruction, and any transfer of that property before the restoration or reconstruction is complete is void

Article 64 of Law 5100/2024 adds paragraph 7A to Article 100 of the Migration Code, setting three prohibitions on how the asset may be used.

First, property acquired in full ownership and possession by third country nationals for the initial grant or the renewal of an investor residence permit is prohibited from short-term letting within the sharing economy as defined in Article 111 of Law 4446/2016.

Second, that same property may not be sub-let.

Third, property bought under the change-of-use route in Article 100(2)(c) may not be used as the seat or a branch of a business.

Breach of any of these, as well as breach of the ban on transferring a listed building before its restoration is complete, carries sanctions: revocation or non-renewal of the residence permit, and administrative fines

Article 95(2) of the Migration Code allows a holder of a permit under articles 96 to 100, which includes the real-estate route in article 100, to be accompanied by family members, who receive family reunification residence permits expiring at the same time as the sponsor permit.

The opening words of the provision are a derogation from article 84(1), meaning this route need not wait out the minimum residence period before sponsoring.

Four classes: the spouse, or the partner with whom a cohabitation agreement has been concluded, so an unmarried partner is recognised; unmarried common children of the spouses or partners under 21.

Unmarried children under 21 of either party alone, provided custody has been lawfully assigned; and the direct ascendants of both spouses or partners, meaning parents and grandparents.

The provision sets no age limit and no financial dependency test for the last class, and does not require a child to be in education.

Siblings are absent. A child turning 21 receives an independent three-year residence permit, the only obligation being to surrender the earlier reunification permit.

The Code states no additional financial threshold per dependant; fees are set by ministerial decision under the delegation in article 176.

One point for cross-checking: the English Golden Visa page of the Ministry still cites Law 4251 of 2014, the former statute, so the correct source is the text of the Migration Code, Law 5038 of 2023, itself.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Greece passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Greece passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Greece passport reaches 200 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The entire investment part of the Migration Code, Articles 95 to 100, contains no tax provision — no concession, no threshold, no separate obligation. The programme has no tax regime of its own.

The only place in the whole statute where a tax advantage attaches to a person is in the equal-treatment provisions for seasonal workers, the EU Blue Card and mobile workers.

That sentence carries a condition worth reading closely: they enjoy the tax advantages, on condition that the worker is considered to have tax residence in Greek territory — the advantage attaches to tax residence as determined by tax law, not to the permit.

This record category is not among those provisions. The category itself: Article 100, headed investment in immovable property, permanent residence permit for investors, type Β.5, issued by the Secretary General of the Decentralised Administration, valid for five years and renewable.

The thresholds as enacted divide the territory into two bands, in EUR:

The price must be paid in full before the application is filed; and co-owners acquire residence rights only where they are spouses or partners under a cohabitation agreement, failing which each share must meet the threshold on its own.

One feature of this category bears directly on the tax question even though the statute does not say so: Article 95(1) provides that for holders of type Β investment permits, periods of absence from Greece are not a ground precluding renewal.

So the category imposes no minimum presence and does not push its holder across any day-count threshold.

On documentary duties, the statute defines proof of tax obligations as a copy of the assessment notice for the previous year return, or a copy of the return filed where the renewal year is the first filing year. Two limits of this cell must be recorded.

First, the lump-sum regime for new tax residents in Article 5A of the Income Tax Code has not been verified at the official source of the Greek tax authority, so this cell does not cite it.

Second, the file read is the original gazette of 1 April 2023 rather than a consolidated text, so the thresholds above are the figures as enacted; if amending legislation has passed since 2023 it must be checked at source before use.

Read this cell within its scope: the statute governs residence conditions and not the computation of tax; it does not say this permit creates Greek tax residence, does not exempt anything, and cites no lump-sum regime

The ministry page carries two documentation lists rather than one: one for the initial application and one for renewal. Reading them as a single list is the easiest mistake to make here, because they differ at exactly the figure a reader needs.

Two fees appear in both lists, and they are different in kind. The first is 16 euro, and the page states plainly that it covers the printing of the separate document, that is the electronic residence permit — a card-printing charge rather than an assessment fee.

The second is an electronic fee under Article 132 of Law 4251/2014 and Article 38 of Law 4546/2018, and on both occasions the page qualifies it with the words where appropriate.

Where the two lists part company is the point to read closely: the figure of 2,000 euro appears only in the renewal list; in the initial list the same provision is cited with no figure attached.

So 2,000 euro cannot be taken as the price of a first application — the published page declines to say so. The distance between the two charges is worth holding as well: 2,000 euro is 125 times the 16 euro charge, a difference of 1,984 euro.

Three further obligations sit in those same two lists, each of which costs money and none of which the page prices. The first is an insurance contract from a private insurance body covering all health and safety risks, and it appears in the initial file and the renewal file alike, so it is a recurring cost.

The second is four recent printed digital passport photographs, which must also be supplied in digital form on CD in jpeg2000 and to stated specifications.

The third arises where the sum stated in the purchase contract falls below the threshold while the current objective value of the property meets or exceeds it: the file must then carry a certificate issued by the notary, a further professional cost with no published price.

One point about the page itself: this is the ministry English page, and the threshold figures printed on it belong to the pre-2024 regime. The fee lines and the documentation lines can be taken from here; the investment threshold must be read in the capital-threshold cell of this table, which cites the circular of 24 September 2024.