Greece Golden Visa Applications Fall 25% as Backlog Shrinks 38%

Greece golden visa applications have dropped by a quarter, yet Athens is approving permits faster than ever. New figures from Greece’s Ministry of Migration and Asylum show investors filed fewer first-time requests last year while officials cleared a mountain of old files. The queue that buried applicants through 2024 is finally shrinking.

ATHENS, Greece – 07 October 2026

The ministry’s August 2026 report, the latest it has published, puts hard numbers on the shift. Initial investor applications fell from 9,372 in 2024 to 7,021 in 2025. Over the same stretch, initial permits issued jumped from roughly 4,500 to 8,879. The data got wider attention this week after a Stacker analysis of the ministry’s figures ran across US news sites on 6 October.

Higher prices did most of the work. Greece raised its property thresholds in 2024, and fewer buyers now clear the bar. The ones who do are getting answers sooner. For anyone weighing offshore residency options in the EU, that’s a different Greece from the one people complained about two years ago.

What Do the New Greece Golden Visa Applications Figures Show?

Greece golden visa applications fell from 9,372 first-time filings in 2024 to 7,021 in 2025, a 25% drop, according to the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. The slide has continued in 2026, with 3,426 initial requests filed from January to August. That works out to about 428 a month, down from roughly 585 a month last year.

The ministry publishes these numbers every month on its official statistics page, in Greek, buried in an appendix most people never open. We pulled the tables from the August 2026 appendix and compared them with the December 2024 and December 2025 editions.

One caveat. The ministry logs each permit against the month the request was filed, so recent months keep moving as decisions land. Treat the 2026 totals as a floor.

Why Did Greece Golden Visa Approvals Nearly Double in 2025?

Greece issued 8,879 initial golden visa permits in 2025, up from about 4,536 in 2024, the ministry’s month-by-month decision tables show. That’s a 96% jump. Much of that work cleared files lodged during the 2023 and 2024 rush, when buyers hurried to beat the 2024 price rise.

The pace hasn’t slowed. Officials issued 6,751 initial permits between January and July 2026 alone. March and July each topped 1,200.

I’ve watched clients sit in that Greek queue for well over a year, paying rent on an Athens flat they’d bought outright while waiting for a plastic card. Read that number twice: the state now clears in a month roughly what it cleared in a quarter back in mid-2024.

How Big Is the Greece Golden Visa Backlog Now?

The Greece golden visa backlog for first-time investor applications fell from 9,958 files in December 2025 to 6,145 in August 2026, a 38% cut. Counting renewals, pending investor files dropped from 11,553 to 7,686. Attica still holds the bulk, with 5,571 of those 7,686 open cases sitting with the Athens-area authority.

Family members are still the slow lane. Nearly 21,000 spouse and children files remain open, so a main applicant can get approved while a teenager’s card lags months behind. This is where people get burned: they book school places or sell a home abroad on the strength of the investor’s approval alone.

Who Is Still Applying for the Greek Golden Visa?

Chinese investors hold 47.4% of active initial Greece golden visa permits, with 12,664 cards as of August 2026, the ministry says. Turkish nationals are the fastest-growing group. Their active permits climbed from 3,291 in December 2025 to 5,107 in August, lifting their share from 15.9% to 19.1% in eight months.

Americans and Brits are a thin slice. For them, the residence card often matters less than Greece’s tax residency regimes, which keep pulling in wealthy UK leavers. Turkish demand is easy to read. Greece sits next door, and the card lets holders travel across the Schengen area.

What Are the Greece Golden Visa Requirements Now?

Greece golden visa requirements now start at €400,000 to €800,000 for most property, with the top tier covering prime areas such as Athens and Santorini, Euronews reported. A €250,000 route survives only for restoring listed buildings or converting commercial space to homes.

Those conversion and restoration routes come with a catch: the property can’t be used for short-term lets. That kills the Airbnb yield many buyers counted on. Add the planned jump in purchase costs for non-EU buyers (see our piece on Greece’s property transfer tax) and the falling number of Greece golden visa applications makes plenty of sense.

Most people who ask us about Greece today end up comparing it with Cyprus, Malta or a non-property route. Cyprus has its own problems, including a review of thousands of Cyprus golden visa permits. Greece looks steadier by comparison, if pricier.

Greece Golden Visa Applications: FAQ

Greece’s program has settled into a pricier, quieter, faster shape. For more on the country, browse our Greece coverage.