Quick answer: No, Airbnb is not allowed on a Greece Golden Visa property. Law 5100/2024, which governs the program in 2026, explicitly bans short-term tourist rentals on the qualifying asset for the entire duration of the residency permit. Long-term leases of 12 months or more are permitted and generate legal rental income without violating the visa conditions.
Investors shopping for Golden Visa properties in Athens or Crete frequently ask whether they can put the apartment on Airbnb to offset carrying costs while the visa application is processed. The short answer is no, but the full picture is more nuanced: the restriction is property-specific, not investor-wide, and there are legal routes to generate rental income from the qualifying asset.
Law 5100/2024 Article 20 bans short-term tourist rental on the qualifying Golden Visa asset for the full five-year permit period, while twelve-month residential leases remain permitted at taxable rates starting at 15 percent on the first €12,000 of annual rent. Circular 1/2026 requires a signed declaration at application and quarterly platform cross-checks, with 30 days notice before revocation if Airbnb listings continue. A 6 to 9 percent Airbnb yield assumption on a qualifying deed is a red flag on its face, because the compliant long-term model on €400,000 regional stock grosses 3.5 to 5.5 percent before ENFIA of roughly €800 to €2,500 a year and management of 20 to 25 percent of rent on an Athens two-bedroom near 80 square metres.
This guide explains exactly what the law says, what is permissible, and how to structure your investment without running into compliance problems.
What Law 5100/2024 Actually Says About Short-Term Rentals
Greece’s current Golden Visa framework is defined by Law 5100/2024, which replaced the old €250,000 flat-threshold regime with a tiered structure and added several new conditions on how qualifying properties may be used.
Article 20 of Law 5100/2024 contains the operative clause: the qualifying real estate investment must be a property intended for residential or commercial use, and the investor may not exploit it through short-term tourist rental under the digital platform (peer-to-peer) framework during the period the residency permit is valid.
The legislative intent was explicit in the parliamentary record. The government wanted to decouple the Golden Visa program from the Airbnb economy, which had been blamed, rightly or wrongly, for housing unaffordability in central Athens and on popular islands. By prohibiting STR on qualifying assets, legislators sought to prevent the program from functioning as a subsidised way to run holiday-let operations backed by an EU residency permit.
Circular 1/2026, issued on 22 April 2026 to operationalise Law 5100/2024, reconfirmed the prohibition and clarified the documentation that applicants must submit. At each application stage, the file must include a declaration that the property will not be used for short-term tourist rental. The same declaration is required at renewal.
The Exact Distinction: What Is Banned vs What Is Permitted
Law 5100/2024 Article 20 prohibits all short-term tourist rental activity under 12 months on Golden Visa qualifying property, including Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo listings, while explicitly permitting long-term residential leases of 12 months or more that generate taxable rental income at 15 percent on the first €12,000 annually under Greek progressive income tax rules. The distinction is absolute: any arrangement framed as tourist accommodation violates program conditions regardless of contract duration or platform used, while standard residential tenancy agreements under Law 1703/1987 remain fully compliant for the five-year permit period.
Understanding the boundary is essential before signing a purchase contract.
Prohibited on the qualifying property:
- Listing the property on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, or any comparable digital peer-to-peer rental platform
- Renting the property for periods under 12 months framed as tourist accommodation
- Operating the property under a short-term rental (STR) registration number (ΑΜΑ, Αριθμός Μητρώου Ακινήτου, issued by AADE), even a licence obtained before the Golden Visa was granted must effectively be suspended for the qualifying asset while the permit is active
- Any arrangement that functions as a tourist rental, regardless of what it is called in the contract
Permitted on the qualifying property:
- Long-term residential leases of 12 months or more to a private tenant
- Commercial leases to a business entity (for example a company that uses the space as an office), provided the property retains its residential classification for program purposes
- Personal use of the property, staying in it yourself or allowing family members to stay, as many days per year as you wish
- Seasonal personal use combined with long-term residential letting outside your personal-use periods, provided no short-term tourist rental takes place
The distinction is the nature and duration of the rental arrangement, not the income itself. The law targets tourist accommodation platforms; it does not prohibit the property from generating rent.
How Can You Earn Rental Income on a Golden Visa Property?
Long-term residential leases on Golden Visa qualifying property typically gross 3.5 to 5.5 percent annually in Athens or Crete when contracts run 12 months or more and register with the tax authority under Law 5100/2024 compliant use rules.
Investors who want their qualifying property to produce income while the Golden Visa is active have a straightforward legal path: sign a standard residential lease for a minimum term of 12 months.
