Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Greece →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Greece · No visa required
Emigrating to Greece
Greece asks for no permit, but it does ask for an order: your registration certificate comes from the police, not the municipality. And one tax sum stands out: 7% on your foreign income for fifteen years.
€ 199 one-off · 35 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- EU country: register, no visa
- The chain
- AFM (tax number) → home → police certificate → AMKA
- Note
- A car below emission standard Euro 4 isn't allowed into the country
Last updated: 14 October 2026
Will your departure date work? Check it in the free step-by-step plan →
Five phases, from the island choice to the assessment
This route is about orders and one big sum. The tax number you now arrange from the Netherlands, with a video appointment. The rental contract only counts once the landlord declares it. The police certificate costs fifty cents. And the 7% scheme runs fifteen years, but knows one application date per year.
- Orientation
The police are the gate, and you choose: mainland or island
In this phase you learn the Greek order and choose where to live. Greece has no permit but an order, with a counter that differs from the rest of Southern Europe: the registration certificate comes from the Ελληνική Αστυνομία (the police), not from the town hall. Then you make a choice that feels exactly the other way round on holiday. The mainland has hospitals and motorways. On an island half closes in winter and the hospital is a boat trip away. Plus the honest conversation about the alphabet, the wage level and the distance.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
Seven percent, unless your pension comes from the ABP
In this phase you work through the familiar list (healthcare, benefits, deregistration, documents), with the biggest tax sum on the site around it. The treaty lets Greece, where you then live, tax AOW (the Dutch state pension) and company pension. Article 5B of the Greek tax law lets you pay 7% on that for fifteen years, settled in one go by the last working day of December. Apply for the scheme by 31 October. If you arrive by 2 July, that can already be for the year of the move, otherwise from the year after. But article 20 keeps pensions from government service in the Netherlands: an ABP pension falls outside the scheme. Work out before departure which part of your income does cross over. Also get the relocation certificate for the car at the Greek consulate. That's only possible from the Netherlands.Read more
- The move
The furthest drive in the EU, and a hard requirement for your car
In this phase you plan the journey and decide about the car. It's a good 2,700 kilometres to Athens, or the night ferry from Ancona, Bari or Brindisi to Patras. Administratively the move is nothing. The distance is the cost. For the car you start with a check that appears nowhere else on this site: cars with Euro 1, 2 or 3 aren't allowed into Greece. If it meets the standard, the registration tax is waived. The conditions: you already used it for six months before the date on your relocation certificate, and you lived outside Greece for the 24 months before.Read more
- Registration in Greece
Fifty cents at the police, and the AMKA with your S1
In this phase you work through the chain. You arrange the AFM in advance with a video appointment via myAADElive from AADE, the Greek tax authority. That's the biggest time saving of this journey. Then the home: the rental contract only counts once the landlord has declared it electronically with AADE. After three months the certificate at the police: five documents, three passport photos, € 0.50 stamp duty, and then valid indefinitely. Finally the AMKA, your social security number. You get it at the KEP, the citizen service centre, or at e-EFKA. Pensioners with an S1 (the form that moves your healthcare with you) bring it as an extra document: EOPYY then expects an EU-AMKA.Read more
- Arrival
Twelve months for the car, and the summer in which nothing can be done
In this phase you re-register the car and settle in. The car has to go through customs and the ΚΤΕΟ (the vehicle inspection) while its relocation certificate is valid. If you don't fall under the 7% scheme, you pay in brackets of 9 to 44 percent. Then the ENFIA on your home, healthcare via the health fund EOPYY with a co-payment per prescription, and the Greek that starts with the alphabet. Plus the small print nobody tells you: utility connections in your own name, heating that's really needed on the mainland, and July and August, when no counter runs at full strength.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the Greece journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 4.3 of your plan
The registration certificate: to the police, after three months
- Lead time
- the appointment is the wait; the issuing itself takes a few hours
- Costs
- € 0.50 in stamp duty
This certificate arranges your stay in Greece after the first three months. You get it from the police:
- In Attica and Thessaloniki from the Immigration Department.
- Elsewhere from the police station that handles aliens' affairs.
There's now also an electronic application via the police portal.
Don't go too early. The duty only arises after the three-month period has elapsed. Knocking earlier is pointless.
They accept five documents:
- A copy of your passport or ID.
- Three colour photos of 4×4 cm.
- Proof of your residential address: the registered rental contract.
- Proof of sufficient means of subsistence.
- Proof of full health cover. For pensioners the S1 fills in that requirement, the form from the healthcare step earlier in the plan.
Two things come as a relief. It costs € 0.50 in stamp duty, a small government levy. And the certificate is valid indefinitely after that: you don't have to renew it.
Don't underestimate this slip of paper. It's more than your proof of residence. From three months on it is the document Greek public services ask an EU citizen for in transactions. Buying a car or motorcycle falls explicitly under that. The Ministry of Transport names exactly these three steps for EU citizens:
- For the first three months your passport or ID.
- After that, this certificate.
- After five years, the permanent residence document.
In practice a purchase today runs through your AFM and Taxisnet. But this is the paper that shows you live here lawfully. A customer who ran into it told us.
