Greece Golden Visa Statistics 2026: The Full Dataset

Quick answer: Greece held 27,786 active main-investor Golden Visa permits in December 2025. Applications fell 25.7% to 6,978 in 2025 while approvals nearly doubled to 8,879, and China holds about 47% of all permits with Turkey growing fastest at +158%. Every figure below is dated and sourced.

Golden Visa statistics get quoted everywhere and dated almost nowhere, which is how 2023’s numbers still headline 2026’s sales pages. This page is the site’s maintained dataset: stock, flow, nationality mix, backlog and money, each figure tied to its period and source, revised quarterly against Ministry of Migration releases. For what the rules are rather than what the numbers say, start at the tier guide; for what the queue feels like from inside, the timeline guide.

How Many Greek Golden Visas Are Active Right Now?

The current stock is 27,786 valid main-investor permits as of December 2025, the largest of any European residence-by-investment programme, up roughly 47% in two years. Family permits multiply the headcount by about 2.3 times on pending-file ratios, and the stock keeps climbing because approvals are draining a deep backlog.

Two opposite readings of the stock are both correct:

• As scale: the asset class is institutionalised, processing is routine.
• As overhang: queued files are tomorrow’s supply of resale stock.

Greece now runs Europe’s largest residence-by-investment programme by permits in force, and a buyer should hold both readings simultaneously. Read as programme scale, 27,786 active investor permits validate the asset class: banks, notaries and the Ministry process these files as routine, and the resale market for compliant stock has a decade of comparables. Read as market overhang, the nearly 15,000 investor files still queued in mid-2025 are demand already banked, feeding approvals of roughly 950 permits a month for 24 months through 2026 and 2027 regardless of what new applications do, and every one of those approvals eventually becomes a holder who may sell. The stock figure is therefore both the programme’s credibility and its future supply curve, which is why serious buyers track it quarterly rather than quoting it once.

How Have Applications and Approvals Moved Since 2024?

The headline fact of 2025 is a crossover: filings fell 25.7% from their record of roughly 9,300 down to 6,978, while approvals rose 95% to 8,879, and the divergence widened in early 2026, applications down a further 43% and approvals up 11% at 3,816 for January to April.

The mechanics behind the cross are straightforward:

• The 2024 application record was a deadline rush around Law 5100/2024’s threshold rises.
• The €250,000 studio buyer, most of the old volume, left when the floor moved to €400,000.
• The Ministry scaled processing, cutting the backlog roughly 10% in a single quarter after June 2025.
• Approvals now track the queue, not the market: 2026’s grants are mostly 2024’s files.

A buyer reading the flow table should invert the panic headlines: falling applications mean fewer competitors at the €400,000 tier, while rising approvals mean the 8-to-14-month queue is shortening, both favourable to a 2026 entrant.

Which Nationalities Hold and Seek Greek Golden Visas?

China dominates the stock with 8,179 initial holders, about 47% of the total, but all of the growth is elsewhere: Turkey added 1,529 holders in a single year for +158%, US cumulative approvals rose 49% to 578, and Israeli and UK demand climbed on regional and post-Brexit logics respectively.

Nationality composition explains programme behaviour better than any other variable in the dataset. Chinese demand, 56.4% of pending investor files, is stock-heavy and queue-patient, filed largely in the €250,000 era and still working through the system years later. Turkish demand is proximity-driven and current, flowing into Thessaloniki, Halkidiki and Athens at a +158% annual growth rate, and it is the cohort actively repricing the €400,000 regional tier. American demand is the smallest of the three at 578 cumulative approvals but compounds fastest in percentage terms at +49% a year, fed by both the non-dom relocation logic and remote work. For an owner planning an exit, the mix is a liquidity forecast: today’s pending files are tomorrow’s buyers of compliant 120 m² stock, and their nationalities tell you which submarkets they will bid in.

What Do the Numbers Say About Money and the Market?

