Buying Cretan property through a company, or in your own name
A Greek company pays a flat 22% on rent where an individual climbs to 45% — and then charges you €2,000–5,000 a year in accounting, a 5% dividend tax to get your own money out, and a 15% annual levy if its ownership is opaque. Where the line actually sits between the two, without the offshore romance.
Somewhere in most buyers’ research a friend, a forum or an adviser with a scheme to sell suggests “putting it in a company”, and the idea arrives wearing serious clothes: the flat tax, the deductions, the vague scent of what sophisticated people do. Here is the arithmetic underneath, verified in August 2026: the company genuinely wins for real portfolios and genuine letting businesses, loses on running costs for nearly every single-home buyer, and the anonymous offshore version is not a loophole — Greece taxes undisclosed structures 15% of the property’s value per year, on purpose, until they stop being undisclosed.
I am not a lawyer or a tax adviser, and this is not advice; cross-border ownership structures are exactly where your own accountant, in your own tax residence, earns their fee. This is the map, so their advice makes sense when it comes.
Company versus personal in one minute. An individual pays 15–45% on Greek rent, progressively, into an AADE-registered account. A company pays a flat 22%, plus 5% to distribute profits — about 25.9% combined — and costs €1,500–3,000 to form and €2,000–5,000 a year to run. The crossover is roughly €35,000–40,000 of annual rent. Entities pay ENFIA surcharges; undisclosed entities pay a 15%-of-value annual special tax. One home: buy personally. A real portfolio, a genuine letting business, or several unrelated co-owners: the company case is real — model it with an accountant.
The personal baseline
The default is simpler than people fear. You buy in your own name, pay the ordinary entry costs, declare rent — from 2026, at 15% to €12,000, then 25%, 35% and 45% past €36,000, paid into a bank account registered with the tax authority in your name — and file one tax return with a modest accountant’s fee. Capital gains tax for individual sellers remains suspended through the end of 2026. Ownership, inheritance and sale all follow rules your notary handles routinely, and the succession side has its own article. For one home, even one that earns rent in the summers, this baseline is hard to beat — every euro of company saving below has to climb over the accountant first.
What the company actually changes
Four things, honestly stated. Tax shape: 22% flat instead of a progressive climb, which matters only once the climb passes 22% — around €35,000–40,000 of annual rent. Deductions: a company deducts real costs and depreciates the building at 4% a year, where an individual gets a standard allowance; on a portfolio with genuine expenses this is the biggest lever in the whole comparison. Shares instead of soil: co-owners hold percentages of a company rather than undivided shares of a field, which transfers, splits and survives disputes far better — anyone who has read the undivided-shares article knows why that matters. And separation: the property sits apart from your personal estate, which some buyers want for liability or family reasons.
Against that: formation at €1,500–3,000, then €2,000–5,000 of accounting and filings every single year, ENFIA surcharges that individuals mostly avoid, 5% more tax to get your own profit out as a dividend, and a corporate 22% on any gain when you sell — while individuals currently enjoy a suspension. The company is a machine that runs on paperwork and fees; it pays for itself only when there is enough income flowing through it.
The offshore question, retired
The older generation of advice — the anonymous holding company in a discreet jurisdiction — died of legislation. An entity that does not disclose its beneficial owners to the Greek authorities owes 15% of the property’s objective value in tax, annually, until it does. Fifteen percent, per year, is not a fee; it is a siege. Every legitimate structure — Greek IKE, EU company, disclosed foreign entity — escapes it with a filing. The only structures that cannot escape it are the ones whose entire point was the anonymity, which tells you what Greece thinks of the point. If an adviser’s proposal involves not disclosing, the proposal is the problem.
The honest downside
The honest downside of the company route is that it converts a possession into an administration. Every year, whether the house earned a euro or not: books, filings, fees, a corporate tax return alongside your personal one, and — for non-Greek owners — the interaction between the Greek entity and your home country’s rules on foreign companies, which can quietly cancel the Greek advantage entirely. That last item is outside this article on purpose: it depends on where you are tax-resident, and it is the single most common way these structures end up costing more than they save. The downside of the personal route is symmetrical and smaller: at high rental income you pay the 45% band, and co-ownership among several people gets clumsy. Most readers are nowhere near either problem — and the arithmetic of what letting actually returns means the rent that would justify the company is rarer than the brochures imply.
Disclosure: Honest Crete does not sell or list property. Enquiries sent from this section go to a licensed estate agent, not to us; the full statement is below. Nothing in this article names a developer, a property or a professional, and it never will.
Company if you are building a real portfolio, running a genuine letting business with deductible costs, or structuring several unrelated co-owners — and an accountant has modelled it against your home country’s rules. Your own name if it is one home, or one home with summer rent: the flat tax cannot outrun the accountant’s invoice, and simplicity is worth more than the scheme.
Can a company buy property in Crete?
Yes — Greek companies, EU companies and most foreign entities can hold Greek property. The trap is opacity: an entity that does not disclose its beneficial owners to the Greek authorities pays a special tax of 15% of the property's value every year. Transparent structures are exempt; anonymous ones are punished, deliberately.
Does a company pay less tax on rental income?
Above a threshold, yes. A company pays a flat 22%, plus 5% when profits leave as dividends — roughly 25.9% combined. An individual climbs through 15%, 25% and 35% to 45% beyond €36,000 of annual rent. The crossover sits somewhere around €35,000–40,000 a year of rental income; below it, the individual usually keeps more.
What does running a property company in Greece cost?
Roughly €1,500–3,000 to form and €2,000–5,000 every year in accounting, filings and compliance — before any tax. On a single house renting for €800 a month, the accountant can cost more than the tax saved. This overhead is the quiet killer of most single-property company plans.
What is the 15% special real estate tax?
An annual levy of 15% of a property's value on companies whose chain of ownership is not disclosed to the Greek tax authorities — aimed squarely at the anonymous offshore structures of an earlier era. Any legitimate structure avoids it by simply disclosing its beneficial owners; if someone proposes a structure that cannot, that is your answer about the structure.
Is ENFIA different for a company?
Entities face surcharges on top of the main ENFIA that individuals only meet above high thresholds — the published figures differ between advisers depending on the property's use, so have your accountant model your specific case rather than trusting a table. For a single home, the direction is: a company rarely pays less, and often pays more.
So when does a company actually make sense?
Real cases: several properties run as a genuine letting business, where depreciation and deductible costs bite; several unrelated co-owners who want shares instead of undivided percentages; renovation-and-resale activity, which is trading, not owning. For one home, or one home that also earns some rent, personal ownership wins on simplicity and usually on total cost.
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