No capital contribution
Greece FIP Visa
€3,500 a month of passive income. No investment, no donation, nothing to finance.
Greece for someone whose income already arrives from abroad. It asks for more than any other route on this site — €3,500 a month — and it is the one where that is arguably worth paying, because a foreign pensioner who moves tax residence here can be taxed at 7% on everything earned outside Greece for fifteen years.
What it asks for
The gate is income, not capital. There is no sum to transfer and nothing to hold for a qualifying period.
Main applicant
€3,500 a month
Spouse or dependent parent
20% more for a spouse, so €4,200 a month for a couple
Each dependent child
15% more for each dependent child
Savings. Roughly €126,000 where savings are used instead of recurring income.
A fixed figure rather than an indexed one, set by the Greek authorities and reviewed periodically. €42,000 a year for a single applicant. Confirm it before applying: it has moved before and carries no automatic uprating to track.
What it actually costs
183 days a year, every year. This is not a permit you visit.
Renewal requires at least 183 days in Greece in each calendar year, and the permit runs in three-year blocks rather than the two-year cycles used elsewhere. Permanent residence comes at five years, citizenship at seven — which is faster than Portugal, where the nationality requirement is now ten.
The Greek golden visa asks for €250,000 of property and no minimum stay at all. This asks for no capital and most of the year. The same trade as everywhere else on this site, with a sharper tax consequence attached.
Income that counts
- Pension income, state or private
- Dividends from shareholdings
- Rental income from property
- Interest and income from financial investments
- Royalties and intellectual property income
- Savings, where the balance stands in place of recurring income
Income that does not
- Employment or self-employment in Greece — the permit does not allow it
- Income sourced inside Greece, which the route is not designed around
- Income that cannot be evidenced as stable and arriving from abroad
Where the income comes from
The permit does not allow employment or self-employment in Greece. That is a narrower prohibition than Spain’s non-lucrative visa, which bars all work including remote work for a foreign employer — but the position on working remotely for a company outside Greece is the part of this rule least clearly published, and it is the one to put to a Greek immigration lawyer rather than infer from a guide.
How long it runs
Entry visa
Issued by the consulate
Applied for in your country of residence.
Residence permit
3 years
Longer blocks than most routes, so fewer renewal cycles.
Renewal
3 years
Requires 183 days in Greece in each year of the preceding permit.
Permanent residency. Eligible after five years of continuous legal residence.
Citizenship. Seven years of continuous residence, which is shorter than Portugal’s ten. Language and integration requirements apply and are not trivial.
Tax
183 days makes you Greek tax resident on worldwide income, which is the ordinary consequence of a route built around living there. What makes Greece different is article 5B of the income tax code, introduced by Law 4714/2020: a foreign pensioner who moves tax residence to Greece can elect a flat 7% on all foreign-source income — pension, rents, dividends, the lot — for up to fifteen years. You must not have been Greek tax resident in five of the previous six years, must come from a country with a tax cooperation agreement, and must apply by 31 March of the relevant year. It cannot be combined with the separate non-dom regime under article 5A. This is the single largest variable in whether the route pays, and it is a question for a tax adviser in both jurisdictions.
Not for you if
- You want residency without relocating — 183 days a year is the deal, and it is audited at renewal
- €3,500 a month of evidenced passive income is beyond what your assets currently produce
- You intend to work in Greece, which the permit does not permit
- You would not qualify for the 7% regime, in which case Greek worldwide taxation applies in full
- Your income is irregular or arises inside Greece
Better than the investment route when
- You are a foreign pensioner and the 7% regime applies to you — this is the case it was built for
- You intend to live in Greece anyway
- Citizenship matters and seven years beats the ten Portugal now requires
- You would rather not put €250,000 into Greek property to get the same residence
The other way into Greece
€250,000 property investment, with no minimum stay, and roughly seven days a year of presence. It is the same country and a different price: capital instead of your time. Which of those you would rather pay is the whole decision.
Greece Golden VisaThe same idea, in 4 other countries
Every one of these asks for income rather than capital, and none of them pays me anything to place it. What differs is how much income, how long you have to be there, and what you get at the end.
Portugal
D7 Visa
€920 a month
You have to live there. This is a residency visa, not a residency permit you visit.
Spain
Non-Lucrative Visa
€2,400 a month
More than 183 days a year, which makes you Spanish tax resident on worldwide income.
Italy
Elective Residence Visa
€32,000 a year
You must not be out of Italy for six continuous months, and the permit is renewed every year.
Malta
Retirement Programme
€7,500 minimum tax, no minimum income
Ninety days a year on average, which is the lightest presence on this site.
So who manages the money that qualifies you?
This visa does not ask you to invest anything. It asks you to prove €3,500 a month arriving, and to keep proving it — at every renewal, for five years, and then for five more if you want the passport. The capital behind that income has to survive a decade of markets while paying out the whole time, and it has to do it in a currency that may not be the one you are spending.
That is not an immigration question and your lawyer will not answer it. It is the question I am qualified to answer, and the one nobody in this market seems to ask before the application rather than after it.
What a million euros sustains for thirty years
The highest draw each shape sustains with under a one-in-ten chance of running out, after a 1% running cost, with the income rising 3% a year. The first two are within a rounding error of each other. The cautious one costs €9,030 a year, for life — because a portfolio you live on needs growth to replace what leaves, and safety is bought by giving up exactly that.
This route asks for €42,000 a year. That is more than a million euros sustains on any shape above. The capital behind it needs to be nearer €1,180,000, and that is before a bad decade rather than after one.
Simulated on returns from 2007 onward, drawing whole historical years at random. One regime, not a forecast — and two limits push the failure rate down, so read it as a floor on the risk rather than a bound.
There is nothing to finance on this route and nothing for me to sell you on the visa itself. If you are weighing it against the investment programme, or wondering whether the income behind it will still be there in year seven, that is what the assessment call is for — $100, 30 minutes, and you leave with a direction rather than a brochure.
Book an assessment call — $100Figures checked 2026-09-22 against secondary sources and correct as published then. Thresholds indexed to a minimum wage change annually, and immigration rules change without notice — confirm against the relevant government body before you commit to anything.