US Expat Taxes in Greece

Residence and the U.S. filing starting point in Greece

A U.S. citizen or green-card holder generally continues to analyze U.S. worldwide-income filing while living in Greece. Local residence is a separate question. Start a year-by-year timeline that identifies arrival, visa or residence status, days present, homes available, work performed, family location, local registration, and departure or renewal dates. Days in Greece and elsewhere outside the United States count for the Physical Presence Test. A Golden Visa or other residence authorization does not itself establish the Bona Fide Residence Test. A Greek tax number, residence permit, home, registration, and durable personal and economic ties may support bona fide residence. Keep a day-count and determine Greek tax residence separately from immigration residence. Do not treat a visa label or a local tax number as a substitute for the U.S. return analysis.

FEIE and earned income for Americans in Greece

The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion applies only to qualifying earned income and requires the relevant tax-home and presence or residence test. Salary, self-employment receipts, and services performed abroad need a work-location record. Pensions, Social Security, dividends, interest, rent, and capital gains need separate treatment. Track every trip to the United States, including partial days where the current rules count them, and preserve the residence evidence behind a bona fide claim. Compare the FEIE with the Foreign Tax Credit rather than assuming the exclusion is best.

The Greece local tax system and the U.S. return

Greece taxes residents on worldwide income. Greek tax residents generally report worldwide income; employment, pension, business, capital, and property income use different rules and special regimes may apply to eligible new residents. The local result may depend on residence, source, remittance, employment, business activity, and the tax year. Preserve the local registration, return, assessment, payment receipt, withholding records, and any refund. A local exemption or reduced rate can change the foreign taxes available for a U.S. credit; it does not generally turn off U.S. citizenship-based reporting.

Treaty and social-security questions for Greece

A U.S.–Greece income-tax treaty, signed in 1950, is in force. Any treaty benefit should be checked against the current treaty text, protocol, saving clause, and residence facts. A U.S.–Greece Social Security totalization agreement is in force. Do not use a treaty headline to decide a pension, employment, self-employment, or state result without identifying the exact article and tax year.

Banks, accounts, and FATCA in Greece

Greek bank, investment, and qualifying pension accounts may count toward the $10,000 FBAR threshold. Keep annual statements and euro-to-dollar conversion records. Greek financial institutions participate in FATCA information exchange and may request U.S. tax forms and taxpayer-identification details. Build one account inventory with the legal owner, joint owners, signature authority, institution, account type, currency (EUR), maximum value, year-end value, and closure date. Compare it with the current FBAR and Form 8938 instructions. A foreign bank’s FATCA request is a documentation issue, not automatically an IRS assessment. Keep bank correspondence and secure records separate from the U.S. income calculation.

Income source and work-location records

For an employee, contractor, or business owner in Greece, record where services were physically performed, which entity paid, where the customer or employer is located, and where the work was managed. A Greece payer does not automatically make every item foreign-source, and a U.S. payer does not automatically make services U.S.-source. Keep contracts, invoices, payroll, travel records, foreign withholding, local filings, and entity books. Separate personal income, business income, distributions, and investment returns before applying a credit or exclusion.

Pensions, funds, and savings products from Greece

Ask whether a local pension, insurance policy, mutual fund, ETF, savings plan, or employer account is a pension arrangement, trust, foreign corporation, or another product for U.S. purposes. The local label may not answer the U.S. classification. Preserve plan documents, investment menus, annual statements, distributions, beneficiary records, and any annual information statement. If the product contains foreign pooled funds, screen Form 8621 and PFIC questions. If it is a pension, review treaty and Form 8938 questions separately from current income.

Residence routes and documentation in Greece

Common residence routes in Greece include Digital Nomad Visa, Financially independent person residence permit, Golden Visa, Work or family residence permit. For each route, preserve the application, approval, renewal, local address, work permission, health coverage, and evidence of actual use. A residence permit may support a bona fide-residence analysis, but the taxpayer’s conduct and full-year facts still matter. If the taxpayer is a digital nomad, retiree, student, contractor, or family member, connect the visa record to the actual income and household timeline rather than relying on a visa marketing description.

Common Greece pitfalls to test before filing

These are screening prompts, not conclusions. For each one, identify the year, owner, transaction, document, and form affected. Add gifts, inheritances, foreign entities, local funds, rental property, state ties, and IRS or bank notices to the same inventory. The country-specific articles on this site can help frame these questions; use them, then check the current primary sources.

• Assuming a Greek Golden Visa automatically creates or avoids Greek tax residence
• Overlooking Greek presumptive-income and property-related rules
• Treating Article 5A, 5B, or 5C incentives as interchangeable
• Failing to reconcile Greek tax certificates with U.S. foreign-tax-credit claims
• Ignoring Greek accounts and real estate in U.S. information-return analysis

A records-first annual workflow for Greece

Collect identity, residence, travel, income, account, pension, entity, local-tax, state, prior-return, and notice records. Classify each item, calculate the federal return, reconcile the foreign tax credit or FEIE, review FBAR and Form 8938 overlap, and compare the U.S. return with the local return. Save the final return, acceptance records, payment evidence, conversion rates, and unresolved issues for next year. Current official source material to check includes AADE: tax residence for natural persons, IRS: Greece tax treaty documents, AADE: tax incentives for new tax residents. A paid consultation can turn the map into a written preparation scope before work begins.