Subletting a Greek golden visa property through a company: why I talked a client out of it

In brief

• Since 2024 the property on which an investor's Greek residence permit is based may not be let short-term. The penalty is revocation of the permit and a EUR 50,000 fine.
• Subletting does not get round the ban. What matters is not the lease between you and a company, but who stays in the flat and for how many nights.
• On 15 October 2026 the minister named parallel subletting as grounds for revocation. No new law is needed: the ban is already in the Migration Code.
• On an illustrative EUR 400,000 property, short lets add about EUR 12,000 a year before costs. One fine wipes out more than four years of that difference.
• If you want income from tourists, build it on a separate property outside the programme. The golden visa property is for you or for a long let.

The question asked at every viewing

I understand the client's logic completely. A person puts hundreds of thousands of euros into Greece. They are not going to live in the flat all year: they will come in summer, maybe for the holidays. The rest of the time the flat stands empty. By our review, a long let in Greece usually yields 3-5% a year. Short lets in a good location reach 6-8%. That is almost twice as much, and it shows in every table sellers send out.

Then the reasoning goes like this. Everyone knows a golden visa property may not be let by the night. So the owner must not be the one letting it by the night. We discussed letting to third parties and through companies. The idea comes in several versions, and I know all of them: let the flat for a year to your own company and let the company do it. Or to a management company that pays a fixed sum and handles the guests itself. Or put the lease in a relative's name. Formally the owner has one twelve-month lease. Everything else is not the owner's business.

That "not the owner's business" is exactly the mistake. That was the core of my answer to the client: the ban is written about the flat, not about the lease.

What this means for you. If "sublet" and "short-term" come up together when you discuss a purchase, stop. This is not tax planning, it is a direct route to losing the permit.

Why subletting does not help: the law looks at the flat, not the lease

Law 5100/2024 changed the whole programme: it raised the thresholds, introduced a minimum floor area and banned short-term letting of the properties on which residence permits are based. The penalty is a EUR 50,000 fine and revocation of the permit. We covered the reform in detail in our review of Greek golden visa changes 2024-2026.

The point of the ban is simple, and the minister put it himself. In his words, what matters is not who owns the property but whether it is used for long-term living. Greece let foreign investors into its housing in exchange for residence, and then saw part of that housing turn into mini-hotels. Flats left the long-term rental market and local families were left without homes. The 2024 ban is the answer to that.

Now lay any subletting scheme over that purpose. Your company lets to tourists: the flat is a short let. The manager lets to tourists: the flat is a short let. A relative lets to tourists: the flat is a short let. The chain of leases between you and the guest changes nothing in what the state sees: a programme property working as a hotel. The minister said exactly that on 15 October: if a golden visa holder engages in short-term letting through parallel subletting, the permit will be revoked.

A word on "buying through a company". The Greek programme allows a purchase through a legal entity wholly owned by the investor. But that is a way of holding the property, not a way of taking it outside the rules. It remains a golden visa property, and the short-let ban follows it. How a purchase through a company works and when it is really needed is described on the page on buying property through a company.

What this means for you. A company in the chain does not create a new flat. It creates a new lease. For the migration authority, the flat is what counts.

Why such letting is visible from the outside

I often hear the client's second argument too: who is going to check? There are thousands of flats and the ministry has no staff to go round stairwells. My answer is that nobody needs to go anywhere.

A short-let flat in Greece cannot be invisible. To let it to tourists legally, it is entered in the short-term rental register and given a registration number. That number appears in every listing. Under EU rules, booking platforms report to tax authorities who lets property and how much they earned. A company that lets the flat keeps accounts, and they show which address the revenue came from. And for a cross-check the migration authority only needs the address of the property your permit is based on.

Letting outside the register adds a tax risk to the migration risk. I would not build a plan on the hope that nobody will ever match these databases. Especially after the minister publicly promised to revoke permits. After words like that an authority needs examples, and the first cases are usually made into examples.

What this means for you. A check starts not with a visit to the flat but with matching databases. A listing with your property's address is already evidence.

Back-of-the-envelope: what we gain and what we stake

I explained the same logic to the client at the viewing. Here it is again on an illustrative EUR 400,000 property. That is the threshold for most of Greece outside Attica, Thessaloniki and the popular islands.

A long let at 4% a year gives about EUR 16,000 before tax. Short lets at 7% a year give about EUR 28,000. The difference is EUR 12,000. But that is before costs, and short lets have noticeably more of them: the manager's commission, cleaning, linen, utilities for guests, empty weeks out of season. How much of the difference reaches you depends on the location. Sometimes almost nothing.

Now the other side. The fine is EUR 50,000 in one go. Even if every euro of the difference reaches you, one fine takes more than four years of extra income. And the fine is the smaller loss. The main one is the permit. That is why the person bought a flat in Greece in the first place, at the threshold, paying transfer tax, the notary, the lawyer and fees. The full budget for a family is in our article on the cost of the Greek golden visa.

If the permit is revoked, the flat stays. But it stops being what you paid for: an entry ticket to Europe for the whole family. The property can be sold; the time spent on the programme cannot be returned.

