Greece’s golden visa program had 25,970 pending applications at the end of September 2026, according to the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. This backlog includes applications from family members and renewal applications.
September was the first month since the March 2025 crescendo of 52,821 in which the backlog fell below half of that peak.
Family members accounted for 19,008 of the pending applications, or 73%, leaving 6,962 for main investors.
During August and September, the backlog fell by 3,303 applications. Because the ministry adds decisions to past months in later bulletins, this article measures the change across both months.
This year’s applications accounted for 12,160 of the backlog, or 47%.
Serhan Aysever of Beyond Global Partners said the smaller backlog was “a welcome development.”
“The true measure of success lies not only in clearing applications, but also in ensuring transparency, consistency, and predictable processing times,” he said.
“Portugal serves as an important reminder of how prolonged delays and administrative uncertainty can affect investor confidence, regardless of a program’s attractiveness,” Aysever added.
Permits outpace applications
Greece issued 10,677 initial permits to main investors in the 12 months through September 2026. Over the same period, main investors filed 5,136 new applications.
Initial permits outnumbered new applications in every month from April 2025 to September 2026, according to the ministry’s monthly bulletins.
In 2025 and 2026, August had the fewest initial permits, at 448 and 552 respectively.
The ministry first reported 232 initial permits for August and raised the count to 552 a month later. Between the first bulletin and the latest bulletin, the counts for June and July rose by 627 and 280 permits.
September’s first count of 798 initial permits can rise in later bulletins.
Christos Vardikos of Vardikos & Vardikos said, “The numbers show that the system is running well now.”
Steady applications
Investors filed 3,862 new applications from January to September 2026, down 33% from about 5,750 a year earlier. Annual new applications peaked at 9,371 in 2024 and fell to 7,018 in 2025.
Monthly new applications in 2026 ranged from 331 in August to 526 in July, for an average of 429.
Almost all of this year’s shortfall came between January and April. In those four months of 2026, main investors filed 1,672 new applications, down from about 3,500 in the same months of 2025.
Between May and September, new applications fell from 2,242 in 2025 to 2,190 in 2026. August and September were the first months of 2026 with more new applications than in the same months of 2025.
New applications reached 331 in August and 418 in September, up from 308 and 410 a year earlier. Each 2025 count comes from the latest bulletin that covers that month.
Recent counts can rise: July’s first count of 497 new applications rose to 526 a month later.
Most new applications from May onward were pending. By the end of September, the ministry decided on 40% of the May applications and 11% of the July applications.
Year-long waits
At the end of September 2026, 84 of the 410 new applications from September 2025, or 20.5%, were pending. For all new applications from 2025, the pending share was 22.6% (1,586 of 7,018).
Pending new applications from 2024 totaled 1,304, or 13.9% of the 9,371 new applications from that year. That count was 1,902 at the end of July, two months earlier.
Vardikos cautioned against reading the older pending applications as a backlog.
“Some of these cases may not have full documents, or the applicants have not come for fingerprints,” he said. “You cannot evaluate whether it is a real backlog or not.”
From 2022 to 2026, the ministry rejected 319 of 33,052 new applications and revoked 24.
By the end of September, the ministry decided on 252 of the 411 new applications from April 2026, or 61%.
Attica’s backlog
At the end of September, the ministry’s regional figures showed 6,962 pending applications from main investors, including renewal applications.
The Decentralized Administration of Attica handled 5,080 of those applications, or 73%. Next came Thessaly and Central Greece, with 581 applications, and Macedonia and Thrace, with 553 applications.
Across filing years, Attica’s share of these pending applications falls from 94% for 2024 to 79% for 2025 and 60% for 2026.
In September, Attica cut its pending 2024 applications from 1,846 to 1,385, a fall of 25%. Attica’s pending 2026 applications rose by 156, to 2,065.
Outside Attica, 1,370 of the 1,882 pending applications, or 73%, date from 2026.
Since a ministry decision in 2019, investors can file in any region, regardless of where they bought their property.
“At the moment, there are regions that approve applications and issue golden visa cards within three months,” said Christina Georgaki of Georgaki Law Firm. “These locations are one to two hours’ drive from Athens or Thessaloniki.”
Vardikos cautioned against “all-in deals” that lock your application to a specific place, pointing out that”there are administrations that are quick, and you do not have to file everything at the ministry.”
Turkish golden visa holders pass 6,000
Main investors had 35,857 active golden visa permits at the end of September, up 1,579 from the end of July.
Chinese investors had 18,463 of those permits, or 51.5%. Their share was 47.4% of active initial permits and 65.3% of active renewed permits.
Active permits for Turkish investors reached 6,010, almost seven times the 880 permits that they had in March 2023.
Turkish investors accounted for 440, or 28%, of the rise of 1,579 in active permits since the end of July. Of their 6,010 active permits, 5,403 were initial permits.
Four of the top ten nationalities for initial permits are absent from the renewal top ten: Israel, the United Kingdom, Armenia, and Serbia.
“The newcomers are the United States, Armenia, Serbia, and Israel,” Vardikos said. “Serbia is the surprise.”
Among renewed permits, Russian investors ranked third, with 495.
Greece suspended new golden visa applications from Russian citizens in February 2022.
“Russians are not in the top ten for first-time permits because they cannot file,” Vardikos said. “They are stranded.”
Main investors and family members had 104,510 active golden visa permits at the end of September. That figure was 17.2% of the 606,218 valid residence permits that Greece counted for citizens of countries outside the European Union.
The count excludes refugee permits, temporary protection permits, and ethnic Greek identity cards.
Golden visa permits made up 89.7% of the valid residence permits for Chinese nationals and 86.7% of those for Turkish nationals.
