Greece Tax Changes 2026: Law 5246/2025 Buyer's Guide

Quick answer: Law 5246/2025 cut Greek personal tax from 1 January 2026: income brackets fell roughly two points to a 9% to 44% scale, rental income of €12,001 to €24,000 dropped from 35% to 25%, under-25s pay nothing on their first €20,000, and small-village primary homes get 50% off ENFIA.

Greece legislated its largest personal tax cut in a decade on 7 November 2025, and almost every English-language guide a foreign buyer will find still describes the old system. Law 5246/2025, titled “Tax Reform for Demographics and the Middle Class”, took effect on 1 January 2026 and moves real money for property owners: a landlord on €24,000 of Athens rent keeps €1,200 more each year, and a family relocating under the Golden Visa pays materially less on any Greek salary than the 2025 scale charged.

This guide sets out every measure that touches a foreign property buyer or resident, with the old and new numbers side by side, worked examples on real rents, and the list of things the law did not change, which is where most of the confusion online currently sits.

What Did Law 5246/2025 Actually Change?

Law 5246/2025 rewrote the personal income tax scale, added a 25% rental band, zero-rated young workers’ first earnings, tied rates to family size, and trimmed ENFIA and VAT in depopulating regions, with nearly all measures effective 1 January 2026. It is a demographics-driven reform: the deepest cuts go to households with children and workers under 30.

The measures, at a glance:

Three headlines matter most for foreign buyers:

• Rental income of €12,001 to €24,000 now taxed at 25%, not 35%.
• A 39% band replaced 44% on income of €40,001 to €60,000.
• Purchase-side taxes, FMA at 3.09% and the suspended CGT, did not move.

The provisions stage into the 2026 tax year, so the first returns filed under the new scale land in 2027, covering income earned from January 2026. Rental income collected in 2026 is already accruing under the 25% band.

How Do the New 2026 Income Tax Brackets Work?

The 2026 scale runs six brackets: 9% to €10,000, 20% to 20,000, 26% to 30,000, 34% to 40,000, 39% to 60,000 and 44% above €60,000. Four of the six rates are two points below their 2025 equivalents, and the 39% band is new: that income was previously taxed at 44%.

Two groups do far better than the headline table:

• Under 25: 0% on the first €20,000 of employment income.
• Aged 26 to 30: 9% across the whole €0 to €20,000 band instead of climbing to 20%, a saving of roughly €1,100 a year for a 28-year-old on a €20,000 Greek salary.

Who this matters to among this site’s readers: anyone planning actual relocation. A Golden Visa holder who never becomes Greek tax resident is untouched by the salary scale; a family that moves, takes Greek employment or draws Greek-source income files under it from the 2026 year onward.

What Changed for Rental Income, and What Is It Worth?

Rental income between 12,001 and €24,000 a year is taxed at 25% from 1 January 2026 instead of 35%, worth up to €1,200 per landlord per year. The outer bands hold: 15% to €12,000, 35% to 35,000, 45% above, charged on gross rent less the flat 5% repairs deduction.

Worked against typical holdings:

Figures apply the 5% repairs deduction first, then the progressive scale; from €24,000 of rent upward the saving plateaus around €1,100 to €1,200 because only the middle band moved.

Around 161,587 Greek landlords declaring rents above €12,000 a year benefit from the new band, according to Finance Ministry estimates reported at the law’s adoption in November 2025, and the measure was costed at roughly €1,300 of maximum annual relief per affected owner. The design is deliberately narrow: Greece wants mid-sized landlords, the bracket that owns most of the long-term rental stock in Athens and Thessaloniki, to keep more of a declared rent rather than under-declare it, which is also why Law 5222/2025 simultaneously banned cash rent payments from 1 January 2026 and required every residential lease to be paid through a bank account registered with AADE. Read together, the two laws are one policy: a 10-point cut on the middle band in exchange for a fully traceable rental market. A foreign landlord who was always paid by transfer simply collects the saving.

For a foreign owner the planning consequences are direct:

• The live boundaries are €12,000 and €24,000 of annual rent.
• A lease at €1,900 a month tops out inside the 25% band; €2,100 a month starts feeding the 35% band.
• Nothing changed for rents under €12,000, which stay at 15%. The full non-resident mechanics, filing duties and the three-year exemption for converted short-term rentals are in the non-resident rental income tax guide.

Who Pays Less Under the Family and Demographic Rates?

Households with dependent children pay reduced rates on the middle brackets, scaling with the number of children, and taxpayers under 30 get their own reduced entry bands. Law 5246/2025 prices demographics directly into the tax scale rather than through allowances, which is unusual in Europe and deliberate: the law’s own title names demographics first.

How the relief stacks for a Greek tax resident household:

• One or two children: the 20% and 26% bands fall by roughly two further points each.
• Three children: deeper cuts through the middle of the scale.
• Four or more children: the largest reductions, with middle bands falling toward single digits under the published scale.
• Age under 25: 0% to €20,000 of employment income regardless of children.
• Age 26 to 30: 9% across the first €20,000.

