Greece Golden Visa 2026: Start-Up, Property, and Tax Incentives Global Investors Can’t Ignore

Greece’s new start-up Golden Visa is not an incremental tweak; it is a deliberate shift from passive capital into productive, innovation-led investment. The program aligns residency rights with early-stage financing of tech, tourism, fintech, defence, and other strategic sectors via the national Elevate Greece registry.​

Key strategic drivers for policymakers:

• Redirect foreign capital from overheated real estate into high-growth, employment-intensive sectors.​
• Strengthen Greece’s position as a regional innovation hub for Southeast Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Balkans.​
• Maintain the Golden Visa’s global appeal while responding to EU scrutiny over purely property-driven residency schemes.​

For investors, it creates a hybrid proposition: EU residency plus portfolio exposure to Greece’s innovation pipeline, rather than a pure property play.​

Core mechanics of the start-up Golden Visa

Investment structure and eligibility

Under Greece’s new framework, non‑EU/EEA nationals can obtain a residence permit by investing in start-ups listed on Elevate Greece, the national start-up registry backed by the Greek state. The program took effect in 2025 and has now become a fully operational pillar of the wider Golden Visa ecosystem.​

Core investment rules:

• Minimum ticket size: €250,000 into a Greek start-up registered on Elevate Greece, via equity (capital increase) or eligible bond instruments.​
• Ownership cap: Investor’s shareholding or voting rights in the start-up must not exceed 33%, preserving founder control and aligning with prudent governance norms.​
• Eligible vehicles: Direct investment, through a Greek entity fully owned by the investor, or through foreign entities with up to three qualifying individuals each holding at least 33%.​

This structure is designed to keep the investor as a strategic minority rather than a controlling owner, which is attractive for founders and co‑investors.​

Residence permit duration and renewal

The start-up Golden Visa is framed as a residence-by-investment permit with a one-year initial term, renewable in multi‑year increments if conditions are met. Over time, it can contribute to the seven-year residency track required for Greek citizenship, provided continuous legal residence is maintained, including through alternative programs where relevant.​

Key residency features:

• Initial residence permit typically issued for one year linked to the investment.​
• Subsequent renewals granted for two-year periods so long as the investment and job-creation conditions are satisfied.​
• Continuous, lawful residence of at least seven years can form the basis for a citizenship application under Greek law, subject to integration, tax, and presence criteria.​

For HNWIs used to real-estate visas, the need to monitor operational performance rather than just property valuations is a meaningful shift.​

Job creation and operational obligations

Employment thresholds

The start-up Golden Visa is explicitly linked to job creation, not just capital flows. This is a critical differentiator from conventional property routes and a major reason the program is politically sustainable.​

Job-creation conditions:

• The start-up must create at least two new full-time positions within the first year following the qualifying investment.​
• Those positions, and the company’s overall headcount including them, must be maintained for at least five years.​
• Failure to meet or maintain these employment conditions can lead to non-renewal of the residence permit, effectively terminating the Golden Visa.​

For investors, this transforms due diligence from simple asset valuation into an assessment of hiring plans, burn rate, and talent strategy.​

Governance and risk management

Because the investor’s voting rights are capped at 33%, governance relies on robust shareholder agreements and alignment with founders. Investors must pay close attention to:​

• Board composition, veto rights, and reserved matters in shareholder agreements.
• Clarity around the hiring roadmap and HR reporting to evidence job creation for renewals.​
• Contingency plans if the start-up pivots, merges, or fails before the five-year period ends.

For family offices and PE-style investors used to control positions, this is closer to a minority growth-equity or late-seed/Series A position with regulatory consequences.​

How it compares to Greece’s real-estate Golden Visa

Greece’s traditional Golden Visa remains one of Europe’s most prominent real-estate–linked residency programs, but its thresholds have increased in line with market pressures. The country now effectively operates a three-tier real-estate system, plus the new start-up channel.​

Real-estate thresholds and options

Recent reforms have raised minimum investment levels in many areas, particularly prime zones. At the same time, limited €250,000 opportunities remain for specific types of assets and conversions.​

High-level structure:

