The number of new applications for residence permits through the “Golden Visa” program declined significantly in April, showing the first signs of de-escalation.
Based on data from the Ministry of Migration, a 28.5% drop was observed in April compared to the same month in 2024, with 564 new applications being submitted against 790 last year.
This drop is being observed for the first time since September 2022, when Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the increase to the minimum investment threshold, sparking the first wave of purchases by foreign investors, looking ahead of developments.
Since then, the trend had been steadily upward, precisely due to the successive changes and interventions in the program, in an attempt to discourage foreign investors and limit housing purchases. Unfortunately, this effort led the market to successive distortions, through the artificial surge in demand, as more and more investors feared they would not make the deadlines.
That led to the purchase of more properties in two years than in the previous 10 of the program. In these two years, 17,888 properties were acquired, amounting to investments of 4.47 billion euros. Meanwhile, from mid-2014 until the end of 2024, the initial permanent investor permits in force, together with the renewals that had been granted, did not exceed 17,455.
At the same time, after this investment rush, a very large volume of requests that have not yet been examined has been accumulated, with 16,024 applications awaiting approval, which will increase the total number even more.Unmute
However, despite the April drop, in the first four months of this year, 3,477 applications were submitted, 25% more than last year (2,849 applications), mainly because in the first three months of 2025 applications continued based on real estate purchase agreements under the old terms of the program, that is, before the limit of €800,000 came into force in Attica, Thessaloniki and all islands with over 3,100 inhabitants.
Via eKathimerini