New applications for the Greece Golden Visa fell to 3,086 in the first seven months of 2026, down 39% from 5,028 in the same period last year, according to Migration Ministry data. Monthly filings have been remarkably stable this year, ranging between 392 and 497, an average of roughly 440 a month that puts 2026 on pace for somewhere north of 5,000 applications by year-end.
In 2025, full-year applications stood at 7,021, down 25% from a record 9,372 in 2024.
Decisions on pending applications now exceed monthly filings. The backlog, which exceeded 52,000 pending files at the start of 2025, counting investors and family members together, stood at 29,273 at the end of July 2026.
Ministry data also show the program’s center of gravity shifting: most new applications now arrive through the €250,000 commercial-to-residential conversion route rather than the standard property tiers. Greek lawyer Alexander Varnavas predicted exactly this pivot when the new tiers were announced in March 2024.
The Backlog Is in Full Retreat
For years, the program’s Achilles’ heel was administrative: files piled up faster than the state could decide them, and waiting times stretched beyond 18 months. That equation flipped in the spring of 2025, when monthly decisions began to exceed monthly intake, and it has stayed flipped ever since.
Two forces are compounding. Decentralization spread the caseload from a single overwhelmed Athens office to regional units across the country, and Law 5275/2026, in force since February, assigns each new file automatically to the office with the shortest queue.
At the same time, the 39% drop in new filings means fewer applications join the line each month than leave it.
Faster Decisions Across Every Cohort
Completion rates tell a similar story: nearly all 2023 files are closed, most of 2024’s cohort has been decided, and recent filings are moving at a speed the program has never seen; well-prepared cases now sometimes clear within months rather than years.
The month-by-month application data show the same surplus in raw numbers: decisions issued consistently exceed new files received.
Law 5275/2026 also repaired the damage the backlog used to inflict: the five-year permit now runs from the date the residence card is issued rather than being backdated to the filing date, so processing delays no longer eat into the residence period an investor has paid for.
“A Restructuring of Demand,” Not a Collapse
Alexander Risvas, managing partner of Athens-based Risvas & Associates, cautions against reading the headline figure as a collapse in appetite. The 39% decline “does not, in my view, indicate a comparable decline in the underlying international interest in Greece,” he says, but is largely a consequence of the higher thresholds “and the resulting adjustment of the market.”
Most of the old volume came precisely from the areas that were repriced hardest. “A very substantial part of the traditional Golden Visa market consisted of investors seeking residential properties around the old €250,000 level, particularly in Athens and Piraeus,” Risvas explains, and raising the standard Attica threshold to €800,000 “inevitably removed a significant number of potential investors from that segment of the market.”
Short-term rental restrictions matter mainly to yield-focused buyers, he adds, but rank as “a secondary factor compared with the increase in the investment threshold.”
Christina Georgaki of Georgaki Law Firm points to the other side of the comparison: an inflated base. In her view, the announcement of higher thresholds set off an explosion of applications from investors rushing to lock in the lower thresholds. What the 2026 figures capture, she says, is that “the market has got back to normal, without the stress of a change of legislation threatening the minimum investment.”
The Conversion Route Becomes the Market
Data showing most new applications flowing through the €250,000 conversion category are “entirely consistent with what we see in practice,” according to Risvas. It is currently “the most accessible real-estate route for investors who want to invest in Athens or other high-demand locations without committing €800,000.”
The conversion route is exempt from the 120-square-meter minimum size condition that applies to the €400,000 and €800,000 tiers, and that exemption has shaped the available stock. What has emerged, Risvas observes, is “a market dominated by relatively small apartments, frequently created through the conversion of former offices, commercial buildings or similar properties,” well suited to buyers whose priority is the residence permit, considerably less so to families seeking a larger home.
Investors do not typically buy a cheap commercial property and fund the conversion works themselves, both lawyers note. Developers acquire and convert the buildings, then sell the completed or to-be-completed units from €250,000, a purchase price that already incorporates acquisition, construction, and conversion costs.
Beyond the purchase price, the only additional costs the investor should budget for are transaction and application expenses: transfer tax, notarial and land-registry fees, legal fees, and the government fees for the residence permit. “It is only tax and fees for the Golden Visa that the applicant has to pay additionally,” Georgaki says.
A Pipeline the Statistics Cannot See
Risvas identifies a timing quirk that flatters the decline in application volume. The law requires that the change of use be completed before a golden visa application is filed, yet many conversion projects being marketed today remain under construction.
An investor “may have already selected a property, signed a reservation or even proceeded substantially with the acquisition process,” he says, without appearing anywhere in the ministry’s tables.
“This creates a lag between investment demand and actual Golden Visa submissions,” he argues, one he considers particularly relevant when interpreting the 2026 figures. “There is consequently a pipeline of investors waiting for projects to be completed before their applications can be filed.”
“What we are seeing is a restructuring of demand following one of the most significant changes to the program since its introduction,” Risvas adds. The challenge, in his view, is no longer a lack of investor interest but “whether the market can provide a sufficient quantity of completed, legally compliant and commercially attractive properties within the investment categories that investors are now willing to use.”
A Swelling Stock of Active Permits
Every month of surplus processing converts waiting investors into permit holders, and the stock of active golden visas, counting initial and renewed permits for main applicants, keeps climbing accordingly.
By the end of July, Greece counted 34,278 active investor permits, up from 22,001 in June 2025. Chinese investors remain by far the largest nationality group, holding just over half of all active permits.
Multi-Property Portfolios May Be Next
Greece's National Housing Policy Strategy 2026–2035, approved by the government and published in the Government Gazette on August 17, includes a proposal for a new golden visa category that would let investors spread the qualifying amount across a portfolio of several properties rather than concentrating it in one, provided all of them are placed exclusively on the long-term rental market.
The measure remains a proposal requiring its own implementing legislation, and Risvas warns that it "should not be presented to investors as an existing Golden Visa route just yet," with details such as the minimum amount, the permissible number of properties, and the required lease terms still to be defined.
If enacted on attractive terms, both lawyers expect strong uptake. Diversifying across several smaller apartments rather than sinking €800,000 into a single property "would make considerably more economic sense for many investors," Risvas says, while Georgaki expects the option to help applicants "achieve higher yields on their investment, diversify the risk, and increase the options among the properties."
A portfolio route would also serve the government's stated aim of expanding the long-term rental stock, the same objective behind the program's short-term rental ban.
