Athens, the New Dubai? What It Means for Buyers in Greece

Athens, the New Dubai? What It Means for Buyers in Greece. The Sunday Times piece spread through Greek media in hours. Most versions dropped the parts that matter if you are actually thinking of moving here.

The Sunday Times ran a long piece on Athens under a headline that travelled fast: “With seafront towers and tax breaks, Athens may be the new Dubai.”

Read the whole thing and the picture changes.

Dubai is the benchmark, not the verdict. The paper says Greece is trying to imitate Milan or even Dubai. And underneath, most of the story is British. It is about why wealthy people are leaving the UK, and Greece is where some of them are landing.

Here is what it actually says.
The tower
The Riviera Tower.

50 floors, 200 metres, rising on the site of Athens’ former international airport, which closed in 2001.

It is part of The Ellinikon, a vast seafront redevelopment planned for 9,000 homes, together with hotels, offices, shops, schools, doctors’ surgeries and a marina.

The Sunday Times says the tower “would not look out of place in Dubai.”
The first residents are due next summer.
The final phase is almost a decade away.
That second detail went missing in much of the Greek coverage.

The Ellinikon is real, construction is advancing and properties are being sold. But buyers should understand what they are buying into: not a completed new district, but one of Europe’s largest urban regeneration projects, still developing over many years.

The billionaire
Then the story moves to Britain.

Chris Rokos is a billionaire hedge fund manager believed to be the UK’s third-largest taxpayer.
The Sunday Times estimates that he paid £330 million in British tax last year.
Reports say he is moving to Greece and may establish an Athens office for Rokos Capital Management. His spokesman declined to comment.

Why Greece?

According to the paper, Rokos is concerned that Britain could introduce an exit tax.
The push, in other words, comes partly from London.

And he is not alone.

Millennium Management, the New York investment firm with more than $90 billion under management, is also reported to be preparing an Athens presence.

This is where the story becomes much bigger than one tower on the Athens Riviera.

Greece is trying to attract not only foreign property buyers, but international capital, investment professionals and globally mobile wealth.

The tax rules
There is no single Greek “tax break for foreigners”.
There are different regimes for different people.
If you are considering moving to Greece, the first question is not which property to buy.
It is which, if any, of these regimes applies to you.
5% on carried interest

The Sunday Times highlights a new measure for qualifying investment professionals.

Under specific conditions, carried interest — the share of investment profits received as performance compensation — can be taxed at 5%.

There is an important condition.

The relevant Greek entity must meet requirements that include annual expenditure of at least €3 million in Greece.

This is a specialised incentive aimed at the investment-management industry.

It is not a 5% general income-tax rate for people who relocate to Greece.

€100,000 annual flat tax on foreign income

Greece also has an alternative taxation regime aimed at qualifying high-net-worth individuals who transfer their tax residence here.

Under the regime, qualifying individuals pay a fixed €100,000 per year on their foreign-source income.

The regime can apply for up to 15 tax years.

But there is an important investment requirement.

To qualify, you must invest at least €500,000 in Greece within three years of applying. Property counts. So can an existing Golden Visa investment.

The investment can also be made through qualifying businesses or securities in Greece.

That is the point where property and tax planning can meet.

Greece followed the Italian model. The Sunday Times notes that Italy has since raised its figure to €300,000, while Greece has kept €100,000. Italy’s new figure applies to people moving there from 2026.

7% for foreign pensioners
There is a separate regime for qualifying pensioners.

People receiving a pension from abroad who transfer their tax residence to Greece can, subject to the conditions of the scheme, opt for a 7% tax on their foreign-source income.

The regime can apply for up to 15 tax years.

To qualify, you must receive pension income from abroad and generally must not have been a Greek tax resident for five of the six years before transferring your tax residence to Greece.

You must also be moving from a country that has a tax cooperation agreement with Greece.

This regime is about tax residence, not a specific property or development.

