The Greek government is planning for new framework on golden visa scheme aimed at achieving 3% GDP growth by 2020.
The framework will follow portuguese model of golden visa scheme, allowing foreign real estate buyers pay a fixed annual tax, similar to non-habitual tax regime offered by Portugal, reported by Greek media.
Another important change proposed in the framework, is legalizing POS transactions for real estate transactions.
Further, the Greek golden visa scheme will be expanded to other investment options, offering residence permits for buying bonds and shares.
According to Enterprise Greece report, Chinese account for 60% of total residence permits for real estate investment. As of June 2019, 4500 residence permits granted for property investors in golden visa scheme. Russian and turkish investors form minority, accounting for less than 9%.
It is widely anticipated, Greece will also launch fast track citizenship for investment scheme similar to that of Cyprus by 2020. This limited investor citizenship scheme will naturalize 200 applicants every year.
In the second quarter of 2019, the GDP of Greece rebounded with positive growth to 1.9%. During the first quarter of 2017, the Greek GDP steered towards positive growth. The Government has also announced various tax cuts in the property sector to boost growth.
The Total Building Activity (private-public) in Greece, in June 2019 which is calculated on the basis of the number of issued building permits, amounted to 1,461, which is an increase of 6.8% relative to previous year. The highest number of permits issued in Attiki and Kentriki Makedoni regions of Greece
