Questions we are asked, answered as we would answer them on the phone

EUR 250,000, but only through two specific routes. For anything else in Athens, the number is EUR 800,000.

Athens sits inside Attica, which is in the high-demand band. An ordinary residential purchase in Athens must therefore be a single property of at least 120 square metres costing at least EUR 800,000, paid in full before the application is submitted.

The EUR 250,000 tier is available anywhere in Greece, Athens included, but only for a commercial or industrial building converted to residential use, or for the restoration of a listed building. There is no ordinary EUR 250,000 Athens apartment. If someone offers you one without naming which of the two routes it uses, ask them which route it is, and treat the answer as the test.

No. This is the most widely repeated false claim about the Greek programme, and it is worth being blunt about it.

Selling the qualifying property at any time during the permit’s validity causes the permit to be revoked simultaneously for you and for every family member on your application. There is no release at year six and no stage at which the ownership requirement expires.

Renewal at each five-year point requires proof that you still own the property. The permit and the asset are tied together for as long as you hold the permit. If you need the capital back within a defined horizon, this is not the right instrument, and any adviser who tells you otherwise is either mistaken or selling.

Yes, but the order is fixed. Complete the purchase of the new qualifying property. Notify the one-stop service and allow it to verify that purchase. Only then sell the original.

Selling first — even by a single day, even with the replacement purchase already agreed — revokes the permit. The sequence is the whole of the protection here.

Long-term only. Leases of 60 days or more are permitted. The income is taxable in Greece and the lease must be registered with AADE.

Letting for under 60 days is prohibited for Golden Visa property, whether or not a platform is involved, and subletting is prohibited. The penalty is a fine of EUR 50,000 plus revocation of the permit for the investor and all family members.

This is worth reading twice if your plan involved holiday letting. It is the second most common misconception about the programme, after the sale question, and it carries a penalty that reaches your whole family.

On a EUR 250,000 basis in Athens, indicative long-term rent is roughly EUR 850 to EUR 1,000 a month, which is about 4 to 5 percent gross. Those figures come from market observation (Investropa and BuyGreece, 2026), not from any offer we are making.

Gross is the load-bearing word. Net is materially lower once you account for ENFIA property tax, Greek rental income tax charged progressively at 15, 35 and 45 percent, management, insurance and vacancy.

These are projections, not commitments. Nobody can promise you a tenant, and we will not describe any rent as guaranteed. Treat prepaid-rent and cash-rebate arrangements with particular caution: Circular 1/2026 refers those structures to the tax authority and the Anti-Money-Laundering Authority.

No. There is no minimum stay requirement — 0 days a year, for you and for every family member on the permit. You can hold it and renew it without ever spending a night in the country.

That is a genuine advantage and it is the main reason people choose Greece over the alternatives. It also has a consequence, which is the subject of the next question.

No, and time spent holding the permit does not by itself build an entitlement to it.

Citizenship is a separate process with its own requirements: 7 years of legal residence with genuine physical presence of 183 days or more in each of those years, Greek at B1 level, a civics test, a clean criminal record, and each adult assessed individually.

The permit has no stay requirement. Citizenship has a heavy one. A family that holds this permit for 7 years without living in Greece is no closer to citizenship at the end than at the beginning. If a passport is your objective, you would need to actually move to Greece for the majority of every year, which is a different decision from the one this permit is designed for.

No. The eligible list is closed: a spouse or registered partner, unmarried children under 21 — extendable to 24 while unmarried and in tertiary education — and the parents of both spouses, with no age limit.

Siblings, cousins, grandparents, married children and every other relative are outside it. A sibling who wants Greek residence needs their own qualifying investment. There is no dependency argument, no discretionary category and no exception we can apply for.

No. The permit carries no right to employment in Greece or in any other EU state, and no right to reside in another EU state.

If you intend to work in Greece, say so in the first conversation. A different permit category is likely to be the right one, and we would rather redirect you than sell you something that does not do what you need.

No. One qualifying investment covers every eligible member, and the amount is the same whether you apply alone or with a spouse, children and two sets of parents.

There are per-person administrative costs, which your lawyer quotes separately. The investment threshold itself does not move.

No. A single property must reach the threshold on its own. Properties may not be combined, in any band, under any ownership structure.

On the EUR 400,000 and EUR 800,000 tiers that single property must also be at least 120 square metres. On the two reduced routes there is no minimum area, but the single-property rule still applies.

Not at EUR 250,000. Each reduced route may be used once per property.

Once a unit has qualified one investor under the change-of-use or restoration route, the next buyer must meet the full EUR 400,000 or EUR 800,000 threshold for its location. Be careful with resale offers that quote the original qualifying price as though it transfers with the building. What qualified the first buyer will not qualify you.

In other Schengen states, for 90 days in any rolling 180-day period. Days spent in Greece do not count against that allowance.

This is not "all of Europe". Ireland and the United Kingdom are outside the Schengen area and are not covered. It is also short-stay travel, not the right to live, work or base yourself in another member state.

Approval is at the discretion of the Greek authorities and is not guaranteed. No adviser, agent or lawyer can promise you an outcome, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

Processing times are set by those authorities and change. We will tell you what we are seeing on current files, and we will not put a date in writing that we do not control.

What we can control is that the file is complete, that the property genuinely qualifies under the route we have chosen, and that every document is in order before submission. Most refusals we hear about are failures of preparation rather than of policy.