Article 5B of Law 4172/2013  

The measure concerns taxpayers who have a pension abroad and is analyzed in Article 5b of Law 4172/2013, but also in the relevant circular A.1217/2020.

The basic prerequisites are for the applicant to: 

• Not be a resident for tax purposes in Greece for the previous five out of six years, before transferring his tax residence to Greece.  
• Transfer their tax residence from a country with which an administrative cooperation agreement in the field of taxation with Greece is in force. In other  words, there should be a DTC (double taxation convention) with the country where the taxpayer was residing.

If the application is accepted, for income earned abroad, the natural person independently pays tax at a rate of 7% each tax year, on all his income earned  abroad. In short, global income will be taxed independently at this rate. The tax will be paid for each tax year in one installment, until the last working day  of July.

It is also worth mentioning that it will not be possible to offset it against other tax liabilities or any credit balances of the person who has been subject to the  alternative form of taxation. In the event that this specific tax is not paid on time, the taxpayer loses its entitlement to this provision and will be taxed in  Greece on global income, in accordance with the general provisions.  

The application procedure is described in the third paragraph of Article 5b and is valid for up to 15 tax years after the year of first application. Of course, it  should be mentioned that in any case, what is stated in the respective DTCs that Greece has with the state in which the income arises prevails over,  therefore; for example, the rate of 7% will not be exhaustive for the other state, if the DTC provides that it can also tax the beneficiary of the income.