A Vanuatu passport and Greek residence: a flat in Patras let long term

An applicant from Kaliningrad and a notebook calculation

This is a composite example: the story is built from typical enquiries, and no real client is described; the names are invented. Evgeny is 44, a Russian citizen living in Kaliningrad, a technical translator from German who also runs a small translation agency. He is unmarried with no children, so the application covers him alone.

The money took eight years to gather: the agency, book translations on contract, the sale of a garage and an inheritance from an aunt. By the time he spoke to us he had EUR 480,000 and a very specific idea of yields, assembled from articles.

He had been calculating yields long before calling us: his spreadsheet held Montenegro, Albania, Batumi and the Greek islands. Patras won on one line - year-round demand for housing because of a university with thirty thousand students.

Greece entered his plans because of a ferry. He twice travelled to Patras by ferry from Italy and remembered the town: a university, a port, modest prices and a life that does not end in September the way it does on the islands.

He brought a photograph back from that first trip: a long promenade, a moored ferry, the sunset behind it. That photograph sat on his desk for five years, and when the money appeared he barely weighed one country against another.

He found the restriction for Russian citizens himself: since 2022 Greece has not accepted their applications. So his first email asked straight away about a “neutral passport”.

His first email arrived on a Sunday evening, and the next day the lawyer answered not with a price but with three rules: the regional threshold, the 120-square-metre minimum and the ban on nightly letting. He admitted later that it was the third rule that caused his week of silence.

Evgeny arrived with a ready plan for earning. The first job was to rewrite that plan to fit the programme’s rules.

Darya MelnikSenior Investment Programs Advisor

No nightly letting, long leases are fine

The rule is simple: the property your residence permit rests on cannot be let through short-term rental platforms. The fine is EUR 50,000. Long-term letting under an ordinary lease does not affect the programme.

For Evgeny the difference was not only legal but financial. Nightly letting in Patras earns more in July and August and almost nothing in February, and it needs a management company, cleaning and someone on the ground.

Long letting in a university town works differently: a one-year lease, tenants who are students or lecturers, steady income and less trouble. That suited him: he lives in another country and did not want to run nightly letting remotely.

The lawyer asked the Greek lawyer for local figures: the average rent for a four-room flat near campus, how often tenants change, which months count as dead. It turned out that housing near the university is taken from August and that looking for tenants in October is already late, so Evgeny timed the whole deal around those dates.

Typical mistakes at this stage are set out in Golden Visa mistakes.

A donation for one and a question about an inheritance

For a single applicant the donation is USD 135,000 including the due diligence fee. The coconut oil fund costs 165,000 for a family of up to four, so it makes no sense for one person: he chose the donation.

Income was evidenced through the agency: three years of statements, publisher contracts, tax returns. The inheritance was documented separately: the certificate of inheritance and the statement for the account the money reached.

Due diligence asked one question - about a garage sold for cash in 2021. Almost no paperwork was left, but he found the agreement in the notary’s archive plus a letter from the cooperative. That was enough.

Approval came a month later, he gave biometrics in Saint Petersburg, and the passport arrived two weeks after. He did not forget the Interior Ministry notification: the deadline is 60 days. How the two programmes work is set out in donation or fund.

A 124-metre flat ten minutes from the university

Patras lies outside Attica, Thessaloniki and the large islands, so the threshold here is EUR 400,000 with at least 120 square metres of main living space. That narrowed the search: the town has plenty of 70-90 metre flats, and they do not qualify at any price.

He chose the town on more than numbers. Patras has a university, a ferry port for Italy, cheap food and almost no seasonality of the kind that leaves island flats empty from November to April. It is also two hours from Athens by toll road, which matters for trips to the migration service and the lawyer.

They found a 124-square-metre flat in a 2008 building, a ten-minute walk from the university campus: four rooms, two bathrooms, a balcony. The price was EUR 405,000.

Four rooms turned out to be an advantage beyond the programme. A flat like that in Patras is taken by a group of students or a lecturer’s family, and it does not sit empty between academic years.

