Golden visa 2023: new rules

2023-02-13 Greece-invest : Blog

Greece has recently raised the threshold for obtaining a Golden Visa for property owners. Launched in 2013, the Greek Golden Visa Program used to grant a five-year residence permit in exchange for  minimum €250,000 real estate investment. The required amount, however, has been increased  to €500.000 instead of €250.000. The change will apply geographical limits on the threshold of the areas for real estate investments.

According to article 20 B of Law 4251/2014, the areas with the new minimum threshold of 500K include:                                                                                                                         

  • areas of the Northern, Central and Southern sectors of Athens;                                       

  • the municipality of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni in Attica;     

  • several municipalities of Thessaloniki; 

  • islands of Santorini and Mykonos.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

For the rest of the regions the required amount remained unchanged and is still €250,000. It is still possible to obtain a Golden Visa by making a real estate investment in popular Greek destinations such as Halkidiki, the eastern part of Thessaloniki, including areas like Perea, Thermi, and Panorama as well as in other popular Greek destinations.                       

The old rules can be applied for the affected areas providing a preliminary agreement is signed by July 31st, 2023, and an advance payment of 10% of the property value is paid as a deposit to the seller's account. In this case, the purchase must be finalized by December 31st, 2023. At the same time, if the deal fails for any reason, the investor will be able to replace and sign a preliminary contract for the purchase of another property under the old 250k scheme, as long as the transaction is completed up to the end of 2023 .

NB! Since February 2022, the issuance of this type of residence permit for citizens of Russia and Belarus has been suspended. For them, only a digital nomad residence permit is available. Read more: Digital Nomad Residence Permit.

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