Greece · Digital Nomad Visa
Greece Digital Nomad Visa: 3,500 euros a month, and you file before you fly
The income test is measured after tax, the work has to sit outside Greece, and since February 2026 a consulate has to issue your visa before you board.
The visa runs 12 months. The two-year residence permit that follows is the part you renew. What changed this year is where you start, and a lot of guides still describe the old route.
- Internet speed
- 55 Mbps
- English proficiency
- 65/100
- Safety index
- 60/100
- Currency
- Euro (EUR)
What changed
Since February, the consulate goes first
For the last four years, the popular way in was to land as a tourist, find an apartment, and file for the digital nomad permit from an office in Athens. That door is shut. Law 5275/2026 took effect in February 2026 and abolished in-country applications for this permit.
Now the first step is a national type D visa from the Greek consulate that covers where you live. It's not optional. Americans can still walk into Greece without a visa for 90 days, and it makes no difference here. If you're going to apply for the permit, the consulate stamps you first.
The Ministry of Migration and Asylum owns the permit, and the government's own site for this route is Work From Greece. Consulate appointments are the bottleneck. Some posts keep your passport while they decide, while apostilles can take weeks. Start three to four months before the month you want to land.
Greece's asking price
3,500 euros
Monthly income, one applicant
net, not gross
4,200 euros
With a spouse along
add 525 per child
12 then 24
Months on the visa, then the permit
the visa never renews
1,000 euros
Fee for the residence permit
the visa costs 75
The money test
What counts as 3,500 euros
Greek law fixes the figure in the statute, and the wording is net income after the tax you already pay where you earn it. A spouse adds 20 percent and each child adds 15 percent, so a couple with one kid is looking at roughly 4,725 euros a month. Some English-language guides describe the same number as gross. Ask your consulate which one it wants, in writing.
You prove it with a contract, payslips, invoices, tax returns or bank statements. Some posts want six or twelve months of history rather than three. A bank balance can stand in for monthly income at some consulates.
Your pay has to come from outside Greece. Foreign employer, foreign clients, foreign company, and you sign a declaration saying so. No Greek employer and no Greek customers. Your spouse can come and live with you, but cannot take a job here either.
For scale: our own data puts a single person's monthly budget in Greece near $1,500. The income floor is a filter, not a cost of living.
Greece Digital Nomad Visa
Designed for remote workers and freelancers with income from outside Greece. Allows living in Greece while working remotely for a foreign company.
- Processing time
- ~30 days
- Timeline
- 1 year (renewable)
- Difficulty
- Easy
About that data card
That Timeline line, 1 year (renewable), is the single piece of this visa that never renews. The 12-month type D is a one-shot entry document. What renews is the separate two-year permit you apply for once you are in Greece. We have also hidden the requirements block because one of its six lines says the minimum monthly income varies and to go check the latest guidance. It doesn't vary. Greek law names 3,500 euros. Both are flagged for the team that owns the data.
After you land
The second application, the one you make inside Greece
The type D visa buys you 12 months. To stay past that, you file for the digital nomad residence permit while the visa is still alive, online through the migration ministry's portal, then show up for biometrics at a regional office.
By then you need a Greek tax number, the AFM, plus a lease your landlord has declared to the tax authority and an insurance certificate that covers the new period. You leave with a submission certificate, which is the paper that proves your application is pending while you wait.
The permit costs 1,000 euros, plus 16 for the card itself and 150 for each family member. It runs two years and renews in two-year blocks. File a renewal inside the two months before it expires. Miss that and you have three months to file late, at 100 euros a month. After that you cannot file at all. Five unbroken years of legal residence opens the door to EU long-term resident status.
Bases
Athens, Thessaloniki, and two smaller answers
Athens
Services and flights
Coworking, accountants, translators, and direct flights to the U.S. in season. You pay for it in rent and in August heat.
Thessaloniki
Cheaper, younger
A student city on the water, with rents below Athens and a real winter. Fewer ways to fly home.
