For a lot of people, retirement is when the tax bill gets heavier. A lifetime of pension income meets a home-country rate that can top 40%, in a climate that does little for the mood and a cost of living that keeps climbing.
Greece has spent recent years making a different pitch. Move your tax residence there, clear a short list of conditions, and Greece taxes your foreign income, pension included, at a flat 7%. It stays fixed for 15 years, with no brackets and no surcharges.
An offer like that usually hides a catch. This one mostly does not, but it hides a lot of detail. The gap between a retirement that works and one that costs a wasted year and a heavy tax bill comes down to specifics no brochure spells out.
How the 7% works
Greece introduced the regime in 2020 to attract foreign retirees. Those who qualify pay 7% a year on their foreign income, in one payment due at the end of July. Standard Greek rates run above 40%, so on income arriving from abroad, the saving is large.
On a pension of $100,000, that comes to a Greek tax bill of $7,000. Greece adds nothing else on top.
Three conditions decide eligibility. You must not have been a Greek tax resident for five of the previous six years, and you must hold a foreign pension. The move also has to come from a country with a tax-information agreement with Greece, which both the United States and the United Kingdom have.
Once you are in, the 7% can extend to other foreign income, like dividends or overseas rent, though that is assessed case by case. There is also a presence test of more than 183 days a year in Greece. It only works if you really move there, which for most people looking at this is the entire point.
What the headline number leaves out
Not every pension qualifies. The regime is written around pensions tied to past employment, which raises a question for Americans whose savings sit in an IRA or a rolled-over 401(k). Whether those count depends on how the account is documented and where the money came from.
For Americans, the bigger issue is that the United States taxes its citizens wherever they live. An American who retires to Greece still files a US return every year. Greece’s 7% settles the Greek bill; it does not settle the American one.
The US-Greece tax treaty and the foreign tax credit exist for exactly this situation. Get the structure right and the total can land near 7%; get it wrong and the same income can be taxed twice. What happens in practice depends on a person’s income, how they file, and the way the treaty reads in their case.
This is manageable, but it is not a do-it-yourself project. The people who get it right line up the tax election, the residence permit, and the home-country filing together, in the right order, rather than as separate errands.
First, the right to be there
EU citizens can simply move; freedom of movement handles it. Everyone else needs a residence permit before they can even file for the regime, and the right permit depends on the person.
Retirees with a steady pension have a natural route, the Financially Independent Person permit. It is granted to people who can show reliable income from outside Greece and hold private health insurance, and it asks for proof of income rather than a property purchase.
The Golden Visa is the better-known option, but it is built around an investment and carries its own price thresholds, so it suits a different kind of buyer.
Order matters here. The permit has to be in place before the tax application can go through, and getting the sequence wrong can cost a full tax year. This is routine work for people who do it constantly, and slow and expensive to learn alone.
Where to live
With the paperwork handled, the only real decision left is location. Where do you want to spend the next 15 years?
The obvious answers are the busy ones, the islands that fill up every August. A less obvious answer sits much closer to Athens. On the west coast of Evia, the second-largest Greek island and one of the few you can drive to rather than reach by boat, a quiet stretch of coast called Skroponeria looks out over the calm water of the Euboean Gulf.
Athens is about an hour and a half away by car, with an international airport and flights almost anywhere. Skroponeria itself feels far more remote, with pine-covered hills, clear water, and evenings when the sea goes a soft pewter.
The area is full of day trips. Delphi, the ancient world’s most famous oracle, is within reach, as is Arachova, the mountain town that becomes Greece’s most fashionable ski resort each winter. Closer to home, Chalkida draws visitors for a tidal current that has reversed direction every few hours since long before anyone could explain it, and the wild beach at Chiliadou stays quiet for the people who love it.
Levante Villas
Skroponeria is where OIKOS Property Developments is building Levante Villas, a collection of five. Each one is 130 square meters across two floors, with its own pool on the lower level and the Euboean Gulf in front of it. It is a small project, deliberately low-key.
The look is modern and clean, with white volumes, a lot of glass, and timber pergolas over the roof terraces. Inside, it is well finished without being flashy. There is marble in the bathrooms, a fireplace in the living room, fitted walk-in wardrobes, a designer kitchen, and a small study for anyone not quite ready to stop working.
Three bedrooms leave space for grandchildren, or for the friends who suddenly remember you exist once you own a place in Greece. The sea is 100 meters away, a short walk down the hill.
It is luxury for people who do not need it to be loud. Five villas on a quiet hillside, each one looking at the sea.
A sound place to own
Greece today is a different country from the one that filled the headlines a decade ago. The economy is growing faster than the eurozone average, at roughly 2% a year. Unemployment has dropped from about 26% to under 9%, and the country has climbed back to an investment-grade credit rating.
Property has tracked that recovery. Residential values have risen for several years in a row, by roughly 7 to 8% in 2025 after double-digit gains earlier in the decade. New construction has slowed at the same time, so good stock stays in short supply.
International buyers have been a steady part of this market for years, and a large share of sales in the most sought-after areas. The interest is not only Greek.
The developer who handles the rest
OIKOS Property Developments has worked in Greek property and immigration for more than 15 years, which is the combination that matters for a move like this. The firm builds the homes and handles the surrounding work, including the cross-border purchase, the residence permit, and introductions to the tax and legal advisers an international buyer needs.
That matters more for someone moving to Greece than for someone buying a second home. A lot of developers hand over the keys and leave you to it. This one stays involved with what comes next.
The team is based in Athens and works mainly with foreign buyers. Newcomers tend to trip on the same things, from the paperwork and the timing to the small bureaucratic snags that delay a move. When the tax break, the permit, and the house all have to line up in order, that experience pays off.
Where to start
The tax break is real, and the villas are real. Fitting them to a single life is the hard part, and that is what a first conversation is for.
For anyone weighing a move like this, OIKOS Property Developments offers a consultation that covers the tax, the permit, and the property together, before any commitment. To get started, contact the OIKOS Property Developments team via our website.
