# P.A Golden Investment — Residence in Greece, without having to live in Greece. > Greek residence by property investment from EUR 250,000, with no minimum stay. PGI explains which routes are genuinely open, and coordinates the Greek lawyers and notaries who do the work. Current as at July 2026. Language of this document: English (Wix language id `en`, html lang `en`, hreflang `en`, direction ltr). Canonical URL of this document: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/llms-full.txt Site home in this language: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/ Information current as at July 2026. Amounts are in euro, written with Latin digits. > General information, current as at July 2026. Not legal, tax or investment advice. This is the full-text edition. Every investment route and every article on this site is reproduced below in English, as plain text. The short index is at https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/llms.txt. ## Key facts Verified against Article 100(2), Law 5038/2023, as amended by Article 64, Law 5100/2024. Current as at July 2026. All amounts in euro. ### The minimum qualifying investment - The lowest amount at which any route qualifies is EUR 250,000. It is available anywhere in Greece, Athens included, but ONLY through the two reduced routes below. It is not a general discount. - Outside those two routes the minimum is EUR 400,000, and EUR 800,000 in the high-demand zones — which include all of Athens. ### The three thresholds - EUR 800,000 — Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and larger islands (islands with a population over 3,100). One single property must meet the threshold on its own. The property must be at least 120 square metres. The price must be paid in full before the application is submitted. Properties may not be combined to reach the threshold. - EUR 400,000 — Everywhere else in Greece. One single property must meet the threshold on its own. The property must be at least 120 square metres. Properties may not be combined to reach the threshold. - EUR 250,000 — anywhere in Greece, Athens included, through the two reduced routes only. - Properties may not be combined to reach a threshold. ### The two routes at EUR 250,000 - Route 1 of 2 — Change of use — commercial or industrial converted to residential. EUR 250,000. The conversion must be complete before the application is submitted. An unfinished conversion does not qualify. The change of use must have occurred on or after 5 April 2024. No minimum floor area. The property may not later be used as a company headquarters or as a branch office. - Route 2 of 2 — Listed or heritage building restoration. EUR 250,000. The restoration must be complete by the first renewal, at year five. It does not have to be complete before the application. No minimum floor area. Transferring ownership before the restoration is complete is void. - The two routes cost the same and have DIFFERENT completion deadlines. A change of use must be finished before the application; a restoration must be finished by the first renewal at year 5. They are not interchangeable. - Each reduced route may be used once per property. A later buyer of the same unit must meet the full EUR 400,000 or EUR 800,000 threshold for its location. ### Family - One qualifying investment covers the investor and every eligible family member. Adding eligible family members does not raise the investment threshold. - Covered: spouse or registered partner, unmarried children under 21, parents of both spouses. - Spouse or registered partner — A married spouse or a registered partner is covered by the investor’s application. - Unmarried children under 21 — Unmarried children under 21 are covered, and cover can be renewed to 24 while the child remains unmarried and in tertiary education. - Parents of both spouses — The parents of both spouses are covered, with no age limit. - Not covered: siblings, cousins, grandparents, married children, any other relative. The list of eligible members is closed. ### The permit - Term: 5 years, renewable. Under Law 5275/2026 the five years run from the date the residence card is issued. Renewal requires proof of continued ownership of the qualifying property. - Minimum stay: 0 days a year. There is no minimum stay requirement. The permit does not require the holder to spend any days in Greece. - The permit allows 90 days of travel in any rolling 180-day period in other Schengen states. Days spent in Greece do not count against that allowance. - Schengen is not "all of Europe": Ireland and United Kingdom are outside the Schengen area and are not covered. ### Selling the property revokes the permit - Selling the property at any time during the permit’s validity causes simultaneous revocation of the permit for the investor and every family member. There is no release at year six. Renewal at each five-year point requires proof of continued ownership. - The claim "After five years you can sell and keep your residency." is FALSE. There is no year-six release and no point at which the ownership requirement lapses. - Changing property is permitted, and the order is mandatory: Complete the purchase of the new qualifying property. Notify the one-stop service and allow it to verify the new purchase. Only then sell the original property. Selling the original property before the new purchase is verified revokes the permit. The order is