🇬🇷 Greece — Work & Study Visas, Wages & Jobs
Last verified 2026-09-26 · 5/7 visa categories confirmed from official sources
Work Visas
EU Blue CardUnconfirmed figure — verify before relying on it
Available for highly-qualified employment with a minimum 1-year contract meeting the salary threshold. Greece issued only 58 Blue Cards in 2024, a very small absolute number.
Threshold/salary: €31,918.83/year (2024 figure, 1.6x average gross annual salary — needs 2026 re-verification)
Duration: 2 years initial, renewable up to 3 years at a time
National work visa/permit
Dependent-employment route (Article 15, Law 4251/2014): employer applies within a biennial admission-volume/quota framework, worker signs contract at consulate abroad, then applies for a residence permit on arrival.
Duration: Certificate valid 1 year while permit is processed; residence permit duration tied to contract/category
Job Seeker Visa
No dedicated job-seeker visa was found in the official Ministry of Migration and Asylum's residence-permit category list. Applicants generally need an employment offer/contract before applying.
Digital Nomad VisaUnconfirmed figure — verify before relying on it
Widely reported to exist by secondary/legal sources (Law 4825/2021, Article 21A) but could not be independently located on the official Ministry of Migration and Asylum residence-permit category index. Existence and terms are unconfirmed on an official source.
Study Visas
Student Permit
National study visa requiring certification of acceptance from a Greek institution; permit renewable annually up to course length plus 4 additional terms/semesters.
Duration: 1 year, renewable annually
Post-Study Job Search Permit
Greece does NOT offer a post-study work/job-search pathway. The official EU Immigration Portal states graduates must return to their home country and reapply if seeking other visa categories — a notable disadvantage versus Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Researcher/PhD Permit
Hosting agreement scheme under Directive 2016/801 (Article 61, Law 4251/2014); requires a hosting agreement with an institution recognised by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology.
Duration: Matches hosting agreement duration, renewable
Wages & Earning Potential
- Statutory minimum wage: 920 EUR/month (effective 2026-04-01) — source
- Statutory minimum wage: 41.09 EUR/day (effective 2026-04-01) — source
- Derived hourly estimate (not an official rate): 4.42-6.44 EUR/hour (effective 2026-04-01) — source
Top Employers
| Company | Industry |
|---|---|
| HELLENiQ ENERGY (ex-Hellenic Petroleum) | Energy / Oil & Gas |
| OTE Group / Telekom (Cosmote) Careers page is Greek-language only, no English toggle | Telecom |
| National Bank of Greece (NBG) | Banking / Finance |
| Alpha Bank Careers page is Greek-language only, no English toggle | Banking / Finance |
| Aegean Airlines | Airline / Aviation |
| Coca-Cola HBC | Food & Beverage / FMCG |
| METLEN Energy & Metals (ex-Mytilineos) Rebranded from Mytilineos in 2025 | Energy / Metals / Industrial |
| TITAN Cement Group | Building Materials / Cement |
| Fourlis Group (IKEA, INTERSPORT, Foot Locker franchisee) Master franchisee/operator of IKEA, INTERSPORT, Foot Locker, Holland & Barrett across Greece and Cyprus | Retail |
| Jumbo S.A. Careers page could not be independently verified live (Cloudflare bot-challenge); should be spot-checked manually | Retail (Toys/Household) |
Second/Extra Job Rules for Existing Permit-Holders
Standard work permit — conditional
No explicit second-job rule found. Third-country nationals on a dependent-employment permit generally must remain with their sponsoring employer for at least 6 months before gaining the right to change employers, implying the initial permit is employer-tied.
EU Blue Card — conditional
Greece-specific Blue Card second-job rules not found; only the general EU-wide framework (informing authorities of changes in the first 12 months) applies.
Sources & Open Questions
Every figure above is sourced from the official links inline. The items below are things our research could not confirm from an official source as of 2026-09-26 — treat them as open questions, not settled facts.
- immigration-database: Existence and terms of a Greek 'Digital Nomad Visa' could not be confirmed on the official Ministry of Migration and Asylum category index — do not publish specific income-threshold figures until verified against migration.gov.gr or the Greek Government Gazette (FEK).
- immigration-database: Current (2026) EU Blue Card salary threshold shows only a 2024 figure (€31,918.83) and should be re-verified.
- immigration-database: Exact citizenship/naturalisation residence-period requirement, language-test details, and fees could not be retrieved (ypes.gr returned an access error); commonly-cited but unverified third-party figures suggest ~7 years.
- immigration-database: Meaning/terms of a separate '7+ years continuous residence' category listed by the Ministry alongside long-term residence and humanitarian categories is unclear.
- immigration-database: Student visa exact proof-of-funds amount and work-hour limits during study not stated on official pages reviewed.
- immigration-database: Researcher permit fees and intra-EU mobility terms not stated on the official EU Immigration Portal Greece researcher page.
- immigration-database: Non-EU student tuition fee figures not verified against an official source.
- immigration-database: Greece's confirmed lack of a post-study work/job-search permit should be flagged prominently to applicants as a meaningful disadvantage versus Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
- wage-database: No single official hourly-wage figure exists for the €920/month minimum wage; derived estimates range from €4.42 to €6.44/hour depending on methodology (14-instalment adjustment vs. simple 12-month/40h-week calculation) — none are official government-stated rates.
- wage-database: Whether full-time work during semester breaks is explicitly permitted for students is not clearly confirmed (unlike Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta).
- wage-database: Exact process for obtaining student work authorization beyond AFM/AMKA registration (automatic vs. separate application) unclear.
- wage-database: Exact current-year thresholds for the under-25 youth income-tax exemption (cited as €20,000/€22,846/€24,000) should be re-verified directly against minfin.gov.gr or AADE.
- wage-database: Second-job rules (consent/notification/permission) for both standard work-permit and EU Blue Card holders not found.
- wage-database: Whether any reduced social-security contribution rate applies to part-time student income not found.
This guide is part of Route Europa's 29-country Schengen database, compiled 2026-09-26. See all countries →
Pay, pensions and visas — compared
Take-home pay: a gross salary of €60,000 leaves about €38,407 a year (€3,201 a month, 64.0% kept) for a single employee in Greece — confidence: medium.