The short version
- Three thresholds, not one. €800,000 in Attica, the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Thira (Santorini) and islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants. €400,000 everywhere else. Both need a single property with at least 120 m² of main areas.
- €250,000 is nationwide but it is not a location discount. It exists for a genuine change of use from non-residential to residential, completed before the permit application, and for listed buildings that must be fully restored or reconstructed before the first renewal. Neither carries a 120 m² test.
- The reduced route is once-only per property. Sell to another third-country buyer and they face €400,000 or €800,000 by zone.
- Parking and storage on the same deed in the same building count toward value, never toward main areas. The circular's own example, 118 m² plus parking plus storage, fails.
- Listings advertising Athens apartments of 39 m² to 82 m² "from €250,000" are describing the conversion route. They qualify only if the conversion is finished and documented, and most pages do not show that.
Start with the fork, not the price
Every Greek Golden Visa property question resolves into one of three files, and the price is the last thing that decides which one you are in. Either you are buying a standard residence in the expensive zone, where the number is €800,000 and the property has to be one unit of at least 120 m² of main areas. Or you are buying a standard residence anywhere else, where the same structural rules apply at €400,000. Or you are not buying a standard residence at all, you are buying a former office, shop or workshop that has already been converted to housing, or a listed building you are undertaking to restore, and only then does €250,000 come into view.
Advertising collapses that fork into a single figure, which is why so many buyers arrive with the wrong expectation. A page that says "Golden Visa from €250,000" in Athens is not lying about the number. It is silent about which of the three files the number belongs to, and that silence is where the money goes wrong. Our walkthrough of the real-estate route covers the buying mechanics; this page is narrower, and it is about eligibility before you engage anyone.
The legal spine is short. Law 5100/2024, Article 64, amended Article 100 of Law 5038/2023 and created the zone structure. Circular No. 1/2026, issued on 22 April 2026 by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum and signed by the General Secretary for Migration Policy, is the interpretative document, roughly 31 pages, that tells the case officers how to read it. The circular is where the awkward edges live: the auxiliary-area question, the co-ownership question, the once-only limit, and the treatment of packaging that looks designed to get a file under a threshold.
The three columns
| Test | Zone A · €800,000 | Zone B · €400,000 | Reduced · €250,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where | Region of Attica, Regional Unit of Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Thira (Santorini), islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants | Everywhere else in Greece | Nationwide, location is irrelevant |
| What qualifies | Standard residential property | Standard residential property | Completed change of use from non-residential to residential, or a listed building for full restoration or reconstruction |
| Minimum main areas | 120 m² | 120 m² | No minimum |
| Single property | Yes, one property only | Yes, one property only | Yes, one property only |
| Timing condition | None beyond completion of purchase | None beyond completion of purchase | Conversion finished before the permit application; listed buildings fully restored before the first renewal |
| Reusable by the next buyer | Yes, at the zone threshold | Yes, at the zone threshold | No. Once-only per property, then the zone threshold applies |
The 120 m² test is stricter than it sounds
Main areas are the habitable parts of the property. Auxiliary areas are the rest: parking, storage, basements of that character. Circular 1/2026 keeps the two ledgers separate on purpose. Auxiliary space bought on the same contract, in the same building, can be added to the price that has to clear the threshold, so it helps a buyer who is short on value. It does nothing at all for a buyer who is short on size.
The example that circulates from the circular is blunt: 118 m² of main areas, plus a parking space, plus a storage room, fails. Not because the money is wrong, but because 118 is not 120. That is the kind of rule that only bites at signing, after a deposit, which is why the number to ask for early is the main-area figure on the permit and the title, not the "total" on the brochure.
The single-property rule sits alongside it. The threshold has to be met by one property, so two flats at €200,000 each do not add up to a Zone B investment. Co-ownership follows the same logic with one carve-out: spouses or civil partners who co-own can hold a single investor permit, and the 120 m² is measured on the whole property rather than on either half. Unrelated co-buyers do not get two permits out of one flat. If your plan involves a household rather than an individual, the family multiplier study shows how much one qualifying investment actually carries.
Expert tip
Read the title and the building permit, not the listing badge. A "Golden Visa eligible" label is marketing, and it is applied by the seller. The documents that decide a file are the ones that state the main-area square metres, the current legal use of the property, and, on a conversion, the dated certificate that the change of use is complete. If an agent can produce a rental-yield projection faster than a change-of-use certificate, you have learned something about the file.
What the market is still selling
We read the public pages below. We did not visit, we did not book viewings, and we are not quoting anyone. The point is not to accuse a specific agency of anything, it is to show how a compliant-sounding page reads once you put the circular next to it.
| Page and what it advertises | Zone | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Istasya Property, "Athens Golden Visa Apartments From €250,000" Kallithea 48 to 67 m² from €257k; Marousi about 45 m² at €282k; Moschato 56 to 82 m² at €307k; Elliniko about 70 m² at €337k. Pitched as change of use with a 3 to 4% rental guarantee. | Attica, Zone A | Conditional pass | These clear €250,000 and the 120 m² test does not apply, but only if each unit is a genuine change of use completed before the application. As ordinary Athens apartments they would need €800,000 and 120 m², which none of them meet. |
| LivHomes, "Golden Visa fully furnished residences in central Athens" Exarcheia, from €285,000, 39 to 43 m² one-bedrooms, "strong rental performance", labelled Golden Visa €250,000. | Attica, Zone A | Fail as presented | The page shows no conversion documentation. Without it these are standard Attica residences: they miss the €800,000 threshold and they miss 120 m² of main areas by a wide margin. |
| Our own Greece real-estate route guide, included as the internal comparison rather than a third-party listing. | All zones | States the test | Prices the zone thresholds and the buying costs without attaching a yield promise to an eligibility claim. |
Notice the shape of the problem. Neither page is obviously fraudulent. Both are selling something that can be legal, and the legality turns entirely on a document the page does not show. The buyer's job is to move the burden of proof back where it belongs, before money moves.