not optional. ### What the permit gives - Five-year renewable residence in Greece — A residence permit for five years, renewable, with the five years running from the date the residence card is issued. - No minimum stay — There is no minimum stay requirement. The permit can be held and renewed without living in Greece. - Schengen travel — Travel in other Schengen states for 90 days in any rolling 180-day period. Days spent in Greece do not count against the allowance. - Family coverage on one investment — One qualifying investment covers the spouse or registered partner, unmarried children under 21, and the parents of both spouses. - Long-term letting — The property may be let on leases of 60 days or more. The income is taxable in Greece and the lease must be registered with AADE. ### What the permit does not give - No right to work — The permit carries no right to employment in Greece or in any other EU state. - No right to live elsewhere in the EU — The permit gives no right to reside in another EU state. It permits short Schengen travel only. - Not all of Europe — Ireland and the United Kingdom are outside the Schengen area and are not covered. - No short-term letting — Letting the property for periods under 60 days is prohibited, on a platform or privately. Subletting is prohibited. - No sale while the permit is held — Selling the property at any time during the permit’s validity revokes the permit for the investor and every family member. - Not a route to citizenship on its own — Citizenship is a separate process and is not automatic. Holding the permit without living in Greece never builds an entitlement to it. ### Letting the property - Letting for 60 days or more is permitted. The income is taxable in Greece and the lease must be registered with AADE. - Short-term letting of Golden Visa property, meaning any letting under 60 days, is prohibited whether or not a platform is used. Subletting is prohibited. - The penalty is a fine of EUR 50,000 plus revocation of the permit for the investor and all family members. Circular 1/2026 refers prepaid-rent and cash-rebate structures to the tax authority and the Anti-Money-Laundering Authority. ### Citizenship - Citizenship is a separate process and is not automatic. Holding the residence permit without living in Greece never builds an entitlement to citizenship. - Requirements: Seven years of legal residence. Genuine physical presence of 183 days or more in each of those years. Greek language at B1 level. A civics test. A clean criminal record. Each adult applies and is assessed individually. - The permit itself has no minimum stay. Citizenship requires 183 days or more of genuine physical presence per year. The two are not in conflict — they are different things, and the site must never blur them. ## Investment routes — full text ### Athens at EUR 250,000 — converted commercial property URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/services/athens-250k-conversion The reduced tier applied in Athens, through a commercial or industrial building converted to residential use. The conversion must be complete before you apply. This is the only way to reach an Athens property at EUR 250,000 without construction risk carried into the permit, and it is the route behind most genuine reduced-tier offers in the city. The building must previously have been in commercial or industrial use. The change of use must have occurred on or after 5 April 2024. The conversion must be finished before the application is submitted — an unfinished conversion does not qualify, however close it is. There is no minimum floor area on this route. The property may not later be used as a company headquarters or as a branch office. Each property may be used once for this route, so a resale of the same unit will not qualify the next buyer at EUR 250,000. We check the change-of-use registration and the completion evidence before a property reaches your shortlist. ### Athens and Attica at EUR 800,000 — standard residential URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/services/athens-800k-residential The straightforward route in the high-demand band: one residential property, at least 120 square metres, paid in full before the application. Attica includes all of Athens, and Attica is in the high-demand band along with the regional unit of Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and islands with a population over 3,100. In those areas an ordinary residential purchase qualifies at EUR 800,000. The conditions are simple and strict: a single property must reach the threshold on its own, it must be at least 120 square metres, and the price must be paid in full before the application is submitted. Properties may not be combined. What this route buys, compared with the reduced tier, is the absence of conditions — no conversion to verify, no restoration deadline hanging over your first renewal, and a far wider choice of property in the parts of Athens that people actually want to live in. ### Regional Greece at EUR 400,000 URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/services/regional-400k-residential Everywhere outside the high-demand band: one residential property, at least 120 square metres, at EUR 400,000. Outside Attica, the regional unit of Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and islands with a population over 3,100, the threshold is EUR 400,000. That covers most of