The Golden Visa The Greek Golden Visa is different. It is a residence-by-investment programme for non-EU nationals making a qualifying investment in Greek real estate. The property thresholds depend on location and on the type of investment. The principal thresholds are: €800,000 in Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and Greek islands with populations above 3,100 residents. €400,000 in other areas of Greece. €250,000 for qualifying commercial-to-residential conversions or the restoration of qualifying listed or historic buildings. This distinction matters. The tax regimes concern you and your tax residence. The Golden Visa concerns your qualifying investment, and location can change the amount required.

Who is buying?
This is one of the most interesting parts of The Sunday Times report.

Andreas Kambanellas, commercial director of the residential side of The Ellinikon, gave the paper a breakdown of its buyers.

Half are local Greek buyers.

One in five comes from the Greek diaspora.

Three in ten are international.

The typical British buyer, he said, has children and works in finance or has a job that allows remote working.

But perhaps his most revealing observation is about how these buyers find Greece in the first place.

People looking to relocate for tax reasons may initially consider Spain, Portugal or Italy.

Then they look at Greece.

And, as Kambanellas told the paper, “the first thing that comes up is the Ellinikon.”

That tells us something important about the development.

The Ellinikon is not simply selling property.

It is helping put Athens on the shortlist of internationally mobile buyers.

Greece is entering a different conversation

The Sunday Times also speaks to Henley & Partners, which advises internationally mobile wealthy individuals on residence and citizenship planning.

According to the paper, Greece is now the second most popular destination among the firm’s clients, behind St Kitts & Nevis.

The article also reports that Turkish citizens account for almost a third of Greek Golden Visa applications.

But the more interesting point is the company Greece is beginning to keep.

The paper describes the country’s incentives as an attempt to imitate the success of Milan or even Dubai in attracting wealthy international residents.

That does not make Athens the new Dubai.

It means Greece is increasingly appearing in the same conversation.

The other side
Not everyone is cheering.

The Sunday Times also gives space to criticism of what is happening.

Nikos Theocharakis, a close associate of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, points to the pressure housing costs place on Greek households.

He told the paper that Greeks spend around 40% of their disposable income on housing.

Theocharakis is sharply critical of the incoming financial players, describing them as rent-seekers.
That tension should not be removed from the story.

Greece wants foreign capital, investment, international companies and new residents.

At the same time, housing affordability is a serious domestic issue.

Anyone moving here should know that both realities exist.

What this means if you are looking for property in Greece

This is the part the headline does not tell you.

The Ellinikon may be one of the first things an international buyer discovers when researching this new version of Athens.

But The Ellinikon is one development, in one city, and much of it is still being built.
If you qualify for one of Greece’s tax-residence regimes, where you choose to live becomes a separate question.
You could choose the Athens Riviera.
You could choose central Athens.
You could choose Crete.
You could choose Rhodes.
You could choose another island, a smaller coastal town or somewhere completely removed from the international developments attracting the headlines.

For many foreign buyers, that changes the conversation.

A buyer whose priority is international schools, business connections and proximity to Athens may choose the capital.

Someone else may place greater value on direct international flights, sea views, privacy and year-round life in Crete.

A retiree may have completely different priorities.

An investor seeking rental income will ask different questions again.

And a Golden Visa buyer must also consider how the location and type of property affect the qualifying investment threshold.

A tax incentive is not a Golden Visa.

A Golden Visa is not automatically tax residency.

And buying property in Greece does not, by itself, tell you where in Greece you should live.

What matters is that Greece is now on the list next to Spain, Portugal and Italy, and in the same conversation as Milan and Dubai.

So perhaps the most useful question is not:
Is Athens becoming the new Dubai?

It is:
Which regime applies to you — and where in Greece does it make sense for you to live or invest under it?

The headline gets attention.

The next decision is personal.

Ktimatoemporiki Real Estate has been selling Greek property since 1994, with offices in Crete, Athens and Rhodes.