Where the circular gets sharp
Three behaviours draw explicit attention. Misleading advertising, where a property is marketed as Golden Visa eligible on a threshold it cannot reach. Funds returned to the buyer after closing, which makes the declared price fiction. And artificial price cuts designed to land a file under a threshold. The consequences named are anti-money-laundering scrutiny, tax exposure, and revocation of the permit. That last one matters most, because revocation lands years after the transaction, on the family rather than the agent.
Suspension of applications from Russian and Belarusian nationals remains in place. That is a separate policy line from the zone thresholds, but it belongs in the same eligibility check, because no amount of correct property structuring cures it.
Zone checker
Main areas are 118 m². A standard residential purchase needs at least 120 m² of main areas, and parking or storage cannot make up the difference.
What this does to the arithmetic
The zone map quietly changes the case for Greece. At €250,000 in Athens, the program was the cheapest credible EU residence and the property was almost incidental. At €800,000 in Attica with a 120 m² floor, it is a real property decision with a real capital lock-up, and the honest comparison shifts toward Portugal's fund route, where the money buys a financial instrument rather than a flat. We put the two side by side in Greece versus Portugal, and the trade-off is no longer about price alone.
Zone B is where the reform looks most rational. €400,000 for a 120 m² property outside the hot markets is a different proposition from €800,000 in central Athens, and it points buyers toward places that wanted the capital. Whether the reform did what it was meant to do in the housing market is a separate question, and we measured it in the housing-market study. Who is actually arriving, and from where, is in the emigration map. Whether the whole thing is worth doing at the new prices is the argument in is it worth it, and the document checklist sits in the Greece requirements guide.
Frequently asked
Can I still buy a normal Athens apartment for €250,000?
No. Attica sits in the €800,000 zone, and a standard residential purchase there also has to be a single property with at least 120 m² of main areas. The €250,000 figure survives only in two narrow cases that have nothing to do with location: a genuine change of use from non-residential to residential that is already completed before the residence-permit application is filed, and a listed building the buyer commits to fully restore or reconstruct before the first renewal. A listing that advertises a 48 m² Kallithea flat at €257,000 is selling the first case. It qualifies only if the conversion is real and finished, with paperwork to prove it.
Do parking spaces and storage rooms get me over 120 m²?
They count toward the money, not toward the size. Parking and storage bought on the same deed in the same building can be added to the value that has to clear €800,000 or €400,000, but they are auxiliary areas and they do not count as main areas. The circular works through the case directly: a 118 m² apartment plus a parking space plus a storage room still fails, because the main-area figure is 118 and the test is 120. Two square metres of main area is the whole decision.
What happens if the island has roughly 3,100 inhabitants?
That is the honest edge of what anyone can tell you today. The statute sets the €800,000 zone to cover islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants, but no Golden Visa list of qualifying islands has been published, so an island sitting close to the line cannot be placed from the outside with confidence. Treat it as an open question to settle with the census figure the authority itself applies and with a written confirmation before you sign anything, rather than as a number to argue about with a seller.
Can two friends split a 130 m² flat in Attica?
Not into two investor permits. The threshold and the 120 m² main-area test attach to the property, not to a share of it, so co-ownership by unrelated buyers does not produce one permit each on a single 130 m² property. Spouses and civil partners are treated differently: co-owning spouses or civil partners can hold one investor permit between them, and the 120 m² is measured on the whole property rather than on either share.
Does a converted property stay at €250,000 when I sell it on?
No, and this is the detail buyers miss when they think of the conversion route as a permanent discount attached to the building. The €250,000 route can be used on a given property once. A later third-country buyer of that same property has to meet the ordinary zone threshold, €400,000 or €800,000, depending on where it is. So the resale market for these units is narrower than the entry price suggests, and any exit model that assumes the next Golden Visa buyer can also enter at €250,000 is wrong.
Named gap
We do not have the Ministry's own PDF of Circular 1/2026, only professional readouts that agree with each other and with the statute. We are not linking a circular URL we cannot open, and we are not publishing an island list that does not exist. If you are close to the 3,100-inhabitant line, or close to 120 m², treat those as questions for a written answer from the authority handling your file, not as facts you can settle from a website, including this one.
Sources
- Νόμος 5100/2024, Άρθρο 64, amending Άρθρο 100 of Νόμος 5038/2023 (Migration Code), investment thresholds and property conditions. elib.aade.gr
- Υπουργείο Μετανάστευσης και Ασύλου, Νόμος 5100/2024 as published, PDF used in our housing study. migration.gov.gr
- Circular No. 1/2026, Ministry of Migration and Asylum, issued 22 April 2026, signed by the General Secretary for Migration Policy. Interpretative, approximately 31 pages. Ministry PDF not obtained; cited through professional readouts.
- Secondary readouts of the circular: Kanellos explainer, 1 May 2026; IMI Daily coverage; Georgaki summary. Used only where they agree with each other and with the statute.
- Ministry of Migration statistical tables as used in our housing-market study.
Not legal advice. Thresholds and conditions here reflect Law 5100/2024 and the professional readouts of Circular 1/2026 available on 20 August 2026. Confirm the main-area figure, the legal use of the property, and any conversion documentation with a Greek lawyer before committing funds.