# Deemed Income (Tekmiria) and a Home in Crete: What the House, the Pool and the Purchase Say About Your Tax

> Greece taxes some owners on what their lifestyle implies they earn, not only on what they declare. Whether that touches your Crete home depends almost entirely on where you are tax resident, whether you earn anything in Greece, and on the pool.

- Canonical URL: https://honestcrete.com/buying/deemed-income-tekmiria-second-home-greece/
- Author: Fotis (Honest Crete, Heraklion)
- Section: Buying property in Crete · Stage: Costs
- Rules verified: October 2026 · Updated: 2026-10-04 · Published: 2026-10-04
- How to cite: "Honest Crete — Deemed Income (Tekmiria) and a Home in Crete: What the House, the Pool and the Purchase Say About Your Tax (rules verified October 2026), https://honestcrete.com/buying/deemed-income-tekmiria-second-home-greece/"
- Disclosure: Honest Crete does not sell or list property and nobody here is an estate agent. Enquiries sent from this section go to a licensed, registered estate agent, not to us. No article names a developer or a specific property. Adverts on these pages are labelled as adverts and buy no say in the text.
- Sources:
  - Taxheaven — law 4172/2013, article 31, consolidated text (read October 2026) — residence €28/€45/€77/€140/€280 per m², auxiliary spaces €28/m², zone uplift 30% (€2,800–4,999/m²) and 58% (€5,000+), detached houses +20%, second homes ½, outdoor pool €160/m² to 60 m² and €320/m² above, doubled indoors, minimum €3,000 single / €5,000 married, rebuttal cases in para. 2: https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4172/2013/arthro/31
  - Taxheaven — law 5246/2025, article 7 (read October 2026) — residence figures cut from €40/€65/€110/€200/€400 to €28/€45/€77/€140/€280 per m², zone uplift from 40%/70% to 30%/58%; pool figures not changed: https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/5246/2025/arthro/7
  - Taxheaven — law 5246/2025 (ΦΕΚ Α' 198/11.11.2025), article 47 (read October 2026) — article 7 applies from tax year 2025: https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/5246/2025/arthro/47
  - Taxheaven — law 4172/2013, article 32 (read October 2026) — amounts actually paid for buying property, building, constructing a pool and repaying loans (with interest) count as annual expenditure: https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4172/2013/arthro/32
  - Taxheaven — law 4172/2013, article 33 (read October 2026) — article 31 presumptions not applied to tax residents abroad; article 32 acquisition expenses not applied to them if they have no Greek income; −30% for pensioners over 65; article 5Γ relief: https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4172/2013/arthro/33
  - Taxheaven — law 4172/2013, article 34 (read October 2026) — how the gap is taxed and what covers it: exempt or specially taxed income, asset sales, documented loans, declared gifts, capital taxed in earlier years, imported funds (3-year, 5-year and non-resident rules): https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4172/2013/arthro/34
  - Taxpress — Income Tax Code article 33 with amendment history (read October 2026) — non-resident wording replaced by law 4330/2015; earlier text required 'no income in Greece': https://taxpress.gr/archives/25438
  - AADE — FAQ for Greeks abroad and foreign tax residents (26 November 2025) — article 5Γ: seven tax years free of residence and car presumptions; non-residents with Greek property file E9 and pay ENFIA: https://www.aade.gr/sites/default/files/2025-11/FAQs_omogeneis_gr_0.pdf
  - Οικονομικός Ταχυδρόμος (18 June 2022) — how tax residents abroad complete the Greek return: living presumptions never apply, acquisition presumptions only with Greek income: https://www.ot.gr/2022/06/18/apopseis/experts/forologia-ti-symplironoun-stin-dilosi-eisodimatos-oi-katoikoi-allodapis-g-meros/

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Greek deemed-income presumptions, the τεκμήρια (tekmiria), sound alarming and, for most foreign buyers, are not. If you remain tax resident in your own country, the annual presumptions for a house, a pool and a car do not apply to you at all, and the purchase presumption matters only if you also earn something in Greece. The people who need to run the numbers are those who move to Crete and become Greek tax residents, especially with a pool: on a modest detached house with a mid-sized pool, the law presumes over €11,000 a year of living costs, and your declared income has to reach that or be backed by money you can account for. Rules and figures as they stood in October 2026, checked against the consolidated income tax code (law 4172/2013), law 5246/2025 and AADE guidance.

I am not an accountant or a tax lawyer, and this is not tax advice. The presumptions work across your whole household return: cars, boats, other homes, earlier savings, any special regime you have opted into. Only a Greek accountant who sees that return can tell you where you will land.

**Tekmiria in one minute.** Article 31 of law 4172/2013 presumes an annual living cost for a main residence of **€28/m² for the first 80 m²**, rising through **€45, €77 and €140** to **€280/m² above 300 m²**, plus **20% for a detached house** and an uplift of **30% or 58%** in zones valued at €2,800/m² or more; a **second home counts at half**. An outdoor pool adds **€160/m² up to 60 m²** and **€320/m² above**, **doubled indoors**. **Law 5246/2025** cut the residence figures by about 30% **from tax year 2025**; the pool figures did not change. The floor is **€3,000 for a single person and €5,000 for a married couple**. If the total exceeds declared income, the gap is taxed. Article 33 switches the annual presumptions **off for non-residents**, and the **purchase presumption** off for them **unless they have Greek income**.

