Greece’s Golden Visa program, which grants renewable residence permits to qualifying non-EU investors and eligible family members, has seen a reduction in its application queue. At the end of May 2026, there were 33,051 related applications awaiting a decision, which is 2,618 fewer than the 35,669 pending at the end of March, a 7.3% reduction in two months.
Application Breakdown
The Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum’s May 2026 legal-migration report counted 9,210 pending permanent-investor files and 23,841 pending family-member files. Both categories declined from March, when the ministry listed 10,032 investor files and 25,637 family files.
The investor inventory fell by 822 files, or 8.2%. The family inventory fell by 1,796, or 7%. Family applications still represented about 72% of the total queue.
Decision Process
Greece recorded 1,446 permanent-investor decisions in March, including 1,239 initial permits and 207 renewals. Authorities issued another 882 decisions in April and 659 in May. The decision series does not account for the entire 2,618-file decline in the headline queue.
The ministry’s latest rolling totals show 9,382 initial permanent-investor applications filed in 2024 and 7,025 in 2025. That is a 25.1% annual decline. The May report lists 2,137 initial applications submitted during the first five months of 2026.
Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.
