Greece · Golden Visa · 2026 rules
The €250,000 Greek Golden Visa route
When Greece raised its Golden Visa property threshold to €400,000 — and €800,000 in the prime zones — in 2024, one lower door stayed open. A €250,000 entry survives for two specific kinds of project: turning a commercial building into housing, and restoring a listed building. It is the cheapest legal route into the programme, and the most misunderstood.
What still qualifies at €250,000
Under Law 5100/2024, the standard residential route now costs €400,000 outside Zone A and €800,000 inside it (Attica including Athens, Greater Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini, and islands with a population above 3,100), and the property must be a single unit of at least 120 m². The €250,000 threshold is preserved only for:
- Commercial-to-residential conversion — buying a property whose use is commercial and converting it to residential. The change of use must be completed as part of the investment.
- Listed-building restoration — buying and restoring a building that is officially listed or heritage-protected. The restoration is the qualifying act.
Critically, the 120 m² size floor does not apply to either route. They are defined by the works — the change of use or the restoration — not by a minimum area. For a sub-120 m² property, this is the only Golden Visa path that exists.
Where the friction is
The €250,000 is the entry price, not the all-in cost. Both routes carry project risk that a finished apartment does not:
- Construction and permitting. A conversion or restoration means works, contractors, and approvals — with timelines and cost overruns that an off-the-plan or resale apartment avoids.
- A narrow, specialised stock. Qualifying commercial buildings and listed properties are a small, uneven slice of the market — concentrated in older urban cores, not evenly available across regions.
- Documentation burden. The change of use or the restoration has to be evidenced for the permit — this is a heavier file than a clean title transfer.
For a buyer who simply wants EU residency against a clean purchase, the €400,000 standard route in a non-prime region is usually the lower-friction path. The €250,000 route rewards investors who actually want the conversion or restoration project — for whom the lower headline threshold and the upside of the works align.
Work the numbers
Check a budget against every Greek threshold — including this route — with the Golden Visa eligibility checker, estimate the all-in acquisition cost with the Greek property cost calculator, and read the full ownership tax mechanics in the Greek foreign-buyer tax guide. Comparing against Cyprus? See the Greece vs Cyprus Golden Visa comparison.