Greece's 50% tax break

What it's worth

Net pay per year in Greece, employee, single, over 30, 2026. The tax break never costs you anything: it only takes half your pay out of income tax.

Who qualifies

You can use the tax break if all of these are true:

• You move your tax residence to Greece.
• You weren't resident in Greece for tax in 5 of the 6 years before you move.
• You move from an EU or EEA country, or from a country that has an agreement with Greece to exchange tax information.
• You work in Greece as an employee of a Greek company or of the Greek branch of a foreign company. Since July 2025 the job doesn't have to be new, and public-sector jobs count too.
• You declare that you'll stay in Greece for at least two years.
• You haven't used it before. It lasts seven years in total and can't be extended.

Your nationality doesn't matter: Greeks who lived abroad qualify on the same terms as anyone else. Self-employed people who start a business in Greece can get the same 50% break on their business income.

What it covers

The break is on income tax only, so your pension, health and unemployment cover are built up on your whole salary, as for anyone else working in Greece.

How long it lasts

Seven tax years in a row, then standard rules. Example for someone who started work in Greece before 2 July 2026:

If you start work in Greece on 2 July or later, your first year is the year after. Either way you get seven full tax years.

How to apply

1. 1Get a certificate of tax residence, or other proof, from the country you lived in, covering the years before your move.
2. 2Apply online in myAADE: Applications, Tax services, Income, "Application for the special tax regime (article 5C)". Started work by 2 July? Apply by 31 December of that year. Started later? Apply by 31 December of the following year, which then becomes your first year.
3. 3Upload your proof of residence abroad and your employment contract, and declare that you'll stay at least two years. The tax office decides within 60 days.
4. 4Give your employer the approval, so they withhold tax on half your pay. Your annual return (form E1) then shows the exempt half.

If your application is turned down only because documents are missing, you can still send them until 31 March of the next year and the tax office decides again.

When it ends

From your eighth year, all your pay is taxed normally. At €100,000 a year that means €1,531 less a month.

It can also end early:

• If you don't stay in Greece for the two years you declared, you lose it from your first year and pay back the tax you saved.
• If your job ends, it stops from that date. AADE's guidance lets you keep it when you move to a new employer in Greece without a long gap: check before you change jobs.
• If you move your tax residence out of Greece, it stops from that tax year.

Greece's other tax regimes

Greece has two more regimes for people moving there. They aren't for salaries, so our calculator doesn't include them:

Sources and limits

• Κώδικας Φορολογίας Εισοδήματος (ν. 4172/2013), άρθρα 5Γ, 15 και 16 · Taxheaven, consolidated text
• ν. 5246/2025, the 2026 tax scale · Taxheaven, consolidated text
• AADE, Tax incentives for transferring tax residence to Greece (articles 5A, 5B, 5C) · AADE
• e-EFKA, 2026 ceiling on insurable pay (circular 4/2026) · e-EFKA

Information, not tax advice. The salary figures come from our Greece calculation, tested against research cases G1 to G3 (computed from the law, not yet checked against an independent calculator). With the tax break we apply the tax reduction to the taxable half. The conditions are a summary: AADE decides whether you qualify.