Destination Greece: Growing numbers of foreigners are calling the country home

From digital nomads to peripatetic millionaires, growing numbers of foreign citizens are calling Greece home, seeing the country as a safe, modern, European and increasingly cosmopolitan place to live.

Over the last few years, the country’s Golden Visa program has exploded in popularity at the same time that well-heeled foreigners have been drawn to Greece by its various tax and other incentives. Nationals from the UK, the U.S., Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, as well as other countries from the Middle East and Asia have been establishing themselves in Greece. The trend in new arrivals follows on a previous wave of Chinese investors who were among the first applicants for the Golden Visa program.

According to the latest official data, last year saw a record 9,289 applications for residence permits under Greece’s Golden Visa program, up from 8,477 applications in 2023. Significantly, in December 2024 alone, there were 1,137 applications for the program. The top five nationalities of permit holders are Chinese, Turkish, Lebanese, British and Iranian respectively, while there are reports that internet searches by U.S. investors has jumped by 50% in the last few months.

Other anecdotal evidence supports the trend, ranging from the languages heard spoken on the streets of Athens, the Greek capital, to estimates of the number of high net worth individuals likely to move to Greece.

A recent survey by international tax advisory firm Nomad Capitalist, now ranks the Greek passport among the most valued passports in the world. In its latest rankings of 199 different countries and territories, Greek citizenship was ranked as the second most prized in the world – tied with Switzerland – based on combination of criteria relating to visa-free travel, tax policies, international perceptions and the right to hold dual citizenship. Separately, the CNBC channel – one of America’s two leading business television channels – recently profiled the case of an American digital nomad who relocated her family to Greece.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Greek expatriates – many who left the country to work or study abroad in the last decade and-a-half – have returned to the country, prompting a brain regain just as Greece enters a new period of economic growth. Recent data show that in 2023, more Greeks returned to the country than left, representing the first net influx in almost 20 years.