Greece plans to introduce legislation in January 2026 that would overhaul its Golden Visa program by addressing issues with backdated residence permits, streamlining renewal and family reunification procedures, and tackling a backlog of thousands of pending applications.
Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris recently announced the plan in an address to the Consular Corps in Athens. He framed it as part of a broader immigration overhaul that began four months ago when Greece passed a new law making illegal entry a criminal offense.
Addressing the Backdated Permit Problem
The bill will propose to change how the validity period of golden visa residence cards is calculated, shifting from the application filing date to the card’s issuance date. This change explicitly addresses a problem affecting applicants living in Greece while they wait for their permits.
Under the current system, when authorities finally issue a residence permit after processing concludes, which can take from a few months to over a year, the card is backdated to the original application date.
This means the physical card has a validity period shorter than the intended five years upon issuance; sometimes significantly shorter for applicants who faced long processing times.
The backlog had over 49,000 pending applications in July, though processing has markedly picked up in 2025.
The proposed reform would ensure that residence cards issued carry the whole five-year validity period from the date of issuance, says Christos Vardikos, Attorney, Consul for the Commonwealth of Dominica in Greece and President-Elect of the Consular Corps, who organized the ministerial address.
No Impact on Citizenship Timeline
Importantly, Vardikos emphasizes that this change affects only the validity period printed on the physical residence card itself, not the calculation of time toward permanent residency or citizenship.
The pathways to permanent residency (five years of legal residency) and naturalization (seven years of legal residency) will remain unchanged because these timelines are calculated from when an applicant begins legally residing in Greece, not from when authorities issue the physical card, explains Vardikos.
This means the reform will not extend the timeline to citizenship for golden visa holders, as legal residency begins on the day authorities approve the golden visa application, regardless of when the physical permit is issued later.
Vardikos explains that the bill will also streamline the administrative process for renewals and family reunification cases by reducing the number of steps these applications must go through, which he says would significantly shorten the process.
Given the government’s parliamentary majority, Vardikos says the bill is “likely to pass.” Indeed, the ruling New Democracy party currently holds 156 out of 300 seats in Parliament.
