Greece Raises Golden Visa Limit to €500,000 for Certain Areas

Greece announced this week that it had doubled the golden visa limit to 500,000 euros from 250,000 euros applicable to properties in certain areas of the country.

Starting August 1, Greece’s investor visa program grants five-year residency rights for third country nationals who purchase, individually or through a legal entity, property in Greece valued at a minimum of 500,000 euros. Under the changes, only one property can be purchased for the set amount.

The new limit applies to property purchases in the central, northern and southern sectors of Attica, on Mykonos, Santorini and in Thessaloniki. Indicative areas where investor visa limits have increased include the wider Athens area and suburbs such as Melissia, Penteli, Nea Penteli, Kifissia, Nea Erythrea, Ekali, Halandri, Agia Paraskevi, Nea Ionia, Cholargos-Papagou, Filothei, Psychiko, Neo Psychiko, Alimos, Glyfada, Palaio Faliro, and central Athens, among others.

Photo source: European Parliament / © AdS/hamzeh

The increase in the golden visa limit was initially planned for May 1 but pushed back to August 1 in order to meet the high demand for properties in Greece under the program.

According to Immigration and Asylum Ministry data, Greece’s golden visa program boosted the economy by almost 1 billion euros in the first five months of the year, benefiting from Portugal’s decision to discontinue its own residence by investment scheme and by Greek authorities’ decision to delay an increase in the threshold.

More specifically, a total of 3,900 applications for the purchase of real estate for residence were submitted in the January-May period compared to 1,444 in the same period last year while properties worth 975 million euros were sold off – up by 170 percent or three times higher than last year’s total of 361 million euros.

Meanwhile, the growing interest in Greece’s residency by investment program is placing pressure on authorization authorities with more than 5,444 investor visa applications awaiting approval. Indicative of the demand, in the May 2022-May 2023 period, a total of 8,351 investor visa applications were submitted to Greek authorities, 35 percent of which approved.