Greek long-term residential leases are governed by Law 1703/1987 as amended, which sets a statutory minimum term of three years for residential tenancies (though shorter fixed-term contracts are commercially common in practice; 12 months is the threshold the Golden Visa rule refers to). A properly drafted 12-month or longer lease to a private tenant is entirely compatible with Law 5100/2024.
Rental income from such a lease is subject to Greek income tax on a scale: 15% on income up to €12,000, 25% on €12,001 to €24,000, 35% on €24,001 to €35,000, and 45% on the amount above €35,000. There is an offsetting measure worth knowing about before you sign the lease. Income from a three-year residential lease concluded by 31 December 2026 on a home of up to 120 m² that was previously short-let, or vacant for three years, is exempt from income tax for three years. That is the exact conversion a Golden Visa buyer is obliged to make, so on a qualifying unit at or just under 120 m² the ban and the exemption can line up. Put the property back on a short-term platform inside those three years and the exemption is clawed back retroactively from year one. Full conditions are in the non-resident rental income tax guide. As a non-resident, you file a Greek tax return annually and pay tax at source on the rental income. Greek-source income is also declarable in your country of residence under the applicable double-taxation treaty.
Practically, long-term residential rents in the Athens city centre and popular islands have risen sharply since 2022. In Kolonaki, Pagrati, and Exarchia, monthly rents for a well-maintained two-bedroom apartment of 80 to 100 m² ranged from €1,200 to €1,900 in early 2026. In Crete’s Heraklion and Chania cities, comparable apartments fetch €700 to €1,100 per month. On a €400,000 qualifying property, a net annual rent of €14,000to€18,000 represents a 3.5 to 4.5% long-term yield before tax and management costs, modest but real and fully legal.
For a deeper breakdown of Greek rental yields by location and property type, see our Greece rental yield guide.
How Does the Athens Moratorium Interact With the Golden Visa Ban?
The Athens municipality STR moratorium freezes new ΑΜΑ short-term rental licence issuance through 31 December 2026 in central districts including Kolonaki, Monastiraki, Psyrri, and Koukaki where rental density exceeded 40 percent of dwellings, creating a second regulatory layer that applies to all property owners regardless of Golden Visa status in addition to the national qualifying-property ban under Law 5100/2024. The two rules are independent and they stack, which means a Golden Visa buyer purchasing in central Athens faces the national STR ban on the qualifying asset plus the local moratorium ban on new licences for any non-qualifying properties in covered zones.
Investors researching the Athens market encounter two distinct regulatory layers. The Golden Visa STR ban is one; the Athens STR moratorium is another, and it is important not to conflate them.
In 2025, Athens municipality and the national government introduced a package of measures targeting the concentration of short-term rentals in central Athens neighbourhoods. The core measure was a moratorium on new STR licences (ΑΜΑ registrations) in saturation zones, primarily central Athens districts such as Kolonaki, Monastiraki, Psirri, and parts of Piraeus, effective through at least the end of 2026.
This moratorium applies to all property owners in the covered zones, not only Golden Visa holders. A Greek citizen who bought a flat in Monastiraki in 2022 and wants to list it on Airbnb today cannot obtain a new STR licence in the covered zones during the moratorium period. Existing licences obtained before the moratorium are grandfathered with restrictions.
The practical overlap with Golden Visa is this: even if the STR ban under Law 5100/2024 did not exist, a Golden Visa qualifying property in central Athens would in many cases be unable to obtain a new STR licence anyway because of the moratorium. Investors should factor both layers into their planning.
Outside the moratorium zones, in Athens suburbs, regional cities, Crete, and the islands, the standard STR licensing framework continues to apply to non-GV properties. Obtaining an ΑΜΑ registration for a non-qualifying property in these areas remains possible subject to building, fire safety, and municipal requirements.
Can You Airbnb a Second, Non-Qualifying Property?
Law 5100/2024’s short-term rental ban applies exclusively to the specific deed used to satisfy the €400,000 or €800,000 Golden Visa investment threshold, meaning additional Greek properties owned by the same investor remain eligible for ΑΜΑ short-term rental licences under standard municipal rules if those properties were not included in the residency permit application. The workable structure is two assets rather than one: an €800,000 qualifying property on a long-term residential lease in Glyfada, and a separate €200,000 non-qualifying Thessaloniki studio operated as an Airbnb under its own valid ΑΜΑ registration. The visa requirement is met on one deed and the income optimisation happens on the other, with the separation legible on the face of the file.
This is a point many investors miss. The short-term rental prohibition in Law 5100/2024 attaches to the qualifying property, the specific asset used to satisfy the investment threshold for the Golden Visa. It does not attach to the investor personally or to other properties the investor owns in Greece.
