While visiting many European and Asian countries for a short time with a U.S. passport is incredibly easy, staying there for more than the usual three months often allowed for tourism is significantly harder.
Securing permanent residence can usually be achieved by only a limited number of routes: marrying a citizen, getting a job offer from a local company or proving ancestral ties that were lost through immigration.
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Many countries also have an option for investors who are willing to pour significant resources into their development. While the exact amount will vary depending on how interested the country is in attracting wealthy foreign visitors, the general rule is to put a certain amount into its commercial or real estate markets.
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For Greece, that number was what for many Americans appeared to be a not-unmanageable €250,000 (roughly $278,000 USD) — through the country's Golden Visa program, any foreigner who bought a real estate property over that amount was eligible to get a five-year residence permit within a couple of months. It was widely considered to be the easiest investor-track visa to obtain out of any European country.
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But after the pandemic allowed many wealthy foreigners to work remotely and see Greece as the destination from which to do it, the country entered into a housing crisis that many locals blamed at least partially on such visas. In order to navigate the inflow of foreign visitors buying up homes, the Greek government raised the threshold for the Golden Visa program to €800,000 ($890,000 USD).
The €250,000 exception remains for those willing to convert a commercial property into a residential one or restore an abandoned property into one that is livable, thereby creating a home rather than buying them up while earning significantly more than the average local salary.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also made comments saying that the Greek government is currently weighing ways to expand the program to those opening startups or investing in local ones.
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'The government to clarify the conditions' of which properties are eligible for lower investment threshold
The government is also weighing introducing some allowances for an investment of €250,000 in rural parts of the country that would most benefit from a resident boost rather than major cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki. Tourist-heavy islands such as Mykonos and Santorini already had a raised €500,000 threshold that will now go up to €800,000.
But for now, the rules for the €800,000 threshold with only the commercial and restoration exceptions came into effect on Sept. 1, 2024; all other allowances will be announced later. Another condition to the visa is that eligible purchases cannot be used for rent on Airbnb (ABNB) or other vacation rental platforms.
"Within the next few days, the government should clarify the conditions of how converted commercial property into a residential property is eligible for the €250,000 threshold," local immigration lawyer Christos Th. Vardikos of Vardikos & Vardikos said in a statement published by European immigration news outlets. "There are rumors that say the commercial property had to be vacant for the past five years."
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