Most people who come to us about moving to Greece have already found both options online and can’t work out the difference between them. That’s fair enough. On paper the FIP permit, for financially independent people, and the digital nomad permit look nearly identical. Each asks for €3,500 a month. Each adds 20% for a spouse and 15% per child. Both end with the same residence card, Type I.8.
They are not, however, two versions of the same thing, and choosing the wrong one causes trouble. Sometimes at the consulate, sometimes later at renewal, and fairly often on the tax side, where it’s harder to undo.
The reassuring part is that telling them apart is simpler than the websites make it look. It really comes down to one thing: whether or not you are working.
If your income reaches you without you working from Greece, whether that’s a pension, rent from a property, dividends, investment returns, or savings you’re living off, then you’re a financially independent person and FIP is your route. If you’re still working remotely for a company or clients based outside Greece, you’re a digital nomad, and that’s the permit you need. The income figure, the family amounts, the health insurance, the card itself: all much the same. What changes is what you have to prove, what you can do once you’re here, and how you end up being taxed.
What FIP actually covers
The FIP permit sits under Article 163 par. 8 of Law 5038/2023. It’s for people who can support themselves in Greece from stable resources without taking up work here.
The authorities will accept a foreign pension, a bank account, or proof that you hold enough legally acquired means of your own. Where the income is periodic, such as a pension but also a salary or dividends from abroad, it’s assessed month by month. Where it’s a standing amount like bank deposits, it’s assessed over the year.
The restriction that matters isn’t about the kind of income. It’s about what you do after you arrive: a FIP holder can’t take up employment or run an independent economic activity in Greece. The category was written for retirees, pensioners, investors, people living off wealth they already have. Not for someone who plans to keep working from an apartment in Athens.
What the digital nomad permit covers
The digital nomad route comes from Article 68 of the same law, and it exists for the exact person FIP shuts out: someone who keeps earning by working remotely.
You’ll need to show that you work for, or provide services to, a company or clients outside Greece, over the internet. The paperwork looks different from FIP: an employment contract, a services or project agreement, or freelance contracts, together with evidence that the income genuinely comes from abroad. Here the €3,500 is counted net, after whatever tax you owe in the country where the work is done.
The line you can’t cross is that the work has to stay with foreign employers and clients. Taking a job on the Greek market, or picking up Greek clients, isn’t permitted under this permit.
The two side by side
Set next to each other, the contrast is clear enough. FIP rests on Article 163 par. 8 of Law 5038/2023 and is aimed at retirees, pensioners and investors, people living off means that don’t require them to work. The digital nomad permit comes from Article 68 and is for remote employees and freelancers earning from foreign employers or clients. The income bar is the same either way, €3,500 a month, though for a nomad it’s measured net, after the tax owed abroad, and both add 20% for a spouse and 15% for each child on top.
The proof is where they part company. A FIP file is built on pensions, bank accounts and investment or rental income; a nomad file leans on employment, service or freelance contracts with entities outside Greece. Neither opens the Greek labour market to you: a FIP holder can’t work here at all, and a nomad can work only for those foreign employers and clients. For all that, the two routes end at the same place, a Type I.8 residence card.
The tax difference
This is the part worth slowing down on, because it’s where the wrong choice costs money rather than just time.
The two permits tend to put you in different tax regimes, and getting the visa doesn’t get you the tax break. The two things are assessed separately, which catches a lot of people out.
Digital nomads usually have their eye on Greece’s headline offer, a 50% income-tax reduction for up to seven years if you move your tax residence here. What the marketing pages tend to leave out is that the relief was built around income from a Greek employer or Greek self-employment. Work purely for a foreign company, with no Greek contract behind it, and you can fall into a gap: once you pass 183 days you’ve become a Greek tax resident, but you don’t automatically get the 50% because you don’t fit the shape the exemption was designed for. It can be made to work. It just has to be set up deliberately.
FIP retirees are usually looking at something else, the regime for foreign pensioners who move their tax residence to Greece and pay a flat rate on foreign income for a long fixed period. Whether it’s worth it depends on how your pension is structured and on what your home country does with it.
None of this is standard across cases, and it needs to be run with someone who handles cross-border tax before you settle on a route. The takeaway is simply that the permit you pick sets your tax position. The people who lose the benefit they moved for are usually the ones who decided the immigration question first and left the tax for later.
A common mix-up: the foreign salary
Say you draw a salary from a foreign employer. FIP rules do allow a foreign salary to count toward the €3,500, so why not just apply as FIP?
Because if that salary depends on you actively working, including working remotely from here, then the digital nomad category is where the application belongs, and a consulate may well redirect you there. FIP is for means that reach you whether you work or not. The nomad permit is for income you go out and earn. What decides it isn’t where the money comes from, it’s the activity behind it. This is the kind of thing that’s cheap to get right at the start and expensive to fix once it’s surfaced at a consular desk or a renewal.
Before you start (2026)
Both routes go through a national Type D entry visa from a Greek consulate before you travel. The old option of arriving in Greece and filing from inside the country has been narrowed by recent legislation, so the consular route is now the normal way in. These rules have shifted more than once lately, so it’s worth checking where your particular consulate stands before booking flights or appointments.
In short
Go FIP if you’re retired or living off a pension, investments, rent, or savings and don’t plan to work while you’re here. Go digital nomad if you’ll carry on working remotely for people outside Greece. The two share a price tag and little else: different articles of the law, different documents, different rights to work, different outcomes at tax time. If you can’t tell which side of the line you fall on, that in itself is usually a sign it’s worth a short conversation before anything gets filed.
This is general information on Greek immigration law, not advice for your own case. We handle both FIP and digital nomad applications at D Law Greece, from working out which category fits you, to preparing the file so it isn’t questioned, to sorting the tax picture before you commit. If you’re weighing the two, get in touch.