If you hold a €800,000 apartment in Glyfada as your qualifying Golden Visa asset and separately own a €200,000 studio in Thessaloniki, the Thessaloniki studio is not a qualifying property. The Law 5100/2024 STR ban does not apply to it. You may list the Thessaloniki studio on Airbnb subject to the standard Greek STR licensing requirements, ΑΜΑ registration, tax declaration, compliance with safety and building codes, and the Golden Visa will be unaffected.
This structure, a large qualifying property held for long-term rental or personal use, plus a smaller non-qualifying investment property operated as a short-term rental, is one approach some investors use to balance yield optimisation with Golden Visa compliance. It requires careful legal documentation to keep the assets formally separate in the investment file, but it is not prohibited.
What Happens If You Violate the STR Ban
Operating prohibited short-term tourist rental on a Golden Visa qualifying property exposes buyers to administrative fines reaching €50,000 per property under Greek STR enforcement rules, plus grounds for immigration authorities to decline five-year permit renewal when platform listing archives, bank deposit records, or ΑΜΑ registration history show tourist accommodation use during the permit period. Treat an STR violation as a live renewal blocker rather than a technicality. The Ministry of Migration cross-references Airbnb and Booking.com listing data against the deeds submitted in Golden Visa files, and Law 5100/2024 Article 20 gives the authorities discretion to refuse renewal for non-compliant asset use.
The consequences of operating Airbnb or another short-term rental on a qualifying Golden Visa property fall into two categories: tax and administrative penalties under STR law, and immigration consequences under the residency permit regime.
Tax and administrative penalties for unlicensed STR in Greece include fines of up to €50,000 per property under the Greek STR regulatory framework, plus back taxes and surcharges on undeclared rental income. The Greek Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) cross-references platform data with tax filings and has conducted enforcement sweeps in Athens and the islands since 2023.
Immigration consequences are the greater concern for Golden Visa holders. At the five-year renewal stage, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum verifies that the qualifying property was held in compliance with program conditions. If the authority finds evidence, platform listings, bank receipts, STR licence records, that the property was operated as a short-term rental during the permit period, it has discretionary grounds to treat the qualifying conditions as unmet and decline renewal.
There is no published case law yet on how aggressively renewals are scrutinised on this basis, given that Law 5100/2024 permits issued from mid-2024 are only beginning to approach the two-year mark of their five-year cycle. Legal advisers in Athens recommend treating the prohibition as absolute and maintaining clean records showing only long-term residential tenants or personal use of the qualifying property.
What Should You Check Before Buying?
Golden Visa buyers must complete five mandatory pre-deposit checks to verify STR compliance risk, including ΑΜΑ registry searches at aade.gr, Athens moratorium zone boundary confirmation at municipal-block precision, and yield modeling on 12-month residential lease rates instead of 6 to 9 percent Airbnb gross projections agents quote in 2026 Kolonaki marketing decks. Model 3.5 to 4.5 percent long-term gross yield on a €400,000 qualifying asset against current central Athens rents, and treat any purchase contract that assumes short-term rental income on the qualifying deed as a planning error rather than an aggressive assumption.
Given the stakes, investors should take the following steps when evaluating a property for Golden Visa qualification:
1. Verify the property’s current STR status. Ask the seller for the ΑΜΑ registration number if one exists. A property currently operated as an Airbnb with an active registration is not automatically disqualifying, but you must be prepared to suspend that registration as a condition of the Golden Visa application. Confirm this with your Greek lawyer before exchange.
2. Check the Athens moratorium map. If you are buying in Athens, confirm whether the specific address falls within a moratorium zone. Athens municipality publishes the zone boundaries; your lawyer or agent should verify the postcode before you commit to a price that assumes STR income.
3. Model income on long-term rental rates, not STR rates. Airbnb gross yields in central Athens ran 6 to 9% in 2024 on well-managed units. Long-term residential yields for comparable units run 3.5 to 5.5%. Underwriting a Golden Visa purchase on STR yields when the law prohibits STR is a planning error that can materially affect your return.
4. Include an STR waiver clause in the purchase contract. Your lawyer should draft the contract to explicitly record that the buyer will not operate the property as a short-term tourist rental during the period the Golden Visa is active, matching the declaration required by Circular 1/2026. This creates a paper trail showing the buyer’s good-faith understanding from the outset.
5. Obtain a separate STR licence on any non-qualifying investment property before applying. If your plan involves a second income-generating property, establish the STR licence before or contemporaneously with the Golden Visa application so that the two assets are cleanly separated in your overall investment file.
