Highlights
- Greece is offering a new tax incentive for workers and freelancers moving to the country.
- Australian-Greeks who moved to the country recently speak about their experiences of the Mediterranean country’s living and working conditions.
- The tax break targets both ‘digital migrants’ and the brain drain generation that left Greece after the economic crisis.
Applicants need to commit to a minimum two-year stay and must have spent at least seven years as tax residents of another country.
The scheme, being rolled out on 1 January 2021, is the latest among tax incentives being offered in recent years which were previously targeted at investors and pensioners.
Upon unveiling it, Alexis Patelis, economic adviser to the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos, indicated that the intention was to bring in “digital migrants”.
"The pandemic has uncovered technology advances that means many of us can now choose where to live and work,” Mr Patelis said.
He said Brexit offers an opportune timing for Greece to attract professionals leaving the UK.
"We just want to get a share of that pie."
And then came the part of the pitch that's hard to argue with: “Greece has the sun - we’ve been blessed with natural beauty.”
Greece capitalising on its strengths
Cem Alan, an electrical engineer based in Germany who gave Greece a go for remote work this year can testify to this.
“I think what mostly made me go there was the weather,” he tells SBS Greek.
Mr Alan spent a few weeks working from Crete, following a holiday on the island.
Standing out for him was the natural environment, having “a life after work”, with the beach at close distance and a lively night scene, simple pleasures like “getting up and making muesli with fruit and walnuts from the garden” or “going out for fresh fish in the evening”.
"I just love this island" - Alan Cem spent a few weeks working remotely from Crete for his Germany-based employer this year. Source: Alan Cem
Internet connection wasn’t a highlight, especially for someone whose job involves calculating power plants' output and simulating electrical flows.
“Finding a place where you can work with stable internet was not easy. There are three big cities [on the island], but around that, you don’t have a very stable internet for meetings and zoom conferences.”
The Greek government has been aware of this gap in its infrastructure and has announced the rolling out of its 5G network last week.
“We want to turn Greece into a destination where people work and retire from. Connectivity plays a pivotal role in this overall plan,” PM Mitsotakis said.
Melbourne-born Themi Psaltopoulos also points out the weather as one of Greece’s greatest strengths.
“It’s got 250 days of sun a year. If that's not an incentive enough, I don't know what else will be.”
An Athens resident for more than a year and a half now, Mr Psaltopoulos hasn’t looked back since moving there.
“Athens to me is the next top hottest city,” he says.
The decision to move there with his partner came after several return trips over the years to his parents’ homeland and developing a connection with the country.
Mr Psaltopoulos was working as a national retail manager for a clothing company in Australia before moving to Greece. Source: Themi Psaltopoulos/Facebook
Securing investors’ support for a boutique hotel in Gazi - one of the Greek capital’s most up-and-coming districts – also played its role.
“We wanted to support Greece, having it so close to my heart. And the idea was that would be able to provide not only jobs for ourselves, but for locals too,” Mr Psaltopoulos says.
He finds the tax cuts currently on offer "a prime opportunity" for anyone able to work remotely and ready to make a move, or even those considering starting a business.
But he also has a word fo caution for any Australians contemplating the move.
“Be prepared for a couple of headaches."
"Salaries are quite different from what you’d be receiving in a similar position in Australia,” he says, "but so are expenses, making it easy to get by."
Angelos Giotopoulos is another Greek-Aussie who gave Athens a try, landing a job back in 2004 at the Olympic Games with the plan to continue his travels across Europe.
“But I ended up just sticking around,” says the photographer and filmmaker.
The reasons boil down to the lifestyle for Mr Giotopoulos, while he too argues “you don’t really need too much money to get by”.
Source: Angelos Giotopoulos
“You can't go wrong really, in regards to lifestyle.
“Good climate, good food, good people.”
Comparing Greece to Australia work-wise, he says “things are quite professionally run to a point” in the Mediterranean country as well.
But as a freelancer, Mr Giotopoulos has a first-hand experience of frequent “sagas” when it comes to invoicing and “not being paid within the three-month period where you have to actually pay your VAT[GST equivalent].”
He believes the tax incentive could achieve its aim for those in the brain drain cohort considering a relocation for remote work from Greece.
“There’s a lot of smart crew that left the country post-crisis and if there are tax cuts I believe there’s going to be a lot of people coming.”
Regaining talent lost an aim, but not a given
This is music to the ears of the Greek PM who is keen to persuade some of the 500,000 plus skilled young professionals who left the country since 2008 to return.
“At a time when you can work from anywhere in the world, why not work based in Greece?” Mr Mitsotakis told a group of Greek ex-pats working abroad during a recent videoconference pitching the tax incentive.
Former colleagues in Melbourne, Demi Markogiannaki and Ellie Marda tried it this year.
Born and raised in Greece, Ms Markogiannaki, has been living Down Under for the last 13 years now.
Both Greek expats, Demi Markogiannaki (L) and Ellie Marda crossed paths in Melbourne. Source: weteachme-Ellie Marda/Facebook
Just before the coronavirus pandemic, she managed to spend a good six months in Greece running remotely the business she co-founded, an online marketplace for Australian course providers.
“The experience was great, as I could finally enjoy enough time with my family while working at the same time,” she recounts.
And the professional environment in her home country these days ticks all the boxes, according to Ms Markogiannaki.
“I’d say Greece is a promising nation in the digital nomads market.
“But there are surely things that I can’t say if they would make it easier or not for a returning ex-pat or a non-Greek to stay and work from Greece, like bureaucracy and healthcare."
Ms Marda knew the digital nomad drill since 2017, having spent half a year in South East Asia while working remotely at Ms Markogiannaki’s Melbourne-based company.
Fast-forward to 2020, and the UK-based product design consultant says it was an easy decision to relocate with her partner to her birthplace Greece and work remotely during the European summer.
“The [coronavirus] cases then were way less in Greece; we had friends and family by our side, better climate, the beach and the sun[…]My work output didn’t change, if anything I was more energetic being able to take a swim in my lunch break and spend time with my folks after work.”
Could the tax incentive motivate her to extend the successful trial in a move back ‘home’?
Ms Marda says it’s “a positive initiative”, but "by no means enough on its own.”
“If I were to make the decision, many things would have to improve internally in the country, meritocracy, a bigger transition to digitisation, improved infrastructure and better working conditions.
“But it’s not just about improvements to lure those who left; it’s mainly about taking care of those who’ve stayed.
