Greece's taxes at a glance
Structure used: Freelancer on the digital nomad permit with clients outside Greece, taxed as a Greek resident on the normal 2026 scale for business income with no art. 5C exemption, e-EFKA contribution category 1. Bands are the effective tax on profit for a remote worker using this structure, with clients abroad and costs of 15% of revenue.
Greece tax residency: the living interests and 183-day tests
Under article 4 of the Greek Income Tax Code, as Greece's residency note to the OECD sets out, you are resident if you keep a permanent or principal residence, a usual abode, or your center of living interests in Greece, meaning your personal, financial or social relations. That test has no day count.
The day test works differently from a simple count. Continuous presence of more than 183 days, with short trips abroad counted as presence, makes you resident from your first day in Greece. Stays purely for tourism or medical treatment of up to 365 days are excluded, which does not help anyone working from a laptop there.
The 170-day plan in Greece
Works
You spend 170 days in Greece across 2 separate stays, keep your home, partner and business base in a country where you are tax resident, and hold its residence certificate. Neither the day test nor the living interests test points to Greece.
Fails
You spend the same 170 days in Greece, but you sign a year-long lease in Athens, move your partner there and open your main bank account locally. Your center of living interests is now in Greece, and your worldwide income is taxable there without the day count.
Greece income tax rates for 2026
Law 5246/2025 set a new 2026 scale for wages, pensions and business income, with a 39% band between €40,000 and €60,000 (about $45,512 to $68,268). The table is the scale for a taxpayer aged 30 or over with no children; people with children and people under 30 get lower scales.
Greece income tax scale, 2026 (aged 30 or over, no children)
| Taxable income (EUR) | About (USD) | Rate on the slice |
|---|---|---|
| €0–€10,000 | $0–$11,378 | 9% |
| €10,000–€20,000 | $11,378–$22,756 | 20% |
| €20,000–€30,000 | $22,756–$34,134 | 26% |
| €30,000–€40,000 | $34,134–$45,512 | 34% |
| €40,000–€60,000 | $45,512–$68,268 | 39% |
| Over €60,000 | Over $68,268 | 44% |
Business profit gets no general tax credit. That credit applies to wages and pensions, so a freelancer pays the scale from the first euro of profit.
What a freelancer pays: flat e-EFKA contributions
Greek social security for freelancers is a fixed monthly amount, not a percentage. You pick 1 of 6 e-EFKA contribution categories, from €260.77 (about $297) a month for category 1 up to €675.87 (about $769), and the choice is not tied to what you earn. Some professions add an auxiliary branch from €46.57 (about $53) and a lump-sum branch from €31.05 (about $35) a month.
Contributions are deductible as a business expense. At high incomes the flat amount is a small share of profit, and at low incomes it is a real fixed cost that does not shrink in a slow month.
| Revenue | €87,889 (about $100,000) |
|---|---|
| Profit after costs of 15% | €74,706 (about $85,000) |
| e-EFKA contributionsCategory 1, 12 months | €3,129 (about $3,560) |
| Taxable incomeProfit less contributions | €71,576 (about $81,400) |
| Income tax2026 scale, aged 30 or over, no children | €21,794 (about $24,800) |
| Total tax and contributions | €24,923 (about $28,400), 33.4% of profit |
This is the rate the Index uses for a freelancer on the digital nomad permit. If the tax administration accepts an art. 5C application, only half of the business income is taxable and the total falls to €10,597 (about $12,100), 14.2% of profit.
How Greece taxes foreign income and remote work
A resident is taxed on worldwide income, so business income from work done while living in Greece is taxed there whether your clients are in Athens or Amsterdam. A remote salary from a foreign employer is taxed the same way.
The art. 5C relocation regime is the break a working nomad asks about: 50% of income from a job or individual business activity carried out in Greece is exempt for 7 tax years, for people who were not Greek resident in 5 of the 6 years before the move and commit to stay at least 2 years. It does not exempt foreign investment income.
For a non-EU freelancer on the digital nomad permit with only foreign clients, the permit is built for work for employers and clients outside Greece and bars economic activity in Greece itself, while art. 5C covers business activity carried out in Greece. The Index therefore taxes a permit holder on the normal scale: 33.4% of profit at $100,000 of revenue. If the tax administration accepts your art. 5C application, half of the business income is exempt and the rate falls to 14.2%.
Which Greek regime fits which kind of nomad
| Your situation | Regime that can apply | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Remote employee of a foreign company with no Greek entity or branch | None | Normal scale on the salary; art. 5C needs a job with a Greek entity or a Greek branch |
| EU citizen who registers a business activity in Greece | Art. 5C | 50% of the business income exempt for 7 years |
| Non-EU freelancer on the digital nomad permit, foreign clients only | Normal scale in the Index; art. 5C if the application is accepted | 33.4% of profit at $100,000 of revenue, or 14.2% with art. 5C |
| Retiree with a foreign pension | Art. 5B | Flat 7% on foreign income for up to 15 years |
| Investor placing €500,000 (about $569,000) in Greece | Art. 5A | €100,000 (about $114,000) a year covers all foreign income for up to 15 years |
David's note
For an EU citizen, art. 5C is the straightforward case: register a business activity in Greece, move, and apply in time. For a non-EU freelancer on the digital nomad permit, I would not build a budget on the 50% exemption until the tax administration has accepted the application in writing.