Foreign real estate inflows into Greece fell 25.3% in 2025 while Golden Visa approvals nearly doubled, which reads as a contradiction and is actually composition: fewer, larger deals replaced many small ones after thresholds tripled from €250,000, and domestic buyers held national transaction volumes steady through the shift.

The money picture in four dated facts:

• Foreign real estate inflows: −25.3% in 2025, per Bank of Greece reporting, the first sustained fall of the programme era.
• Athens transactions: 5,816 transfers worth €626 million in 2025, an average near €107,630, 6.8% above the national mean.
• Minimum ticket at the prime tier: €800,000, implying €856,000 to €880,000 all-in with the 3.09% transfer tax and fees.
• Programme-era house prices: Athens prime and Riviera stock repriced upward through 2024 to 2026 even as inflow euros fell, scarcity of compliant 120 m² stock doing the work.

The investment-side conclusion is not that demand died; it is that the programme moved upmarket exactly as designed, trading volume for ticket size, with national price data showing the two-speed market that resulted.

How Did the Rules Behind These Numbers Change Over Time?

Every inflection in the data is a rule change wearing a chart: the 2013 launch at €250,000, the 2023 doubling to €500,000 in Athens and Thessaloniki, and Law 5100/2024’s three-tier reset at €800,000, €400,000 and €250,000 with the 120 m² floor and the short-term rental ban attached.

The full legal detail sits in the tier guide and the Circular 1/2026 explainer; the statistical point is simpler: this dataset is a policy seismograph, and every spike in it was announced in a Government Gazette first.

How Many Family Members Ride on Each Investor Permit?

The family multiplier is about 2.3: June 2025’s queue held 34,740 family-member files against 14,931 investor files, because one Greek deed covers a spouse, children under 21 and the parents of both spouses at no extra investment. Renewals were 17% of pending investor applications, the first 2019-era five-year cohorts coming due.

• One investor file typically brings 2 to 3 dependants into the queue.
• Parents of both spouses are the uniquely Greek inclusion, and visibly used.
• Renewal volume will compound from 2026 as the post-2019 stock cycles through its five-year terms.

For programme arithmetic this means headline “permit” counts triple when families are counted, and Ministry capacity is consumed accordingly, one reason processing runs 8 to 14 months even at record approval pace. The family rules guide prices the inclusion itself.

How Does Greece Compare With Rival Programmes on the Numbers?

Greece is the last major EU property route standing, and the volumes show it: 27,786 active investor permits against a Portuguese programme that removed real estate in October 2023, a Spanish programme closed outright in April 2025, and an Italian flat-tax regime that involves no property and no permit-by-investment at all.

The competitive read on the data is one sentence: displaced Portuguese and Spanish property demand had exactly one EU destination left, and 2024’s record filings were partly that migration arriving. The comparisons are priced in detail in Greece vs Portugal and Greece vs Spain; the statistical footprint of the shift is Turkey +158% and the US +49% landing on Greek deeds that would previously have been Lisbon or Barcelona ones.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Entering at 2026’s Numbers?

The advantages of a 2026 entry are a thinner field and a faster queue: applications are down 43%, approvals up 11%, and the backlog is shrinking by about 10% a quarter. The disadvantages are price and scarcity: the ticket tripled against 2022, compliant 120 m² stock is scarce, and the easy-yield era is legislated away.

Advantages of entering now

• Fewer competing buyers: filings are at their lowest since 2017 outside the pandemic year.
• Faster decisions: approval pace near 950 a month against ~380 in 2024.
• Seller leverage at €400,000: foreign inflows −25.3% means negotiable vendors.
• Rule clarity: Circular 1/2026 replaced discretion with checklists.

Disadvantages of entering now

• Capital: €430,000 to €880,000 all-in against €265,000 in the €250,000 era.
• Compliant stock scarcity: 120 m² single-deed supply is the binding constraint in prime zones.
• Income limits: the STR ban plus 15% to 45% rental tax cap net yields near 2% to 3%.
• Backlog risk in reverse: 15,000 queued investor files are also 15,000 future exit-sellers.

