Greece, a surge in demand from digital nomads: research

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of digital nomads has grown exponentially, creating many new remote employment formulas in the labor market landscape, generically framed under the term “smart working.” 

Greece, following in the footsteps of other countries such as Romania, Portugal, Barbados, Estonia, Georgia and Bermuda, has decided to implement a series of measures aimed at attracting digital nomads to its country, offering them tax incentives, a special visa and other benefits. And applications have soared: from 10 to more than 500 in one year, +5850%!

According to research conducted by the CVapp platform, “Where are all the digital nomads?” on the world’s most popular destinations for digital nomads, Athens ranks fifth in Europe’s top 10. The data was collected by analyzing thousands of Instagram posts with the hashtag #digitalnomad and determining the country where the digital nomad was located based on the geotag or the text of the post. 

It is in this context that the Greek government decided to implement a number of very beneficial initiatives to entice digital workers to settle in the country. First among them is Law 4758 of December 4, 2020, which offers special tax framing to all workers who take up tax residence in the country. Specifically, workers who meet certain requirements will enjoy a tax deduction for 50 percent of their income for the first seven years. 

In addition, Law 4825/2021 provides an ad hoc visa for digital workers that allows non-EU resident workers to stay in the country for 12 months. Upon expiration, it is possible to extend one’s stay by applying for a digital nomad residence permit, which is valid for two years and renewable. 

Finally, to make the country even more attractive, the Greek government has invested in upgrading network infrastructure to offer fast 5G connectivity in cities and some of the more remote islands, making much of the country technologically advanced.