What this means for you. Compare not yields but the cost of a mistake. A few thousand extra a year against a fine and the loss of status is a bad bet in any location.

Who loses together with the investor

This is rarely considered at viewings. A golden visa permit usually goes to the whole family: spouse, children, sometimes parents. But they all rest on one basis: the main applicant's investment. The relatives' permits are issued as derived from the investor's permit.

So the stake in a subletting scheme is larger than it seems. It is not only the person who signed with the manager who is at risk. So is the child at a Greek school. So is the spouse who opened a bank account and took out health insurance. So is the plan to renew in five years and then apply for citizenship under the general rules.

I always remind clients that a permit has to be renewed, not just obtained. At the first application they look at the purchase documents. At renewal they check that the investment is still in place and the programme conditions are met. And by then the listings, guest reviews and the manager's statements will already exist.

What this means for you. A subletting scheme is a decision for the whole family. Discuss it the way you would discuss a move.

What exactly the minister said on 15 October

Plevris was speaking at a real estate conference in Athens. He talked about two practices. The first is a hidden discount: a flat is sold at the threshold, say EUR 250,000, and part of the money comes back to the buyer through a lease. His example: a EUR 250,000 property with a guaranteed EUR 100,000 back. According to the minister, such permits will be revoked however the discount is arranged. The second practice is getting round the short-let ban through parallel subletting. Also revocation.

The minister did not announce a new law. For subletting he does not need one: the ban and the fine have been in the Migration Code since 2024. Discounts are harder: there is no specific rule, and how deals will be checked is not yet known. A detailed analysis of the statement, a table of risky schemes and a list of what to check in payments are in my analysis on Greece revoking golden visas over discounts and short lets. I will not repeat it here.

I will point out one thing. The minister defended the programme and called it a useful tool. Greece is not closing the golden visa. It is cutting off those who come in not for residence but for hotel-type income. For a buyer who plays by the rules that is good news: the fewer schemes, the longer the programme will last.

Where I am not sure myself

There are questions to which I do not have a general answer right now, and I will not pretend I do.

• The revocation procedure. Who checks properties, over what period and with what time to respond is not officially described. A minister's statement is not a procedure.
• Properties bought before the reform. Transitional rules apply to them, and the answer depends on the date of the deal and the date of the application. I look at each such case separately.
• Mixed leases. For example, a long lease to a company that houses its employee in the flat for a year. In substance that is a long let. But if the lease does not expressly ban short lets and subletting, you will be the one who has to prove it.

Uncertainty in the procedure does not make the scheme safe. It only makes one thing unpredictable: when and how you will be asked.

What I suggested to the client instead of the scheme

Talking someone out of a scheme is not enough. If a person wants income from property in Greece, that request has to be met another way. I suggested the client separate two tasks that the scheme tries to solve with one flat.

What long lets actually earn by city is shown in our review of rental yields in Greece. Our property catalogue helps choose a property for this purpose, and before a purchase we check the property and its contracts as part of property legal due diligence.

When I do not advise the Greek golden visa

Since I am talking people out of the scheme, I will say it more broadly. There are situations where Greece is not the right programme.

• Your payback calculation rests on short lets. Without them the numbers do not work. Then you need an investment in a hotel business, not a residence permit.
• You are buying exactly at the threshold, and the seller offers a "bonus", a "refund" or a "guaranteed yield". That is precisely what the minister was talking about.
• You plan to buy in 2027 and have not counted the 15% tax for buyers from outside the EU that is promised from 1 July 2027. Details in our analysis of the 15% tax on home purchases.
• You need not residence but a passport and visa-free travel. Then compare Greece with citizenship programmes, not with other golden visas.

What this means for you. A good golden visa is one you can renew calmly in five years. Anything that threatens the renewal costs more than any yield.

What to check in a management agreement before signing

Many owners let their flat through a manager without knowing what the manager does with it. If you already hold a permit, take out the agreement and check five points.

If even one point fails, deal with the agreement now. Typical mistakes when buying for the programme are in our article on six mistakes when buying property for the golden visa, and the overall picture is on the page about Greece.

My conclusion

The decision on the property is the client's. My job is to show the cost of a mistake before signing, not after a letter from the ministry. I did not need the minister to confirm my view. My position was the same a week ago and a year ago: a golden visa is a status, not a hotel business. But it is pleasant when the state says the same thing in the same words.

A golden visa property should be boring. Your own family or a tenant for a year, a clear yield, clean payments. Everything interesting goes outside the programme. Then in five years you calmly renew your permit instead of explaining who stayed in your flat for three nights in August.

How this article was prepared

This column is based on a conversation at a property viewing in Greece on 18 October 2026, the speech of the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum Thanos Plevris at a real estate conference in Athens on 15 October 2026 as reported by the Greek business press on 15-17 October, and Law 5100/2024, which banned short-term letting of programme properties. The client is not named and deal details are not disclosed. Rental yields are ranges from our market review; the calculation on a EUR 400,000 property is illustrative. This is not a legal opinion on your transaction.