Greece's 15 Percent Transfer Tax for Non-EU Buyers Slips to July 2027 With No Bill Yet Published

Greece's plan to raise the property transfer tax on non-EU buyers from 3 percent to 15 percent is now most likely to take effect on 1 July 2027 rather than 1 January 2027, and more than three weeks after the Prime Minister announced it no bill has been published. Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis has named the July date as the probable start, six months later than the date Kyriakos Mitsotakis gave when he unveiled the measure at the 90th Thessaloniki International Fair on 5 September.

What it means for a foreign buyer

If you are a non-EU national with a Greek purchase in view, the closing deadline that locks in the 3 percent rate has probably moved from 31 December 2026 to 30 June 2027. On an 800,000 euro Athens apartment that difference is worth roughly 96,000 euros, since transfer tax at the current rate is about 24,000 euros and at 15 percent it is 120,000 euros. Six extra months is the difference between a rushed completion and a normal one: a Greek purchase needs an AFM tax number, a Greek bank account, a lawyer's title search at the land registry or cadastre, and in many cases an engineer's certificate of no illegal construction, and compressing that into a quarter is how buyers end up accepting title defects they would otherwise have negotiated.

Treat the July date as probable, not settled. Nothing is fixed until a bill is tabled, and the single most important unresolved question for anyone mid-transaction is whether there is transitional protection for purchases already under way when the rate changes. There is no published text on that point, which means a preliminary contract signed now carries no guarantee that the 3 percent rate attaches to it at completion. If you are buying, ask your notary to record the intended completion date in the preliminary contract and build in margin ahead of whichever date the final law adopts.

Do not time a purchase against a headline date that no statute yet contains.

What changed

The rate itself has not moved since the announcement. The transfer tax, known in Greece as the FMA, is 3 percent of taxable value, or 3.09 percent once the municipal surcharge is added, and the announced measure takes it to 15 percent, or 15.45 percent with the surcharge, for buyers who are nationals of countries outside the EU and EEA.

What has changed is the timetable and the scope. Mitsotakis referenced 1 January 2027 at Thessaloniki. Pierrakakis has since pointed to 1 July 2027 as the most likely implementation date, and Greek tax practitioners have been working to the July date since mid-September. The exemption list has also firmed up. The higher rate is to apply to residential property only, leaving commercial premises, plots of land and industrial buildings on the existing 3 percent. Greek expatriates and third-country nationals holding long-term resident status in Greece are to be excluded, as are EU and EEA citizens, recognised refugees and holders of second-generation permits. Greek citizens and those exempt groups also keep the existing first-home relief on values up to 200,000 euros, rising to 250,000 euros for married buyers with a further 25,000 euros per child.