Property transfer tax in Greece for foreign buyers: 3.09%, the value it is charged on, and the relief you cannot use

A foreign buyer looking up what a Greek purchase costs will find the figure 3% almost everywhere, applied to the purchase price, with a note that first homes are exempt.

All three parts of that are wrong for them.

The short answer: transfer tax (ΦΜΑ) is 3% plus a municipal surcharge of 3% of the tax, which makes 3.09% of the taxable amount, not 3%. It is charged on the assessed value (*αντικειμενική αξία*) held on the tax register, which is frequently lower than the price paid — so a calculation from your price is usually an overestimate. The first-home exemption requires residence in Greece and is normally unavailable to a non-resident. And because VAT on new build is suspended until the end of 2026, every purchase in 2026 goes through ΦΜΑ rather than VAT, new build included.

Each figure below carries the authority that sets it, with the date we read it, and where a figure is market custom rather than law this page says so instead of presenting it as a rule.

What a foreign buyer pays in property transfer tax in Greece: 3.09%

The arithmetic is small and the mistake it causes is not: 3% of the tax is 0.09% of the value, so the real figure is 3.09%. On an assessed value of €400,000 that is €12,360 rather than €12,000. Guides that print 3% are not rounding; they have left the surcharge out.

Why the rate is 3.09% and not 3%: the surcharge is charged on the tax

A surcharge expressed as a percentage can attach to either the base or the tax, and which one it attaches to changes the answer by two orders of magnitude. Here it attaches to the tax.

Had the municipal surcharge been 3% of the value, the total would be 6%. It is 3% of the tax, so the total is 3.09%. This is the single most reliable way to tell a page that has read the rule from a page that has copied another page.

Transfer tax in Greece is charged on the assessed value, not on what you paid

The base is the *αντικειμενική αξία* — the assessed value the tax register holds for the property — and not the consideration in the contract. The two are different numbers and the assessed value is frequently the lower of them.

The practical consequence runs the opposite way to most tax surprises: any figure you compute from your purchase price is likely to be higher than what you will actually pay. That is a reason to ask for the assessed value before budgeting, not a reason to ignore the charge.

The first-home exemption requires residence in Greece, so a non-resident cannot use it

This is the part that matters most to the reader of this page and is almost never stated in the pages addressed to them.

Greek law exempts the acquisition of a first home, and the relief is real. It is conditioned on residence in Greece. A buyer who is not resident there — the overseas buyer, the holiday-home buyer, the investor — does not meet the condition and pays the full 3.09%.

So the exemption appears in every guide, and is unavailable to most of the people reading those guides.

VAT on new build is suspended until 31 December 2026, so every purchase goes through transfer tax

Ordinarily a newly built property sold by its developer falls under VAT rather than transfer tax. That is suspended.

The suspension sits in article 9 of Law 5000/2022 and was extended by article 12 of Law 5246/2025, and it runs to 31 December 2026. While it holds, a new-build purchase is charged ΦΜΑ at the same 3.09% as a resale.

This removes a decision foreign buyers are often told they have to make. In 2026 there is no VAT-or-transfer-tax question on a Greek home: it is transfer tax either way.

Land registry fees since 13 January 2026: 5‰ of the value, and why the 0.475% you will read is out of date

Registration is charged separately from the tax. Since 13 January 2026 the fee is 5‰ — half of one per cent — of the value, plus fixed charges of €3 and €20, set by Decision 2/12-01-2026, published at FEK B' 64/13.01.2026.

We mark this figure secondary: it was read in a faithful reproduction of the decision rather than on the issuing authority's own page, and this site labels such figures rather than presenting them as primary.

Guides quoting 0.475% are describing the position before 13 January 2026. If a page still prints that number, it has not been revised this year, which is worth knowing about the rest of what it tells you.

A lawyer is no longer compulsory for a Greek purchase, and what a title check costs anyway

A lawyer's attendance at a Greek property transfer is no longer required by law, and no tariff sets a lawyer's fee. Both of those are commonly stated the other way round.

What remains true is practical rather than legal: for a buyer who cannot read the register, cannot read the contract and will not be in the country for the searches, a title check is a necessity of a different kind. Market rates run at roughly 1.5% of the price, and that figure is custom, not law — no instrument sets it, and it is negotiable in a way a tax is not.

Agency commission in Greece: each side pays its own agent

Custom is about 2% plus VAT from each side — the buyer pays their agent and the seller pays theirs. This is not set by any instrument either; it comes from agents' own published terms, which is the weakest class of source on this page and is labelled as such.

A buyer who assumes the seller's commission covers both sides will be short by about 2%.

Mykonos, Thira and the islands: the tax is the same, the residence threshold is not

Searches about transfer tax on Mykonos specifically are common enough to deserve a direct answer, because they usually contain a buried assumption.

The transfer tax does not vary by location. It is 3.09% on Mykonos, in Athens and in a mountain village alike.

What varies by location is something else entirely: the investment threshold for a residence permit. Under article 100 of Law 5038/2023 the threshold is €800,000 in Attica, the Thessaloniki regional unit, Mykonos, Thira and islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants, and €400,000 in the rest of the country. So buying on Mykonos changes what you must spend to qualify for residence; it does not change the rate at which the purchase is taxed.

The permit itself, its conditions and the two €250,000 exceptions are in the Greece residence guide.

What this page does not compute, and why

Notary fees are absent. The Greek notarial tariff is not among the figures this site has read at source, and the market ranges circulating for it are not a basis for a number on a page that cites articles for everything else.

Nor does this page compute your total position. Rental income, capital gains on a later sale, the annual property tax and the interaction with your own country's tax system are separate questions, and for a buyer not resident in Greece they turn on a treaty this page has not read for you. For an American buyer the governing instrument is a convention signed in 1950 and never rewritten, which is worked through in living in Greece as an American.

What this page does state, with its authority: the transfer tax, the value it falls on, the exemption's residence condition, the VAT suspension and the registration fee.

Frequently asked questions about property transfer tax in Greece

More on Greek property, residence and costs

The residence routes and their thresholds, including why permanent residence counts days of presence rather than permits held, are in the Greece residence guide. The procedure and the statutory decision deadlines are in the Greek procedure. What a purchase achieves across five jurisdictions, read against each statute, is in the property and residency guide. What Greece costs to live in, from Greek statistics rather than crowd-sourced submissions, is in living in Greece. Every Greek instrument named here has its own line, with the date it was read, on our sources page.