Letting a home short-term in Athens: the rules in 2026

Registering the home and declaring each stay

Under Greek law a short-term lease is the letting of a furnished home for up to 59 days, with nothing provided beyond the accommodation and the bed linen, whether it is booked through a platform or not. The 59 days, as AADE (the Greek tax authority) points out, apply to each lease and not to the year as a whole.

Each home must be entered in AADE's Short-Term Stay Property Registry, and the number it receives (the ΑΜΑ) must appear on every listing and on every other medium used to promote it. The registration is made by the owner, a usufructuary or a sub-lessor (a third party only in a closed list of cases, such as an executor), and a foreign owner needs a Greek tax number (an ΑΦΜ) to declare the rent.

Each stay is then declared by the 20th of the month after the guest leaves, and declarations can be amended until 28 February of the year in which the tax return is filed (AADE's page on short-term rental). The climate crisis resilience fee applies to every home let short-term, as it does to hotels and rented rooms.

How the income is taxed

Tax follows the number of homes and the kind of owner, as AADE explained in its circular Ε.2024/2024 of 9 April 2024. An individual who lets up to two homes declares the rent as income from property and charges no VAT. From tax year 2026 that income is taxed at 15 per cent up to 12 000 euros, 25 per cent up to 24 000, 35 per cent up to 36 000 and 45 per cent above that (Law 5246/2025).

A third home turns the letting into a business, with VAT at 13 per cent on every home, the first two included, and a company is a business from its first home. Anyone who provides services beyond the bed linen is, in AADE's view, running tourist accommodation, a business that needs a notification of its own. Co-owners, on the other hand, are assessed one by one, so two people who own a flat together may well fall into different categories, evidently a point for an accountant.

Safety and insurance since October 2025

Since 1 October 2025 a home with an ΑΜΑ must also meet the minimum specifications of Law 5170/2025, set out in a Ministry of Tourism circular of 19 September 2025. Bedrooms need natural light, ventilation and air conditioning (except at an altitude of 600 metres or more), and the owner needs, among other things:

• civil liability insurance from a licensed insurer
• an electrician's declaration confirming a residual-current device
• a fire extinguisher of at least 6 kg per 100 m² and smoke detectors on bedroom and kitchen ceilings
• emergency lighting at the exits, escape signage and a sheet of emergency numbers
• a pest-control certificate and a first-aid kit labelled in Greek and English

Ministry of Tourism staff carry out the inspections, possibly in mixed teams with AADE, after at least ten days' notice. A home that falls short costs whoever registered it a fine of 5000 euros, doubled if a new inspection within a year of the fine finds a breach again and quadrupled for each identical breach after that.

The freeze in central Athens and Thessaloniki

Since 1 January 2025 no home in the first three municipal districts of Athens may be entered in the registry for the first time, and a joint ministerial decision of 12 December 2025 extended the ban to 31 December 2026. Law 5313/2026 (25 June 2026) added the First Municipal Community of Thessaloniki (Αʹ Δημοτική Κοινότητα) from 1 July to 31 December 2026 and allowed either ban to be extended beyond 2026 by joint ministerial decision. Our guides to Plaka, Exarcheia, Koukaki and Pangrati place those neighbourhoods inside the zone.

Letting in either zone without a registration costs half the income earned since the ban began, and at least 20 000 euros, while a second breach in the same tax year costs all the rent collected in between, and at least 40 000 euros. What is more, a registered home in either zone that is transferred during the owner's lifetime, by sale, gift or otherwise, is struck off and cannot return while the restriction lasts, so a buyer cannot count on the seller's ΑΜΑ (the law does not mention inheritance).

As for 2027, the government's breakdown of the Thessaloniki International Fair measures, published on 7 September 2026, lists the restriction for 2027 too, though among new measures not yet put into law, and as of 15 October 2026 we have found no decision or gazette entry enacting it. Until one is published, 31 December 2026 remains the only end date in force.

Where a management company comes in

A management company such as Code Athena takes on the work around the guests, while the registration and the declaration of each stay remain with whoever holds the ΑΜΑ (usually the owner). As our page for property owners sets out, that work covers promotion and a photoshoot, guest communication, check-in and check-out, cleaning, repairs and an inspection before and after every stay.

Where a home needs furniture or a renovation first, we can help bring it up to standard, though the insurance and certificates come from an insurer and the professionals concerned. We can also explain the registrations and declarations above, as general guidance rather than legal or tax advice, and the questions owners ask us most often are answered in our FAQ. If you are thinking of letting a home, write to us at info@codeathena.com with where it is, what type it is and how big.

Further reading

Greca House, the Athens real-estate agency founded in 2008 as Iryna Rondyak's brokerage, publishes a guide to the tax treatment and the Athens restriction, last reviewed on 26 July 2026 and linked to the official sources. It concentrates on tax and on the three Athens districts, so it reads well beside this article.

For owners who live abroad, including those who turn to a long lease where a short one is closed to them, Greca House arranges local support for a property case by case (inspections, repairs, utilities and letters in Greek, long-term tenants), starting with a visit and a written scope. It publishes its listings in six languages (English, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, Chinese and Arabic), bases its research on asking prices on its own listings, with the sample size beside every figure, and, as we do, leaves legal and tax advice to the lawyer and accountant on each case.