A relocating family weighing Greece against Portugal or Italy should run the 2026 family scale rather than any pre-2026 calculator: for a two-child household on €45,000 of Greek income the combined bracket cuts are worth roughly €1,500 to €2,000 a year against the 2025 law. Cross-border earners should read this alongside the Greece and non-dom flat tax options, which can supersede the ordinary scale entirely for foreign-source income.

What Happened to ENFIA and VAT?

ENFIA’s core scale of €2.00 to €16.20 per square metre is untouched for city property; the 2026 relief is a 50% cut for primary residences in settlements of up to 1,500 inhabitants, with a full exemption legislated from 2027. Island VAT fell roughly 30% where it applies: 24/13/6% became 17/9/4%.

What this does and does not touch for a foreign investor:

• An Athens, Thessaloniki or Crete rental apartment: no ENFIA change. Budget €2.00 to €16.20 per square metre by zone as before, plus the wealth supplement of 0.55% to 1.15% on portfolio objective value above roughly €500,000.
• A village house declared as your primary residence in a sub-1,500-person settlement: 50% off the 2026 ENFIA bill, and a path to zero from 2027. This genuinely changes holding costs for retirees restoring rural stock in the Peloponnese or inland Crete.
• Renovation and services on the discounted islands: the VAT cut lowers real works costs on eligible islands such as Leros or Samothraki, relevant to buyers restoring under the €250,000 conversion route.
• New-build purchases: the separate 24% VAT suspension on first-sale homes still runs to 31 December 2026 nationwide; Law 5246/2025 neither extended nor shortened it.

How Do the Changes Affect a Foreign Property Investor’s Numbers?

For a pure landlord the reform is worth €0 to €1,200 a year depending on rent level; for a relocating family it can be worth several thousand. The structure of Greek property taxation, gross-rent basis, 5% flat deduction, ENFIA outside income tax, is fully intact, so no model needs rebuilding, only re-rating.

Take the corpus’s standard worked case, a €150,000 Athens apartment at 5.4% gross:

Nothing moves, because €8,100 of rent never leaves the 15% band. The pattern generalises:

• Under €12,000 of rent: zero change.
• €12,001 to €24,000: every euro in the band saves 10 points.
• Above €35,000: the top band still takes 45%, unchanged. Now scale the same arithmetic to a €400,000 Golden Visa asset let at 5% gross, €20,000 a year: tax falls from €4,225 to €3,550 and net yield rises by roughly 0.17 points. The reform rewards exactly the mid-market landlord bracket that regional Golden Visa buyers occupy, and does nothing for the sub-12,000-euro rents typical of single small apartments. Run your own case in the rental yield calculator with the 2026 bands.

What Did Law 5246/2025 Not Change?

Every transaction-side number a buyer models is unchanged: 3.09% transfer tax, the suspended 15% capital gains tax, the suspended 24% new-build VAT nationwide, the Golden Visa tiers of Law 5100/2024, and the rental scale’s outer bands of 15%, 35% and 45%. The reform is an income-side event, not a purchase-side one.

Still exactly as before:

1. FMA transfer tax at 3.09% on the higher of price and objective value.
2. Capital gains tax on property, suspended through 31 December 2026 under its own provision, covered in the CGT guide.
3. Golden Visa thresholds, the 120 square metre rule and the short-term rental ban: all Law 5100/2024, all untouched.
4. The flat 5% repairs deduction as the only expense relief for individual landlords.
5. ENFIA’s urban scale and the E9 declaration duty, per the ENFIA guide.
6. The three-year rental income exemption for qualifying long leases signed by 31 December 2026, which predates this law and still runs.

Law 5246/2025 is best read as the income half of a two-law settlement whose purchase half is Law 5100/2024. Between them, Greece’s rules for a foreign buyer in 2026 are: invest €400,000 regionally or €800,000 in the prime zones to obtain residency, pay 3.09% transfer tax and a 7% to 10% acquisition stack on the way in, hold at €2.00 to €16.20 per square metre of ENFIA, let long-term only on the qualifying asset, and pay rental tax at 15%, 25%, 35% and 45% on gross rent less a 5% repairs deduction. Only the fourth rate band in that chain moved in 2026. Everything a buyer signs at the notary is priced exactly as it was in 2025.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages for Foreign Owners?

The reform’s advantages for a foreign owner are concrete: up to €1,200 a year back on mid-band rents, a materially lighter scale for any relocating family, and cheaper holding on rural primary homes. The disadvantages are what it left out: nothing for rents under €12,000, no expense deductibility, and no extension of the VAT suspension.

Advantages

• 25% rental band: up to €1,200 a year on rents of €12,001 to €24,000.
• Family and under-30 scales cut relocation tax costs by €1,500 to €2,000 for a typical two-child household on €45,000.
• Rural ENFIA relief halves holding tax on qualifying village primary homes in 2026.
• Island VAT cuts reduce renovation budgets by up to 7 points of works cost on eligible islands.