There was a second flat on the list: 118 square metres, EUR 15,000 more expensive, with a view of the gulf. It missed the area requirement by exactly two metres, and Evgeny said it was the first time in his life he was glad to have bought the duller option.

The Greek lawyer checked title and encumbrances; the engineer compared the area against the cadastre. Nothing was out of line, but the previous owner turned out to owe the owners’ association. The seller cleared the debt before the deal, and a clearance certificate was attached to the contract.

What is left after tax

Rental income in Greece is taxed on a rising scale: 15 per cent on the first EUR 12,000 a year, 35 per cent on the band from 12,001 to 35,000, and 45 per cent above that. The return is filed in Greece, because that is where the flat is.

On top of that comes the annual property ownership tax. It is calculated on the properties held by the owner on 1 January and does not depend on days spent in the country.

He ran the numbers for his flat: EUR 950 a month under the lease, EUR 11,400 a year. Income tax in the first band is around EUR 1,710, and he budgeted separately for the ownership tax, off-season utilities and small repairs.

He also budgeted the agency’s commission for finding tenants and managing the flat, plus insurance. By his calculation about EUR 8,200 a year is left in hand, which he considers a fair result for a property bought not for income but for residence.

Russia was a separate conversation. He remains a Russian tax resident while he spends more than half the year there, and foreign income concerns his Russian return. The lawyer said plainly that how tax credits work depends on the treaties in force, and that this is a question for a tax adviser rather than for us. We found him such an adviser in Kaliningrad before the deal, not after.

A one-year lease and the first tenants

Entering Greece on a Vanuatu passport requires a Schengen visa. He obtained one in a month and flew to Patras for a week.

The tax number was obtained in advance under a power of attorney, so during the trip he signed at the notary, paid the transfer tax, opened a Greek bank account, filed through the electronic platform and gave biometrics.

Tenants came through the university noticeboard and a local agency: four engineering students took the flat for the academic year with an option to extend. The lawyer registered the lease, drawn in Greek and English, on the tax platform as Greek practice requires.

The first academic year passed without incident, apart from a leaking tap in February. The manager sent a plumber the same day and forwarded a EUR 90 invoice, and by his own account Evgeny was glad for the first time that he had not gone into nightly letting.

The flat needed some preparation before move-in: a new boiler, a washing machine and the removal of the previous owners’ furniture. He kept it within EUR 3,400 and did it remotely, through the same agency manager, who sent photographs at every stage.

The deposit was two months’ rent, water and electricity stayed with the tenants, and the association dues with the owner. Keys and handover were left to the agency under a management contract.

How it ended for the applicant

In this scenario the Vanuatu Commission approved the application, the flat has been bought and let, and the Greek application is filed. He expects his card in 6-12 months. In a real application decisions and timelines depend on the Vanuatu Commission and the Greek migration service.

He kept his Russian citizenship and notified the Interior Ministry about Vanuatu within the deadline.

With the card he can live in Greece with no minimum number of days and travel in Schengen for up to 90 days in any 180. The programme has no minimum stay: the card is renewed while the flat is owned.

Selling the flat and keeping the card does not work: the permit rests on that property. If he wants to change flats, the sale and the new purchase are planned together with the lawyer rather than separately.

He counts as the result not the yield but the fact that the plan from his first email had to be rewritten. From next year he intends to come to Patras for a month: the tenants leave for the summer, and that gives him time to redecorate and live by the sea.

A flat bought for the programme lives by the programme’s rules. Income is counted after those rules, not before them.

Darya MelnikSenior Investment Programs Advisor

Who this route suits

Anyone buying in Greece who wants to let: long leases do not affect the programme, nightly letting is banned, and that rule changes the whole economics of the purchase.

Russian and Belarusian citizens who cannot file for the Greek programme in their own right: second citizenship first, then the purchase and the filing.

Anyone counting yields: rental income tax, the annual ownership tax and management costs belong in the calculation before the deal.

Similar stories: checking a house in Volos and island or mainland. Programme terms are on the Vanuatu citizenship page.

Composite example: the story is built from typical enquiries and no real clients are described. Figures and rates as of September 2026. Decisions rest with the Vanuatu Citizenship Commission and the Greek migration service.