Chania, Crete
An island that stays open
Crete is big enough to keep an airport and a hospital running all year. Summer belongs to the tourists.
Ermoupoli, Syros
Small island, real winter
The South Aegean's administrative capital is a working port, not a resort, so the bakery opens in January. Read the ferry timetable first.
Tax
The 50 percent break is not a nomad perk
The claim you keep meeting online is that Greece taxes half your income for seven years. That is Article 5C of the Greek income tax code. It was written for people who bring a job or a business into Greece.
Read the condition. If your employer is a foreign company with no presence in Greece, Article 5C shuts the door: it wants an employment relationship with a Greek entity or with a foreign company's Greek branch. Register here as a sole trader and the answer is genuinely open. We couldn't find a Greek ruling or circular that settles it. Treat the exemption as unconfirmed until a Greek adviser puts your own position in writing.
What's certain is the day count. Spend more than 183 days in Greece across any 12-month stretch and you're a Greek tax resident, backdated to your first day in the country, on worldwide income at 9 to 44 percent. Flamingo Compliance exists for exactly that tally, and MyExpatTaxes handles the 1040 you keep filing with the U.S. either way.
Three calls worth making first
Lexidy
Greece Visa Services
Lexidy runs Greek visa files for Americans. The useful question is which consulate has jurisdiction over your address and how long that post is holding passports, because the answer sets your whole calendar.
Flamingo Compliance | Tax Residency and Visa Tracker Platform
Tax Residency and Visa Tracker Platform
A residency and day-tracking platform. Greek tax residency turns on one tally, and crossing it reaches back to your first day in Greece. The count has to be right from the week you arrive.
MyExpatTaxes
U.S. Expat Tax Service
MyExpatTaxes prepares U.S. returns from abroad. Worth an hour before you move. The U.S. and Greece still share a tax treaty signed in 1950, it gives Americans almost nothing, and the foreign tax credit ends up doing the work.
Questions we get about this visa
What does it cost in government fees?
About 75 euros for the type D visa, then 1,000 euros for the two-year residence permit, 16 euros for the card, and 150 euros per family member. Translations, apostilles and insurance sit on top of that.
How long does the visa take?
Greek consulates are meant to tell you where your application stands within 10 working days. Door to door, reported timelines run one to three months. Appointment availability drives it, and so does whether your file gets sent to Athens for review.
Will Greece tax my American salary?
If you live there, almost certainly. Cross day 183 inside any rolling 12-month window and Greece taxes your worldwide income, backdated to the day you arrived. Rates run 9 to 44 percent.
Can I apply for the Greece digital nomad visa from inside Greece?
No, not since 5 February 2026. Law 5275/2026 closed that route. You need the type D visa from your nearest Greek consulate, and you need it in hand before you travel, even if your passport lets you walk into Greece visa-free.
Does this route lead to permanent residency?
It can. The permit renews in two-year blocks, and after five continuous years of lawful residence you can go for EU long-term resident status. Greek citizenship is a separate seven-year question, with a B1 language and civics exam.
Can I work for Greek clients on the side?
No. The whole basis of the visa is that your employer, clients or company sit outside Greece, and you sign a declaration to that effect. Taking on Greek customers puts your permit at risk.
How much do I have to earn?
3,500 euros a month. The statute describes that as net. A spouse pushes the bar up by a fifth, and every child adds another 15 percent, so two adults are tested at about 4,200 and a family of three at about 4,725. Confirm net versus gross with your own consulate.
Do I get the 50 percent tax exemption?
Probably not, if you are somebody's employee. Article 5C wants the job to be with a Greek company, or with the Greek arm of a foreign one, and a US employer with no office in Greece is neither. Sole traders sit in unsettled territory.
Greece sets the bar at 3,500 euros. See where else you clear it.
Answer a few questions about your work and your budget, and we'll show you which countries would say yes.
Why not you?