Can you rent out a Golden Visa property in Greece on Airbnb?

The ban, in one paragraph

Article 64 of Law 5100/2024 amends the Migration Code so that a property used for a Golden Visa residence permit cannot be registered for letting through the sharing economy — the regime that covers short-term rentals in Greece — and cannot be sublet that way either. The property must remain a residence in the owner’s actual use. Let it out short-term anyway and the consequences are not a warning: the residence permit can be revoked and a fine of EUR 50,000 applies. This is the single biggest trap in the current programme, because it only bites after you have bought.

What “short-term” means — and what stays allowed

The ban targets the short-term rental registry (the AMA regime): advertised stays of up to 59 days. Stays of 60 days or longer fall outside that regime entirely, and ordinary long-term leasing — a year-long lease to a tenant — remains explicitly allowed. Nothing in the programme obliges you to rent the property at all. So the honest menu for a Golden Visa property is: your own use, a long-term tenant, or medium-term stays of 60-plus days. The Airbnb summer model is simply off the table.

The 2026 thresholds, briefly

The rental ban applies to whatever you buy through the programme, at any threshold. The thresholds themselves, after the 2024–2025 reforms:

Two shape rules sit on top: the investment must be a single property, and for built property a minimum of 120 square metres (buying a plot to build on also qualifies, following the November 2025 joint ministerial decision that unblocked the backlogged applications).

The Athens freeze cuts the other way

Confusingly, there is also a freeze that applies to buyers who did not use the Golden Visa. New short-term rental registrations are frozen in Athens districts 1 to 3 through 31 December 2026, extended to Thessaloniki’s first municipal district from March 2026, with further limits in Santorini and Chania. In these saturated zones the AMA registration is also deleted when a property changes hands — it no longer transfers with the sale. The practical result: in central Athens you can buy a flat that already legally lets short-term and lose that status at the notary’s desk, and no purchase in those districts can newly register for it. Check the status of the registration, not just the listing’s rental history.

What this does to the yield math

A short-term plan on a Golden Visa property is not an aggressive assumption — it is income you cannot legally earn. Rework the numbers on long-term tenancy before you commit: Athens long-term yields are lower per night but steadier, and the tax treatment differs. And closing costs still add roughly 7 to 10% on top of the price — our free purchase-costs calculator breaks those down line by line. One caveat there too: the government announced in September 2026 a rise of the property transfer tax for non-EU buyers from 3% to 15%. It is pre-legislative — no enacted law or confirmed effective date yet — but if you are a non-EU buyer planning around next year, it belongs in your risk list.