Golden Visa Applications Drop 43% in August

After a decline from January to July, golden visa applications continued to fall in August 2025, affecting both initial applications and renewals, according to data from the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum.

Specifically, only 288 new applications were submitted in August 2025, compared to 504 in the same month last year, marking a 43 percent decrease.

In July, new permit applications saw a year-on-year decline of 23.75 percent, falling to 549 from 720 a year earlier.

In total, however, 5,333 applications were submitted from January to August 2025, slightly up from 5,290 during the same period in 2024.

This modest increase, however, is largely attributed to a surge in the first two months of the year, when 2,072 applications — representing 38.8 percent of the January–August total — were submitted before the end-February deadline to finalize transactions under the previous program, which offered lower investment thresholds.

China tops the list of applications, with Chinese investors showing growing interest in Greece’s real estate market. Turkiye ranks second, followed by Lebanon, the UK, Iran, Israel, the US, Egypt, Russia, and Armenia completing the top 10.

Attica remains the most popular region, with 11,132 applications pending. It is followed by Macedonia and Thrace (1,045), the Peloponnese, Western Greece and the Ionian Islands (856), Thessaly and Central Greece (462), Crete (223), the North and South Aegean (122), and finally Epirus and Western Macedonia (66).

Source: GTP Headlines