05/10/2026
The government’s announcement to quintuple the property transfer tax (from 3% to 15%) exclusively for non-European Union buyers is evolving into a measure full of contradictions, which threatens to damage the country’s credibility as an investment destination. While the measure was initially presented as a tool to curb the housing crisis and control rapidly rising real estate prices, in practice, it is proving to be full of loopholes.
Faced with intense protests from the entire real estate market developers, brokers, and legal professionals, the Finance Ministry has been forced to water down the original plan. Not only has the implementation of the measure been postponed to July 1, 2027, but loopholes have been added that essentially neutralize it:
🔹The 15% tax will only be imposed on individuals (natural persons), leaving investors free to purchase properties through corporate vehicles while maintaining the lower tax rate.
🔹Expats, as well as those who can prove they reside in Greece for at least six months a year, are fully exempt.
This continuous backtracking reveals that officials realized the new regulation conflicts with the country’s broader strategy. It is a paradox for the state, on the one hand, to offer strong incentives to attract foreign capital (such as the non-dom regime for investors and tax breaks for foreign pensioners) and, on the other hand, to financially penalize the very same pool of buyers through announcements like the Prime Minister’s in Thessaloniki. Ultimately, this move seems self-destructive; it fails to solve the underlying housing problem for Greeks, and instead sabotages the foreign direct investments that had painstakingly begun to yield results.