Filing your Greek tax return
Your first year as a Greek tax resident
- Get a Greek tax number (AFM) and register your business activity with the tax administration before your first invoice.
- Choose your e-EFKA contribution category and pay it every month.
- If you are using art. 5C, apply by the end of the year your activity starts when it starts by July 2, or by the end of the following year when it starts later.
- File the annual E1 return online: for 2025 the deadline was July 15, 2026, with a 4% discount for returns filed by May 15 and paid in full by July 31.
- Pay the tax in full or in 8 monthly installments, the first due by July 31.
- Ask for a tax residence certificate when a treaty country or a client needs proof of where you are resident.
Ways to move to Greece
Special tax regimes in Greece
Relocated workers and business owners regime (art. 5C Income Tax Code)
People who move their tax residence to Greece to take a job or to carry out individual business activity there can have 50% of that income exempt for 7 tax years. It needs an application to the tax administration and a stay of at least 2 years.
Open to new applicants. Lasts up to 7 years. Source: taxsummaries.pwc.com, checked September 29, 2026 Apply by the end of the year in which activity starts if it starts by 2 July; otherwise by the end of the following year.
Non-dom lump sum for investors (art. 5A Income Tax Code)
New residents who invest at least EUR 500,000 in Greece can pay EUR 100,000 a year instead of Greek tax on all foreign income, for up to 15 years.
Open to new applicants. Lasts up to 15 years. Source: taxsummaries.pwc.com, checked September 29, 2026
7% regime for foreign pensions (art. 5B Income Tax Code)
Pensioners who move to Greece can pay a flat 7% on foreign pension and other foreign income for up to 15 years.
Open to new applicants. Lasts up to 15 years. Source: taxsummaries.pwc.com, checked September 28, 2026
Running your own company from Greece
Greece's company residence test is broad. A company is Greek resident for a tax year if it was set up under Greek law, has its registered seat in Greece, or has its place of effective management in Greece for any period during the tax year.
Where the company is managed is judged on the facts, and the law lists what counts:
- Day-to-day management: where the business is actually run.
- Strategic decisions: where the big calls are made.
- Meetings: where the shareholders' annual meeting and board meetings take place.
- Records: where the books and records are kept.
- People: where the directors live, and possibly where most shareholders live.
A foreign company with 1 director who lives in Greece, decides everything from an apartment in Thessaloniki and keeps the books on a Greek laptop scores on almost every line. Once it is Greek resident, Greece taxes it as a Greek company.
The practical choice for most solo freelancers is between closing the foreign company and invoicing as an individual business in Greece, or moving its management genuinely elsewhere. The jurisdictions founders incorporate in differ in corporate tax, but none of them shields a company whose management sits in Greece.
US citizens living in Greece
The US-Greece income tax treaty dates from 1950 and, like other US treaties, generally does not reduce the US tax of US citizens. You still file a US return and claim the foreign tax credit or the 2026 foreign earned income exclusion of $132,900.
Art. 5C cuts your Greek tax, and with it the credit you can claim against US tax, so a US citizen using it can owe the IRS on the exempt half. The US-Greece totalization agreement means you pay social security in one country, not both.
Greece's 183-day rule backdates residence to your first day
Short trips out do not reset the Greek day count
Presence in Greece counts as continuous even with short periods abroad in between. Arrive in March, take a weekend in Rome each month and stay into September, and you pass 183 days of continuous presence: Greece then treats you as resident from your first day in March and taxes your worldwide income from that date.
The same logic makes the tourism exception useless for a working nomad. It covers stays for tourism or medical treatment only, so a stay spent invoicing clients counts toward the 183 days from the start.
Who Greece suits, and who it does not
Good fit
- Freelancers whose art. 5C application is accepted, the straightforward case for EU citizens who register a Greek business activity: tax on only half of profit for 7 years, with flat social contributions from €260.77 (about $297) a month.
- Retirees with foreign pensions (flat 7% under art. 5B).
- Investors with €500,000 (about $569,000) to place and large foreign income, who can pay the €100,000 (about $114,000) lump sum under art. 5A.
Poor fit
- Non-EU freelancers on the digital nomad permit, whom the Index taxes without art. 5C: 33.4% of profit goes to tax and contributions at $100,000 of revenue.
- People who will not stay at least 2 years, the minimum commitment for art. 5C.
- Remote workers who need a low income floor: the digital nomad permit asks for €3,500 (about $3,980) a month.
Recent tax and visa changes in Greece
New income tax scale for wages, pensions and business income (9% to 44%, with a new 39% band from EUR 40,000 to EUR 60,000 and lower scales for families and people under 30), Law 5246/2025. taxsummaries.pwc.com
Joint Ministerial Decision 225679 set the digital nomad income requirement at EUR 3,500 a month under Law 5038/2023. migration.gov.gr
