Greece Golden Visa 2026: The New €250,000, €400,000 and €800,000 Tiers Explained

The Greece Golden Visa no longer has one price. Since 1 September 2024 it has three, and which one applies to you depends entirely on where you buy. In the most sought-after areas the minimum real estate investment is now €800,000. In the rest of the country it is €400,000. The old €250,000 entry point survives only in two narrow cases. If you are still working off the figure that made Greece the cheapest Golden Visa in Europe, that program is gone.

The change came through Law 5100/2024, which amended the Permanent Investor Residence Permit scheme under Law 4251/2014. Greece kept the residency-by-investment route open, but it priced the program to cool demand in cities and islands where locals were being squeezed out of the housing market. As of December 2025, more than 27,000 main investors held valid permits under the scheme, so the appetite has not disappeared. The math has just changed.

The three tiers, by location

The €800,000 tier covers the high-demand zones: the Region of Attica (which includes Athens), the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki, the islands of Mykonos and Santorini, and any island with a population above 3,100. If you want a Golden Visa property in Athens or on the marquee islands, €800,000 is your floor.

The €400,000 tier applies to everywhere else in Greece. Most of the mainland, the smaller islands, and the regions outside the big urban centers fall here. For a buyer who is flexible on location, this is the workhorse threshold.

Two conditions sit on top of both tiers. The investment must go into a single property, not a basket of cheaper units stitched together, and that property must have a minimum surface area of 120 square meters. This matters: a €400,000 spend spread across two small apartments will not qualify. It has to be one qualifying property of at least 120 square meters.

When €250,000 still works

The €250,000 threshold did not vanish entirely. It survives in two specific situations, and in both the price is fixed at €250,000 regardless of where the property sits.

The first is conversion of use. If you buy a property that is being converted from commercial or industrial use into residential use, the threshold stays at €250,000. The conversion has to be completed before you submit the residence permit application, and it must take place after 5 April 2024.

The second is the restoration of listed buildings. If you invest in a building of recognized historic or architectural interest under special protection, and you fully restore or reconstruct it, the threshold remains €250,000 anywhere in the country. Both routes reward investors who add housing stock or preserve heritage, rather than simply buying an existing apartment in central Athens.

The rules that catch buyers off guard

Two restrictions in the new law surprise people who assume a Golden Visa property is a free-to-use asset.

First, short-term rentals are banned. A property acquired by a third-country national for the granting or renewal of an investor's residence permit cannot be let out on short-term platforms in the sharing economy, and it cannot be sublet. The Airbnb income that used to make the numbers work is no longer part of the plan for visa-linked property.

The penalty is specific: breaching the short-term letting ban carries cancellation of the residence permit and an administrative fine of 50,000 euros. Long-term rental remains permitted.

Second, the single-property and 120-square-meter rules remove the old strategy of buying several cheap units across different towns. You commit to one qualifying asset, and you hold it for as long as you want to keep the residency.

One exception to the surface rule is worth knowing. The 120 square meter minimum does not apply to undeveloped land or to property for which no building permit has been issued, so a plot is assessed on value alone. That matters mostly to buyers looking at development land rather than finished homes.

The Golden Visa itself remains attractive on its non-financial terms. It grants a five-year renewable residence permit with no minimum-stay requirement, it covers the investor's spouse, children up to 21, and the parents of both spouses, and it gives visa-free movement within the Schengen Area. There is still no obligation to live in Greece to keep the permit, which is the feature that separates it from most rival programs.

Greece also keeps investment routes outside real estate entirely, including a 350,000 euro investment-fund option and a 500,000 euro bank deposit, for applicants who want the residency without managing a physical asset. None of these is a citizenship route. Naturalisation runs on its own, much longer timetable and carries a physical-presence test the Golden Visa itself does not impose.

Buy the asset, not just the visa

The trap in any Golden Visa market is treating the property as a ticket and ignoring it as an investment. At €400,000 or €800,000, the real estate has to stand on its own, because you are required to hold it to keep the permit. That means the quality of the building, the developer, and the title all matter more than the residency headline.

In Greece, much of the qualifying stock is older urban housing and new-build projects in and around Athens and Thessaloniki. For new builds, the developer's delivery record is the variable that decides whether your capital is working or stranded. Before committing, verify that the developer has actually completed comparable projects. Platforms like Bektu compile developer delivery histories so you can confirm a builder's track record rather than relying on a sales office. A clean, well-located, properly titled property is what protects both your money and your residency when renewal time comes.

Greek purchases run through a notary, and the diligence that decides a Golden Visa application is narrow and checkable: the title search at the local land registry or cadastre, the property's tax clearance, and confirmation that the 120 square meter figure on the building permit matches what you are buying. A unit whose permitted area falls below 120 square meters fails the test even when the price clears the threshold comfortably.

If you are comparing Greece against other European routes, our guide to Portugal Golden Visa alternatives after the 2023 reform lays out how the options stack up, and our detailed Greece foreign ownership legal guide covers the mechanics of holding Greek property as a non-resident.