Golden Visa rental compliance comes down to three actions: suspend any active ΑΜΑ tourist licence on the qualifying deed, sign the Circular 1/2026 short-term rental declarations at application, and register twelve-month residential contracts only on that asset. Violations trigger fines up to €50,000 under Greek STR tax rules and permit non-renewal at the five-year Golden Visa review when platform data shows Airbnb listings. A buyer scenario with an €800,000 Glyfada qualifying apartment plus a €200,000 Thessaloniki studio may run STR legally only on the non-qualifying unit while the Glyfada asset stays on long-term lease near €1,800 per month at 3.5 percent gross yield before tax. Model income on twelve-month leases only, never 6 to 9 percent Airbnb projections agents still quote in Athens pitch decks during 2026.
For a full breakdown of the qualifying investment tiers, the 120 m² rule, and the program structure, see our Greece Golden Visa property guide and the property tiers comparison.
For buyers specifically evaluating Crete under the €400,000 regional threshold, see our Crete Golden Visa guide.
For the full cost stack beyond the purchase price, see cost of buying property in Greece.
Common Questions Answered Directly
The short answers, before the detail: no, not for a few weeks a year; no, not through a company; no, not on a second unit in the same building if that unit is the qualifying one; and yes, a normal twelve-month residential tenancy is fine and is what the programme expects. “Can I list my Athens Golden Visa flat on Airbnb for just a few weeks a year while I’m not using it?”
No. The prohibition is absolute and does not contain a de minimis exception for occasional personal-period rentals. Even one booking accepted through an STR platform creates a compliance risk.
“What if I registered the Airbnb under a company name rather than personally?”
Operating through a company entity does not circumvent the prohibition. Law 5100/2024 addresses the use of the property, not who is listed as the host on the platform. Structuring the rental through a Greek or foreign company does not make it permissible.
“My property was already on Airbnb before I applied for the Golden Visa. Do I need to remove it?”
Yes. The qualifying condition attaches from the date the property is used as the basis for the Golden Visa application. Continuing to operate an existing STR listing after the application is filed, and certainly after the permit is granted, violates the program conditions regardless of when the listing was created.
“If Greece changes the rules in a future law, will the restriction lift automatically?”
Any legislative change would need to explicitly amend or repeal Article 20 of Law 5100/2024. Policy direction in 2026 is toward tightening rather than relaxing STR regulation in urban centres. There is no credible near-term signal that the qualifying property STR ban will be removed within the current permit cycle.
What rental options remain on a Golden Visa property?
| Strategy | Permitted on GV asset? | Typical gross yield | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short-term tourist rental (Airbnb) | No | N/A | Law 5100/2024 prohibition |
| Long-term residential lease (12+ months) | Yes | 3.5 to 5.5% | Must be registered contract |
| Personal use / vacant | Yes | N/A | No income, no violation |
| Commercial lease to business tenant | Usually yes | Varies | Verify with immigration lawyer |
Athens STR moratorium vs Golden Visa rule
| Rule | Applies to | Through | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Visa STR ban | Qualifying GV property only | Duration of permit | No Airbnb on asset used for visa |
| Athens centre STR moratorium | All owners in covered districts | End-2026 (verify) | Blocks new STR licences |
| Standard STR licensing | Non-GV properties elsewhere | Ongoing | Municipality-dependent |
Buyer scenarios
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Law 5100/2024 explicitly prohibits short-term tourist rentals on the qualifying Golden Visa property for the duration of the residency permit. Platforms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo are off-limits for that specific asset. Long-term residential leases of 12 months or longer are permitted and do not endanger the visa.
Yes. The short-term rental ban in Law 5100/2024 applies only to the qualifying property used to obtain the Golden Visa. Any other property you own in Greece that is not part of the residency application is subject to standard Greek STR licensing rules, a separate regime unrelated to the Golden Visa.
Long-term residential leases of 12 months or more are fully legal on the qualifying asset. Rent income from such agreements is taxable under normal Greek income tax rules but does not violate the Golden Visa conditions. Commercial leases to a business tenant are also generally permissible provided the property retains its qualifying status.
Separate from the Golden Visa ban, Athens municipality introduced an STR moratorium in 2025 restricting new short-term rental licences in heavily saturated central districts through at least the end of 2026. This affects all property owners in covered areas, not only Golden Visa holders, and is an additional regulatory layer on top of the national Golden Visa rule.
Operating a prohibited short-term rental on the qualifying property can trigger administrative fines under Greek tax law, potential revocation of the STR registration, and, most critically, grounds for the immigration authority to treat the property as non-compliant with Golden Visa conditions, putting the residency permit at risk of non-renewal.
Yes. At each five-year renewal, authorities verify that the qualifying property was held throughout the permit period and used in accordance with program rules. Evidence of prohibited short-term rental activity could be cited as a breach of the qualifying conditions, giving the authority discretion to refuse renewal.
Next steps: the Golden Visa hub · the zone lookup.
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