• €250,000 tier: Focused on converting commercial properties into residential use or restoring listed or heritage buildings, including in major cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki, subject to completion milestones.​
• €400,000 tier: Applicable to larger residential properties (e.g., over 120m²) in designated non‑premium zones, generally outside the highest-demand markets.​
• €800,000 tier: Required for prime locations, including central Athens, key suburbs, Thessaloniki, and sought-after islands such as Santorini and Mykonos, reflecting intense demand and supply constraints.​

Unlike the start-up route, real-estate options do not typically impose job-creation obligations, but they are more vulnerable to future political scrutiny over housing affordability.​

Strategic trade-offs for investors

For C‑suite investors and UHNWs, the question is not start-up vs property in isolation, but portfolio design across both channels.​

Key trade-offs:

• Risk–return profile: Property offers capital preservation with limited upside; start-ups offer higher volatility but potential equity upside and tax incentives.​
• Complexity: Real estate is administratively simpler; start-ups demand active monitoring of operations and compliance with HR and reporting rules.​
• Narrative and optics: Allocating capital to innovation and job creation aligns strongly with ESG, impact, and “productive capital” narratives increasingly important to institutional LPs and public markets.​

For some investors, the optimal play will be a “barbell” allocation: one residency anchored in property, another in innovation, with both contributing to long-term EU mobility strategy.​

Elevate Greece: why the registry matters

Elevate Greece, the national start-up registry, functions as both a compliance gatekeeper and an ecosystem signal. Only companies registered on this platform can qualify for the start-up Golden Visa route.​

Key features of Elevate Greece:

• Screens for innovative, scalable companies with capped headcount and turnover, aligning with EU SME definitions.​
• Provides visibility, branding, and government recognition for member start-ups, often facilitating access to grants, incentives, and investor interest.​
• Serves as a reference point for service providers, law firms, and investment migration advisors structuring Golden Visa deals.​

For investors, Elevate Greece simplifies discovery and initial screening, but it does not replace full commercial, legal, and technical due diligence.​

Tax and policy context for sophisticated investors

Greece has gradually complemented its Golden Visa regime with targeted tax incentives aimed at attracting foreign capital and talent. For start-up investors, this includes expanded angel-investor deductions and broader eligible vehicles under recent reforms.​

Illustrative elements that sophisticated investors examine:

• Angel-investor tax incentives: Income-tax deductions (often around 50% of eligible investment amounts, subject to caps and rules) extended to new instruments and structures via law reforms in 2024–2025.​
• Non-dom and high-net-worth regimes: Optional regimes for foreign tax residents relocating to Greece, including flat-tax structures for global income under certain conditions.​
• EU oversight: As Brussels increases scrutiny of residency and citizenship-by-investment schemes, programs tied to innovation and job creation are more defensible than purely property-based schemes.​

For wealth planners, this means the start-up Golden Visa can be embedded into a broader tax-residency and succession plan rather than treated as a standalone visa product.​

Practical checklist for CEOs and investors

For a CEO, family office CIO, or private equity partner assessing the Greek start-up Golden Visa, the decision typically runs through a disciplined investment committee lens.​

Key questions to ask:

• Does the €250,000 ticket fit within our broader EU mobility and diversification strategy relative to Portugal, Spain, or Italy?​
• Is our team equipped to perform VC-quality technical and commercial due diligence on Elevate Greece–registered start-ups?​
• How do we structure governance, reporting, and HR monitoring to ensure job-creation compliance over five years?​
• Should we pair this with a real-estate Golden Visa allocation to balance volatility and add collateral-backed exposure?​
• What are the tax implications if key decision-makers or family members become Greek tax residents under special regimes?​

Viewed through that lens, the Greek start-up Golden Visa becomes less a “residency product” and more a strategic position within a broader European asset and mobility portfolio.​

Below is a data-driven, executive-ready table that consolidates key program elements, thresholds, and strategic considerations for Greece’s start-up and real-estate Golden Visa pathways, plus related policy dimensions.

Greece start-up vs real-estate Golden Visa

Greece’s start-up Golden Visa will not suit every balance sheet, but for founders, sophisticated angels, and institutional-grade investors who already view venture as a core asset class, it offers something rare: a residency instrument that demands real economic value creation, not just capital parking. In a world where mobility, innovation, and reputation increasingly converge, that distinction matters.