Greece reduced its Golden Visa backlog by 7.3% in two months. At the end of May 2026, the country still had 33,051 related applications awaiting a decision, according to the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum's May 2026 legal-migration report. That was 2,618 fewer than the 35,669 pending at the end of March.

The Golden Visa programme grants renewable residence permits to qualifying non-EU investors and eligible family members, most commonly through property investment. The queue now covers both investor and family files, and both categories declined over the period.

The numbers behind the decline

The ministry counted 9,210 pending permanent-investor files and 23,841 pending family-member files at the end of May. In March, those figures stood at 10,032 and 25,637 respectively. The investor inventory fell by 822 files, or 8.2%. The family inventory dropped by 1,796 files, or 7%.

Family applications still represented about 72% of the total queue. The 33,051 headline figure therefore does not mean that 33,051 principal investors were waiting for a decision.

Most of the pending inventory is recent. Files submitted in 2024 and 2025 accounted for 22,284 pending applications, roughly two-thirds of the total. Another 8,845 were submitted during the first five months of 2026. The ministry still listed 1,922 pending files dating from 2022 and 2023.

Nearly 3,000 investor decisions issued

Greece recorded 1,446 permanent-investor decisions in March, including 1,239 initial permits and 207 renewals, according to the revised monthly series in the May report. Authorities issued another 882 decisions in April and 659 in May.

That produces 2,987 investor decisions across the three months. The March figure is substantially higher than the 914 decisions shown in the ministry's earlier March release, illustrating how its rolling administrative tables can change as files are updated.

The decision series does not account for the entire 2,618-file decline in the headline queue. The pending total includes family-member files, while the decision table covers permanent investors only. New applications, withdrawals, reissues, renewals and later data corrections also shift the stock.

Application volume remains below its 2024 peak

The ministry's latest rolling totals show 9,382 initial permanent-investor applications filed in 2024 and 7,025 in 2025 — a 25.1% annual decline. The May report lists 2,137 initial applications submitted during the first five months of 2026.

Of those 2026 applications, 250 had been issued, two rejected and 1,885 remained pending at the end of May. These categories describe the status of files submitted in 2026, not all decisions made during the year. Many 2026 decisions relate to applications filed earlier.

The programme's investment thresholds remain in force. Greece raised the standard property minimum to 800,000 euros in Attica, the Thessaloniki Regional Unit, Mykonos, Santorini and islands with more than 3,100 residents. The ordinary minimum is 400,000 euros elsewhere. A 250,000-euro route remains available for specified property conversions and listed-building restorations that satisfy additional conditions.

A Bank of Greece research paper on an earlier threshold increase found that qualifying transaction activity shifted geographically toward places that retained the lower minimum. The study shows that thresholds can influence where investment clusters. It does not isolate the reason for the current decline in applications, which may also reflect timing, property prices, financing conditions, exchange rates and buyer preferences.

A shrinking queue is still a large queue

The May update changes the direction of the story. The pending inventory is no longer simply large; it is measurably lower than two months earlier. The reduction appeared in both investor and family-member categories.

It is too early to infer a standard processing time from that movement. The ministry publishes an aggregate stock and monthly decision counts, not a cohort measure that follows the same applications from filing to decision. Applicants also enter the queue with different filing years, locations, case types and family structures.

For prospective investors, the practical distinction is between demand and administration. Lower application volume can ease future pressure if it persists. It does not make the remaining 33,051 files disappear, and it does not establish when a newly filed case will be decided.