Greece Golden Visa 2026: The Three-Tier Map

I have covered the Greek programme since the days when EUR 250,000 bought an apartment anywhere in the country, and the persistent misreading of the current rules is that those days are simply over. They are not — the EUR 250,000 tier survives, deliberately, for two categories of property Greece wants money to flow into. What changed is that the general market moved to two higher tiers, drawn on a map. Understanding the programme now means understanding which of three regimes your target property falls under.

Tier one: EUR 250,000, anywhere — for two property types

The entry price holds at EUR 250,000 for an investment into either the conversion of commercial property to residential use, or the restoration of a listed building. Location is unrestricted — central Athens included — and no minimum size applies. This is industrial policy dressed as an immigration tier: Greece has a surplus of obsolete commercial stock and a backlog of decaying listed buildings, and it is renting out its residence permit to fix both. The execution burden is real — conversion permits, restoration obligations on listed structures, completion requirements — and this tier rewards applicants working with competent local counsel rather than a marketing deck.

Tier two: EUR 400,000 — the general rule outside the premium zones

Everywhere outside the premium zones, the standard residential route requires EUR 400,000 in a single property of at least 120 square metres. Both conditions matter. The single-property rule killed the portfolio approach — no more assembling three cheap flats to clear the threshold — and the size floor killed the studio-hotel-room product that intermediaries built the old programme on. What remains qualifying is, not coincidentally, the kind of property a family might actually live in.

Tier three: EUR 800,000 — Attica, Thessaloniki, and the large islands

In the premium zones — Attica including Athens, Thessaloniki, and islands with populations above 3,100, which sweeps in Mykonos, Santorini, Crete's cities and most of the destinations foreign buyers actually search for — the threshold is EUR 800,000, again in a single property of at least 120 square metres. The zone map is the programme's real repricing: it puts the areas of genuine international demand at more than three times the price of the conversion tier.

What has not changed

The permit itself is unchanged in the ways that matter: five-year renewable permanent-type residence for the investor, spouse, children under 21 and both couples' parents; no minimum stay requirement, which remains the programme's decisive advantage over Portugal's; Schengen mobility on standard terms; and no route to citizenship without actual residence — naturalisation requires seven years of genuine, tax-resident life in Greece, and a Golden Visa spent abroad accrues none of it. Short-term-rental restrictions on Golden Visa properties have tightened, and anyone underwriting the purchase on Airbnb yield should model the restrictions before, not after, completion.

Choosing a tier

The honest decision tree is short. If your objective is the permit at the lowest capital commitment and you can tolerate execution complexity, the EUR 250,000 conversion tier is the best value in European investment migration today. If you want a holiday home the family will use, you are almost certainly buying in an EUR 800,000 zone, and should compare that honestly against what EUR 800,000 buys elsewhere in Europe. The EUR 400,000 middle tier suits buyers with a genuine reason to be in secondary Greece — and is the tier agencies push least, because it pays them least.

Full requirements, documents and timelines are in the Greece dossier, verified against the current legislation.

Sources: Law 5100/2024 as amended and Ministry of Migration and Asylum guidance. Verified 21 September 2026.