What Are the Risks and Red Flags in Reading These Statistics?

The dataset’s main risks are definitional rather than arithmetical: mixing main-applicant counts with family-inclusive counts that run 2.3 times larger, quoting stock as flow, and trusting undated figures from the €250,000 era. Four reading rules keep the numbers honest, and they are the rules this page is built on.

• Main investors vs everyone. 27,786 is investors only; pending-file ratios imply the all-permits figure is more than double. A source that switches base mid-argument is selling something.
• Stock vs flow. “Record Golden Visas” can mean permits in force, annual approvals or annual filings; in 2025 those three numbers were 27,786, 8,879 and 6,978 respectively.
• Dates or it did not happen. Thresholds changed in 2023 and 2024; any statistic without a period attached is unusable for decisions.
• Source chain. Primary data is the Ministry of Migration’s quarterly releases; everything else, this page included, is a relay and says so.

Which Buyer Scenario Do the 2026 Numbers Support?

There are three postures the 2026 data supports: the value entrant using the thin field at the €400,000 tier, the exit-minded buyer reading the 15,000-file queue as future supply, and the tracker watching quarterly releases before committing. The numbers argue for deliberateness in 2026, not for waiting it out.

• Entering: the thin field is your leverage.
• Exiting later: the queue is your future demand.
• Undecided: track the quarterly releases below.

The value entrant. Applications at a nine-year low and vendors facing −25.3% foreign inflows: negotiate at the €400,000 tier now, before the approval wave converts queued files into settled competitors.

The exit-minded buyer. 15,000 pending investor files are a five-to-ten-year forward sellers’ market in compliant stock; buy the asset the next cohort must buy, 120 m²-plus in a liquid submarket, and the statistics become your resale pipeline.

The quarterly tracker. Watch three numbers each release: initial applications (demand), approvals per month (queue speed), and Chinese share of pending (the old era draining). This page updates on the same cycle.

Next steps: what the rules require in 2026 · the realistic timeline from deed to card · the market forecast built on this data.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Greece Golden Visas have been issued in total? +

27,786 main-investor permits were valid as of December 2025, per Ministry of Migration data, with family members holding dependent permits on top. Approvals of initial investor applications reached 8,879 in 2025 alone, a 95% rise on 2024, as the Ministry worked through its backlog.

How many Golden Visa applications does Greece receive per year? +

Initial main-applicant filings peaked near 9,300 in 2024, the rush before and around the Law 5100/2024 threshold rises, then fell 25.7% to 6,978 in 2025. In the first four months of 2026 applications fell a further 43% year on year, while approvals rose 11% to 3,816 over the same months.

Which nationality holds the most Greek Golden Visas? +

China, with 8,179 initial active holders, about 47% of the total as of late 2025. Turkey is second and the fastest growing: 2,499 holders after adding 1,529 in a year, a 158% rise. US citizens reached 578 cumulative approvals by December 2025, up 49% year on year.

How large is the Greek Golden Visa backlog? +

As of June 2025, 49,671 applications were pending in total, of which 14,931 were investor applications, 83% of those initial filings, and 34,740 were family members. The Ministry then cut the backlog by roughly 10% in three months, which is why 2025 to 2026 approvals run far ahead of new demand.

How long does a Greece Golden Visa approval take in 2026? +

Deed to permit card typically runs 8 to 14 months of Ministry processing after a 10-to-14-week purchase, with the backlog clearing at 2026's approval pace of roughly 950 permits a month. Circular 1/2026 added a 15-day completeness check at the front of the queue.

How often is this statistics page updated? +

Quarterly, against Ministry of Migration releases and reputable trackers of them, with every figure dated in the text. Current revision: 22 August 2026, incorporating full-year 2025 data and the January-to-April 2026 releases.