the mainland and most of the smaller islands. The property must be a single unit reaching the threshold on its own and must be at least 120 square metres; properties may not be combined. This route suits buyers whose priority is the residence permit and the family coverage rather than a specific city address, and buyers who want a holiday base they will use themselves. Bear in mind that the letting rules are identical everywhere: leases of 60 days or more only, which rules out using a regional property for holiday letting between your own visits. ### Listed building restoration at EUR 250,000 URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/services/listed-building-restoration The reduced tier through a listed or heritage building. The restoration must be complete by the first renewal at year 5, not before you apply. A listed or heritage building that you commit to restore qualifies at EUR 250,000, anywhere in Greece including Athens. The distinguishing feature of this route is its deadline: unlike a change-of-use conversion, the restoration does not have to be finished before you apply — it has to be finished by your first renewal, at year 5. That flexibility is real, and so is its cost. You carry construction risk inside the permit rather than before it, transferring ownership before the restoration completes is void, and a restoration that is not finished by the first renewal puts that renewal at risk. This route suits buyers with the appetite and the advisers to manage a heritage project, and it suits nobody who wants a finished asset. Each property may be used once for this route. ### Route and portfolio advisory URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/services/portfolio-advisory For buyers weighing several routes, several regions or a longer horizon — including what renewal, letting and any future change of property will require. Advisory here does not mean assembling several properties to reach a threshold: properties may not be combined, and a single property must qualify on its own. It means choosing the one property and the one route that fit your family, your timing and your tolerance for construction risk, then understanding in advance what the next ten years will ask of you. We model the total cost including taxes and fees, compare the reduced routes against a standard purchase on their conditions rather than their headline price, set out the long-term letting position and its tax consequences honestly, and map what happens at each renewal — including the fact that renewal requires continued ownership, and that any future change of property has to follow a fixed order. Where the answer is that no route fits, we say so. ## Guides — full text ### You cannot sell the property and keep the residence permit URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/blog/selling-does-not-keep-residency The most widely repeated claim about the Greek Golden Visa is that after five years you can sell and keep your residency. It is false at every point in the permit’s life, and acting on it costs the whole family their status. There is a sentence that circulates in this market, in brochures, in WhatsApp groups and on the websites of firms that ought to know better: after five years you can sell the property and keep your residency. It is not a simplification, an approximation or a rule with exceptions. It is false, and it is the reason this website was rebuilt. What the rule actually says Selling the qualifying property at any time during the permit’s validity causes the permit to be revoked. Not suspended, not converted into another status, not left intact until the next renewal. Revoked. The permit exists because of the investment. Remove the investment and the basis for the permit is gone. Everything else follows from that single point, and once you hold it in mind, none of the rest is surprising. There is no year six The myth usually attaches itself to the 5-year term, on the assumption that the term is a lock-up period and that something is released at the end of it. Nothing is released. The 5 years are the validity of the card, not the duration of the ownership condition. Renewal at each five-year point requires proof of continued ownership. So the ownership requirement does not weaken with time — it is tested again, formally, every five years, for as long as you want to keep the permit. It is not only the investor who loses status Revocation is simultaneous for the investor and for every family member on the application. A spouse, children under 21, a child extended to 24 in tertiary education, and the parents of both spouses all derive their status from the same investment. A sale that looks like a sensible commercial decision on a spreadsheet ends the residence rights of everybody on that file at the same moment. This is the part that tends to change people’s minds, and it is the part the myth never mentions. What you can do: change the property, in this order You are not locked to one building for life. You can move the investment to a different qualifying property, provided you do it in the right sequence: Complete the purchase of the new qualifying property. Notify the one-stop service and allow it to verify the new purchase. Only then sell the original property. The order is the entire protection. Sell first and you have revoked the permit, even if the replacement completes the following week, and