What this step rests on
- Mitos — registration certificate for economically inactive EU citizens
- Mitos — registration certificate for EU citizens in employment or self-employed
- Hellenic Police — electronic application for the registration certificate
- Ministry of Transport — proof of lawful residence of EU citizens when acquiring a vehicle (Presidential Decree 106/2007)
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Greece.
This is step 4.3 of 37. The other 36 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 37 steps for GreeceWhat you get for € 199
All 37 steps to Greece, for your situation
In order, with the office and the official source at every step. Steps that don't apply to you don't appear.
Your deadlines in one place
For each step you see the latest date to start, and you get a heads-up before something is due or expires. Your documents sit in the vault, with their dates.
A plan that stays right
Twice a month we check the sources. If something changes, it's in your plan and you get a message.
The step-by-step plan for Greece
€ 199
one-off · 37 steps
- Pay once, no subscription
- Destination changes? Within 30 days I switch your plan to another country free of charge
- Stuck on a step? You get a personal answer within two working days
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Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Greece: every step in order, to print and tick off. With it, five mails in a week and a half about the pitfalls and the real costs. If the rules for Greece change, you'll hear about it. After that we ask once where your plans stand, send one offer, and now and then one thing that fits your moment. No newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
That was the move. And once you live there?
Which country may tax your pension once you live in Greece? Is there a favourable regime, a scheme that lowers your tax? And how do you get insured? That depends on where your income comes from. Tick it and you'll see which rules apply to you, with the source.
See the financial conditionsClosing down the Netherlands: all your letters in one go
Moving to Greece starts with leaving the Netherlands properly. That's why the plan includes the letter tool: you enter your details once and every cancellation and notification letter is ready.
Just the letters, without the plan? That works too, for € 49
- Health insurance, rent, energy, subscriptions, GP, school, bank and pension fund: 16 kinds of letters. You enter your details only once.
- A sending list that counts back from your departure date and your notice period, even when that's three months.
- Also what you need to ask for as an emigrant: your no-claims years in English, your medical file and the school report (the report on your child for the new school).
Auke, maker of Vertrekklaar
On 2 January we're leaving ourselves, on a trip around the world with our family. What I put here, I'm arranging for my own family too.
On 20 September 2026 a customer wrote that the CAK rule for early retirement was missing from his plan. He was right. That evening the step was in thirteen plans, with the source attached.
The knowledge base on Greece
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- AOW, pension and the 7% scheme: fifteen years — unless you were with the ABPGreece lets whoever moves their tax residence pay 7% on all their foreign income for fifteen years. The treaty with the Netherlands does indeed allocate AOW and occupational pension to Greece — but article 20 keeps pensions from government service in the Netherlands. For one person the scheme is worth tens of thousands of euros, for another exactly nothing.
- AFM, AMKA and the βεβαίωση: the Greek order that ends at the policeGreece doesn't ask for a residence permit, but it does ask for a registration certificate — and unlike in Spain or Italy, that comes from the police, not the municipality. The chain before it is strict in order: AFM, a home with a registered contract, certificate, AMKA. Whoever reverses it stands at the counter every time without the paper they ask for.
- Your house, your dividends and your interest: what the Netherlands keeps levying despite the 7%The 7% scheme covers your foreign income on the Greek side. On the Dutch side a taxing right remains: in full on a rented-out house in the Netherlands, and to a limited extent on dividends and interest from a Dutch source. "Seven per cent on everything" is therefore too rosy.
- Your car to Greece: first the Euro standard, then the paper from the NetherlandsGreece waives the registration tax in full if you move — but only with a transfer-of-residence certificate that you have to collect from the Greek consulate in the Netherlands, before departure. And there is a harder limit that can cut everything off: cars with Euro 1, 2 or 3 are not allowed into the country.
- Taking your pet to Greece: microchip, 21 days after the jab, and the boatA dog, cat or ferret travels within the EU without quarantine and without an import permit: a microchip, a rabies vaccination completed at least 21 days before departure and a European pet passport. Since 22 April 2026 new EU rules apply, with a maximum of five animals per vehicle. The tapeworm treatment everyone mentions is not needed for Greece — the ferry is the real planning point.
- Your household goods to Greece: no customs, but 2,700 kilometres and a boatWithin the EU your household goods move without a declaration, without an exemption and without a deadline — the tax was paid where you bought the things. What does count: the distance, the ferry from Italy, the island surcharge removal firms charge, and three things that do not simply ride along: the car, the pet and a large wine stock.
All 14 articles about Greece
- Opening a bank account in Greece: with your AFM, and with a European right in your pocket
- Your first weeks in Greece: the order, the fifty cents and the three things that only come later
- Living and renting in Greece: the contract only counts once the landlord declares it
- Buying a house in Greece: first the tax, then the notary — and only done at the land registry
- Your driving licence in Greece: valid until it expires, and then € 105 and two doctor's notes
- School in Greece: compulsory from four, free, and a child benefit that takes five years to arrive
- Working in Greece: fourteen months' pay, and a deemed income if you go self-employed
- Healthcare in Greece: EOPYY, the co-payment and the distance that is invisible on holiday
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Greece: 37 steps, with your documents and your costs in one place. For each step you see the latest date to start. You pay once and it's yours.