The Greece Golden Visa Program – A Compelling Proposition for Private Clients

Video transcript

1. Does the increase in the investment threshold in certain areas (most municipalities in Athens) from EUR 250,000 to EUR 500,000 affect the demand for the program?

That is a question I receive very often when I’m interviewed about the program. When the new law was announced in November 2022, which was also further amended, we were sceptical on how investors would react, because the EUR 250,000 threshold was one of the lowest found in Europe. Nevertheless, as the Portugal Golden Visa Program is being reshaped, as well as the fact that the Greece Golden Visa Program is one of the fastest processing programs in Europe in terms of timelines — it can take around four months to obtain the residence permit — significantly affected our thoughts on how it would grow further. To answer your question, I don’t believe it’s going to be affected. On the contrary, I think that the demand is going to continue to grow exponentially. The increase from EUR 250,000 to EUR 500,000 has only occurred in some areas in Athens, like in the center, so many of the suburbs are not affected. The same applies for the second-biggest town in Greece, Thessaloniki; thus, most of the areas around Thessaloniki also remain at EUR 250,000. Moreover, only two islands were affected by this increase — Mykonos and Santorini. Concluding, geographically, the vast majority of the areas in Greece still remain at EUR 250,000. Therefore, I anticipate that the demand will continue to increase significantly.

2. How does it work in terms of a route to citizenship (from the Greece Golden Visa Program to the application for Greek citizenship)?

One of the key debates I have with clients and investors who want to apply for the Greece Golden Visa Program is whether it can be transformed at a point to a Greek citizenship. And this is also the key differentiator between Greece and its main competitor program, Portugal, where someone could apply for citizenship after five years with rather light conditions. In Greece, you can apply for citizenship after seven years. But during these seven years, someone should be a legal/tax resident for the full seven-year period prior to applying for citizenship. On top of that, after seven years, if you fulfil the requirement of legal residence, you also need to pass a rather `light` exam in Greek. After fulfilling these requirements, you can become a Greek citizen. The key takeaway from this question is that the process takes seven years. You have to be a legal/tax resident during this period; five years after you have obtained the Greece Golden Visa, you can become a permanent resident, and two years later, you can apply for citizenship. And the last key point is that you have to also take a Greek exam in year 7.

3. How is the Real Estate market in Greece performing, especially given that the country went through an unprecedented financial crisis in the last 10 years?

The real estate market in Greece has picked up significantly since the financial crisis. To give you an example, the peak of the real estate market prices was in 2008 and 2009. The bottom of the real estate market prices was in the last quarter of 2016 and in the beginning of 2017, when prices were on average 40 to 45% below those seen in to 2008 and 2009, and in some areas, even 60 to 65% lower. It was an unprecedented financial crisis that affected the real estate sector. Since the inception of political power by the current government in 2019, and the specific measures that were taken in favor of the real estate market, the real estate market prices in 2023 are standing about 30 to 35% higher compared to the bottom in 2016 and 2017. This means that there is still a lot of room for improvement for the real estate market. And I can back up this statement by the following factors: There are huge projects underway now in Greece, not only in Athens, but also in the islands and mainland Greece in terms of infrastructure, new hotels, and new multi-national companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Pfizer that are creating huge hubs in Greece. Secondly, apart from the Greece Golden Visa investors that are constantly picking up in Greece and of course affect the real estate market, you also have some beneficial tax schemes that attract foreigners, for example, pensioners from Europe relocate to Greece, which means that they will also play a vital role in the real estate market. Thirdly, and I think this is also a very important element, we recently had elections in Greece in July. And the current government renewed its term for another four years with a huge majority over the main opposition party. As a result, we have a very stable government in power, which is strongly in favor of foreign direct investment. Lastly, if you compare prices per square meter in Greece in, for example, in Athens, compared to other capitals in Europe like Lisbon, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Paris, and so forth, Athens offers a very attractive investment opportunity. And it’s not only Athens, it’s the whole of Greece. So, I’m quite optimistic for the real estate market and I think that there is still a lot of room for growth in prices.

4. Do you foresee any changes in the program by the current government, similar to what happened with the Portugal golden visa program recently?

We have recently observed that a lot of governments are revising or even abolishing the various residence or citizenship by investment programs. The latest example is Portugal, which is actually not abolishing its golden visa program, but restructuring it in a way that is going to be more attractive, but also soften the real estate prices in the country. In Greece, the Greek government has already restructured the Greece Golden Visa Program. For instance, the aforementioned price increase from EUR 250,000 to EUR 500,000 was very recently introduced, and this measure was taken in order to protect the local population in terms of the real estate prices. So in reality, the Greece Golden Visa Program has already been restructured/reshaped by the current government, a government which, as I mentioned before, is very pro foreign direct investment. They want to promote the Greek Golden Visa, attract human capital, more assets, and more capital, to the country. Therefore, in regard to the question as to whether one foresees any changes in the program by the current government, I feel that on the contrary, the government is strongly in favor of marketing the Greek Golden Visa Program, and I don’t foresee any further changes, since they were recently implemented.