even if the replacement is worth more. There is no retrospective repair. It follows that you need bridging capital, or a seller willing to wait, to make a switch work. That is a real constraint and it should be planned for at the point of the first purchase, not discovered in year seven. Why the myth persists Partly because other programmes in other countries have worked differently, and people carry the rules across. Partly because the claim is extremely convenient: it converts a long-term commitment into a five-year trade and makes the investment sound liquid. An exit story sells property. And partly because the correction is uncomfortable to deliver. It reframes the whole decision. A family that was told they were parking capital for five years is instead being asked to hold an asset indefinitely, and some of them will decline. That is a legitimate outcome, and it should happen before the money moves rather than afterwards. One question that tests any adviser Ask them what happens if you sell in year seven. If the answer is anything other than that the permit is revoked for you and for every family member on it, you are talking to someone who either does not know the programme or is willing to misdescribe it to you. Both are good reasons to stop. This is general information current as at July 2026, not legal advice. Confirm your own position with a lawyer admitted in Greece. ### What changed in 2024, and what the thresholds actually are now URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/blog/what-changed-2024-2026 The Greek programme was rewritten in 2024 and amended again in 2026. Most of the figures still circulating online describe the programme as it was before that. Here is the current position. If you have been researching the Greek Golden Visa for more than a few months, some of what you have read is out of date. The programme was substantially rewritten by Article 64 of Law 5100/2024, amended again by Law 5275/2026, and given administrative guidance in Circular 1/2026. Pages that have not been revised since 2023 are describing a different scheme. This article sets out the current thresholds and the rules that sit around them, and flags the three that catch people out most often. The flat EUR 250,000 threshold is gone. EUR 250,000 is not. Until the rewrite, EUR 250,000 bought a qualifying property almost anywhere in Greece. That general threshold no longer exists. What survived is narrower and more interesting: the reduced amount still applies anywhere in the country, Athens included, but only to two specific kinds of building. We come back to those below. Where EUR 800,000 applies The high-demand band covers the areas with the most pressure on housing: Attica, which includes all of Athens. The regional unit of Thessaloniki. Mykonos. Santorini. Islands with a population over 3,100. In those areas a standard residential purchase qualifies at EUR 800,000. It must be a single property of at least 120 square metres, and the price must be paid in full before the application is submitted. The most common misunderstanding here is geographic rather than legal: people search for Athens and read the national threshold. Athens is in Attica, and Attica is in this band. EUR 400,000 everywhere else Outside the high-demand band, the threshold is EUR 400,000 — most of the mainland and most of the smaller islands. The conditions are the same in structure: one property, reaching the threshold on its own, at least 120 square metres. The two routes that still cost EUR 250,000 Both are available anywhere in Greece, Athens included. Neither has a minimum floor area. They differ on the one thing that decides applications: Change of use — a commercial or industrial building converted to residential use. The conversion must be complete before the application is submitted. The change of use must have occurred on or after 5 April 2024. The property may not later be used as a company headquarters or branch. Listed building restoration — a listed or heritage building. The restoration must be complete by the first renewal, at year 5, rather than before the application. Transferring ownership before the restoration completes is void. One deadline falls before you apply; the other falls five years after. Reading them as interchangeable is the single most expensive error available on this tier. Three rules that catch people out Properties may not be combined. Two units at half the threshold do not qualify, in any band. Each reduced route may be used once per property. If a unit has already qualified someone at EUR 250,000, the next buyer must meet the full EUR 400,000 or EUR 800,000 threshold for its location. A reduced-tier property is not a Golden Visa asset you can pass on. The five-year clock starts at card issue. Under Law 5275/2026 the 5 years run from the date the residence card is issued — not from the purchase and not from the application. If your planning assumed the earlier date, redo it. What did not change The parts of the programme that make it attractive were left alone. There is still no minimum stay — 0 days a year. One investment still covers a spouse or registered partner, unmarried children under 21, and the parents of both spouses. Schengen travel is still 90 days in any rolling 180-day period in other Schengen states, with days in Greece not counting against it. The limits were left alone too. There is still no right to