Greek Golden Visa To Get More Expensive: €800,000 Minimum Investment In Popular Areas

15.02.2024 - 13:25 / forbes.com / Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Currently, Greece ranks extremely high as an attractive target for foreign investors looking for visas through real estate investment thanks to a confluence of factors that includes narrowing alternatives in the rest of Europe, a resurgent Greek economy and a relatively low minimum threshold for acquiring property.

Announced as a way to ease pressure on highly-sought housing markets such as Athens, Mykonos, Santorini and Thessaloniki, the government is planning to increase the minimum amount of investment required for foreign property buyers to be eligible for a Golden Visa to €800,000 in those in-demand areas.

Greece introduced its golden visa program in 2014, granting a renewable five-year residence permit to third-country nationals purchasing real estate worth at least €250,000.

The visa also features free access to Europe’s 26-Schengen-area countries for business and leisure purposes and includes multiple generations of the investor’s family.

Last August, the government doubled the minimum required investment from €250,000 — then among the lowest in Europe — to €500,000 for locations in high demand and includes access to the coveted visa-by-investment program.

In the rest of the country, where there is less foreign interest to buy, the threshold will remain at €250,000.

“We are discussing a further increase in the threshold for investment which will cover all areas where there is significant pressure on rents,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers in Athens.

“It’s a major investment boost for the country but also a serious measure we are considering to shield the local market,” he said. The measure has received bipartisan support.

The decision by other European countries including Portugal, the U.K., Ireland, Montenegro, Moldova, Bulgaria and Cyprus to sunset or place limits on their highly popular golden visa schemes — and as Spain heads the same direction — has triggered a rush of interest and investment in Greece. Thousands of foreigners, particularly Chinese, have applied for golden visas by buying property in the country.

A report from the bank of Greece shows that the number of residency-by-investment visas has quadrupled in the last year alone. Of recent real estate transactions, 7% are connected to the golden visa program.

During the first half of 2023 ,there were more than 4,000 applications for real estate purchases compared to 1,444 in the same period the year before.

As in other countries, such a rush has accelerated prices, making it near-impossible for locals to buy.

Such visas by investment schemes have been at the root of serious housing crises in the countries offering them. Increases in housing costs and the effect on local residents were among the main