Disadvantages

• Rents below €12,000 a year, most single mid-market apartments, save nothing.
• Gross-rent taxation stands: management, insurance and mortgage interest remain non-deductible.
• The 45% top rental band is untouched, so large Riviera incomes still net thin.
• The new-build VAT cliff of 31 December 2026 was left in place, keeping deed-timing risk alive for off-plan buyers.

What Are the Risks and Red Flags of the 2026 Reform?

The main risk is not in the law but in the content about it: most calculators and agent materials still quote the 2025 scale, and a purchase underwritten on 35% where 25% applies, or vice versa on stale advice, misprices the asset. Three checks protect you.

• Date every tax figure you are given. If a yield projection does not state whether it uses the 2026 bands, assume it predates them. The €12,001 to €24,000 band at 25% is the tell.
• Do not model the family scale without residence. The salary and family cuts apply to Greek tax residents; a Golden Visa alone does not make you one, and 183 days in-country does, whether you wanted it or not.
• Treat the 2027 promises as promises. The full rural ENFIA exemption and any further staging are legislated intentions a future budget can amend; underwrite on the 2026 rates that are actually in force.
• Watch the annual Finance Bill. Greece revises rates every autumn; this page states the law as of 22 August 2026 and is updated when the scale moves.

Which Buyer Scenario Is Yours Under the New Law?

There are three profiles among this site’s readers, and the law is worth a different amount to each: the non-resident landlord gains up to €1,200 a year at mid-band rents, the relocating family gains the most per euro of income, and the sub-€12,000 landlord is untouched.

• Landlord, one asset: automatic saving, no filing change.
• Relocating family: run the family scale and the flat-tax alternative.
• Small landlord: nothing to re-model.

The non-resident landlord with one €400,000 asset. Rent near €20,000 a year now attracts €3,550 of tax rather than 4,225. Your net yield improves by roughly a sixth of a point with no action required; file as before, the scale applies automatically to 2026 income.

The family actually moving to Greece. You are the reform’s target. Combine the cut ordinary scale, the per-child reductions, and, if your foreign income is large, weigh the flat-tax non-dom alternative against the ordinary scale before choosing what to elect: for foreign-source income above roughly €230,000 a year the €100,000 flat tax beats the 44% band on its own.

The small landlord under €12,000 of rent. Nothing changed for you. The 15% band, the 5% deduction and ENFIA are as they were; your decision variables remain vacancy, management and the lease-length exemption, not this law.

Next steps: check the non-resident rental tax mechanics · model the 2026 bands in the yield calculator · the Golden Visa hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Law 5246/2025 in simple terms? +

Law 5246/2025, adopted by the Hellenic Parliament on 7 November 2025, is Greece's largest personal tax reform in a decade. From 1 January 2026 it cut most income tax brackets by two percentage points, added a 39% band for income of €40,000 to €60,000, inserted a 25% rental income band for €12,001 to €24,000, zero-rated the first €20,000 of salary for workers under 25, and reduced rates further for families with children.

How did Law 5246/2025 change rental income tax in Greece? +

It inserted a 25% band for annual rental income between 12,001 and €24,000, which was previously taxed at 35%. The full 2026 scale is 15% to €12,000, 25% to 24,000, 35% to 35,000 and 45% above. A landlord collecting €24,000 of rent saves about €1,200 a year against the old scale. The reduction applies to rental income collected from 1 January 2026.

Did Law 5246/2025 change the Golden Visa rules? +

No. The Golden Visa thresholds of €800,000 in prime zones and €400,000 regionally, the 120 square metre rule, and the short-term rental ban on qualifying assets all sit in Law 5100/2024 and were untouched. Law 5246/2025 changes what you pay once you own or earn in Greece, not what you must invest to obtain residency.

What happened to ENFIA property tax in 2026? +

The core ENFIA scale of €2.00 to €16.20 per square metre is unchanged for most owners. Law 5246/2025 added targeted relief: a 50% ENFIA reduction in 2026 on primary residences in settlements of up to 1,500 inhabitants, moving to a full exemption from 2027 under conditions. Foreign investors letting city property see no ENFIA change.

Do the 2026 tax cuts apply to non-resident property owners? +

Yes, where the income is Greek-source. The new rental scale, including the 25% band, applies to residents and non-residents alike. The salary and family measures matter only if you become a Greek tax resident. Non-residents still receive the flat 5% repairs deduction on gross rent and still cannot deduct other expenses under the standard regime.

Is the 24% VAT on new-build property affected by Law 5246/2025? +

The nationwide suspension of 24% VAT on new-build homes runs to 31 December 2026 under separate legislation and was not extended by Law 5246/2025. The law did cut VAT rates by roughly 30% on North Aegean islands, Evros and small Dodecanese islands with up to 20,000 inhabitants, from 24/13/6% to 17/9/4%.