work in Greece or the EU, no right to reside in another member state, and no version of the rules in which selling the property leaves your residence permit intact. This is general information current as at July 2026, not legal advice. Check the position with a lawyer admitted in Greece before you commit to anything. ### What "no minimum stay" does and does not mean URL: https://www.pa-golden-investment.net/blog/no-minimum-stay-explained The Greek permit has no minimum stay at all — 0 days a year — and that is the strongest honest argument for the programme. It is also precisely why the permit does not turn into citizenship. Of everything that is said about the Greek Golden Visa, the claim that there is no minimum stay is one of the few that is entirely true. It is also one of the most misunderstood, because people reasonably assume that a residence permit held for long enough turns into something more. The part that is true There is no minimum stay requirement. 0 days a year. Not a low requirement, not a requirement measured across the five-year term, not a requirement that is loosely enforced — no requirement at all, for the investor and for every family member on the permit. There is no residence test at renewal, no day count to evidence and no entry log to maintain. Renewal asks whether you still own the qualifying property. It does not ask where you have been. For a family whose work, business and school life sit somewhere else, this is the difference between a residence permit that is usable and one that is theoretical. It is the honest headline of the programme and we lead with it because it deserves to be led with. The gap: citizenship counts days the permit does not Citizenship is a separate process with separate requirements, and it is not a continuation of the permit. It requires: 7 years of legal residence. Genuine physical presence of 183 days or more in each of those years. Greek at B1 level. A civics test. A clean criminal record. Each adult applying and being assessed individually. Set those two facts side by side. The permit requires 0 days. Citizenship requires 183 days a year for 7 years. They are not in tension, because they are answering different questions — but they are also not on the same road, and one does not lead to the other by patience. The arithmetic nobody spells out A family that holds this permit for fourteen years without living in Greece is exactly as far from citizenship at the end as at the beginning. The 7-year clock does not run on legal status alone. It runs on genuine physical presence, and zero-day residence generates none of it. If a Greek or EU passport is the actual objective, the honest advice is that you would need to move to Greece and live there for the majority of every year, learn Greek to B1, and sit a civics test. That is a life decision, not an investment decision, and it is a different conversation from this one. Anyone presenting the Golden Visa as a slow route to a passport is describing something that does not exist. What zero days also does not buy you The freedom not to be in Greece is not freedom generally. The permit still carries its limits, and they are unchanged by how you use it: No right to employment in Greece or in any other EU state. No right to reside in another EU state. Schengen travel is short-stay travel. Travel of 90 days in any rolling 180-day period in other Schengen states — and Ireland and the United Kingdom are outside Schengen, so "all of Europe" is not what this is. No short-term letting of the qualifying property. Under 60 days is prohibited, with a EUR 50,000 fine and revocation for the whole family. No sale of the qualifying property while the permit is held, at any point in its life. Who the programme actually suits It suits a family that wants a durable EU residence base without relocating, that wants three generations covered by one investment, and that intends to hold a Greek property for the long term — as a place to use, to let on long leases, or simply to own. It does not suit someone who wants a passport, someone who wants to work in Europe, or someone who wants their capital back on a five-year view. Those are all reasonable things to want. This is not the instrument that provides them, and the sooner that is established, the less expensive it is to find out. This is general information current as at July 2026, not legal advice. Speak to a lawyer admitted in Greece about your own circumstances. ## Legal basis and sources - The Greek residence-by-investment programme sits in Article 100(2) of Law 5038/2023. It was substantially rewritten by Article 64 of Law 5100/2024 and amended again by Law 5275/2026, with administrative guidance in Circular 1/2026. - Statute: Article 100(2), Law 5038/2023, as amended by Article 64, Law 5100/2024 - Amendment or guidance: Article 64, Law 5100/2024 - Amendment or guidance: Law 5275/2026 - Amendment or guidance: Circular 1/2026 - Every figure in this document was last verified against its primary source in July 2026. - This information is general and current as at July 2026. It is not legal, tax or investment advice. Greek immigration rules were substantially amended by Law 5100/2024 and Law 5275/2026 and may change again. Applications must be prepared with a lawyer admitted in Greece, and property transfers require a Greek notary. Approval is at the discretion of the Greek authorities and is not guaranteed.