## How the annual presumption works

Article 30 of the code calls it an alternative minimum taxation: if the income your lifestyle implies is higher than the income you declare, you are taxed on the higher figure. Lifestyle is measured with fixed items (main home, second home, cars, boats, pool), added up and compared with the floor. The homes counted are those you live in, rent as a tenant or are given free of charge. If the presumption beats your declared income, article 34 taxes the difference, at the salary scale for employees and pensioners and at the business scale for the self-employed.

You can contest the figure if your real spending was lower, but article 31(2) lists the sort of facts it has in mind: military service, prison, hospital, unemployment on benefit, living with first-degree relatives who pay their share, force majeure. My reading is that "I only use the house in August" is not that kind of fact.

## The figures for a Crete house, worked through

Take a Greek tax resident whose main home is a 120 m² detached house in a zone valued below €2,800/m². The first 80 m² give €2,240, the next 40 m² give €1,800, and the 20% detached-house uplift brings that to **€4,848**. Add a 40 m² outdoor pool at €160/m² and the pool alone is **€6,400**, for a total of **€11,248** before any car. If the owner is a pensioner over 65, article 33 cuts it by 30%, to roughly €7,870.

A Greek resident whose Crete flat is a second home pays far less: a 100 m² apartment comes to €3,140 at main-home rates, halved to **€1,570**. The pool item, though, has no second-home discount in the text, so a holiday villa's pool counts in full. That is why the pool, not the house, decides most of these sums; the practical side is in [the guide to swimming pools in Crete](https://honestcrete.com/buying/swimming-pools-permits-and-costs-crete/). Note that building the pool also counts once as an acquisition expense in the year you pay for it, because article 32 lists pool construction alongside buying property.

## Non-residents: mostly outside, with one catch

Article 33 says the article 31 presumptions do not apply to a person whose tax residence is abroad. Since law 4330/2015 replaced the older wording, which only spared non-residents with no Greek income, that holds even if you rent the house out. A UK- or Germany-resident owner of a Cretan villa with a pool carries no annual presumption. Whether you really are non-resident is a question of facts, not of declarations, and [the 183-day rule](https://honestcrete.com/buying/tax-residency-greece-183-days/) is where that is decided.

The catch is the purchase presumption. Article 33 spares non-residents from it only "εφόσον δεν αποκτά εισόδημα στην Ελλάδα", as long as they have no income in Greece. Own one flat that earns rent and then buy a second, or build a pool, and the payment counts. Even then, article 34(2)(δ) says tax residents of another state need not explain how they acquired funds brought in from abroad, so the defence is a clean transfer record, which is the same trail described in [paying for a house in Greece](https://honestcrete.com/buying/paying-for-a-house-in-greece/).

## The purchase presumption when you buy

For a Greek tax resident, article 32 counts the money actually paid in a year to buy or build property, construct a pool or repay loans (interest included) as that year's spending. It is not a tax on the price; it is a demand that you show where the money came from. Article 34(2) lists what covers it: tax-exempt or specially taxed income (foreign income counts if it is taxable in Greece or legally exempt), proceeds from selling assets, documented loans, gifts and parental transfers declared in the same year, capital shown to have been taxed in earlier years, and money brought in from abroad. Someone who has lived abroad for at least three years needs no explanation for funds imported within two years of moving; after five continuous years abroad, deposits in an EU/EEA account brought in within a year of moving also qualify. The test is the amount provably paid, which is the point of the Council of State ruling covered in [objective value versus market price](https://honestcrete.com/buying/objective-value-vs-market-price-greece/).

My practical view: if you plan to move to Crete, bring the purchase money while you are still inside those windows, and keep every statement.

## What it means on your Greek return

A non-resident files a Greek return for Greek income only, declares the house on the E9 for ENFIA, as AADE's November 2025 FAQ confirms, and has no living presumption to worry about; the paperwork starts with [a tax number and a Greek bank account](https://honestcrete.com/buying/tax-number-and-bank-account-greece/). A new resident who qualifies under article 5Γ, the relocation-for-work regime, is exempt from the residence and car presumptions for seven tax years, according to the same FAQ. Everyone else who moves needs declared income, Greek or foreign, at or above the presumption, or provable savings to draw on. The trap is the retiree with a modest declared pension, a large detached house and a pool.

## The honest downside

The system taxes a figure nobody actually spent, puts the burden of proof on you, and keeps a steep pool presumption that the 2025 reform left untouched. Edge cases are read differently from one tax office to another: the pool at a villa you let out (the text attaches it to the "owner or holder"), or whether a euro transfer from another EU country counts as imported "currency" in a clause written before the euro. The figures are set by statute, and a later law could reverse the 2025 cut. I could not find AADE guidance written for foreign buyers on tekmiria specifically; the FAQ covers only fragments.

*Disclosure:* 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, an accountant, a lawyer or any other professional, and it never will.

**The verdict.** **Worth it if** you are moving to Crete as a Greek tax resident, adding a pool, or already earning Greek rent: work out the presumption with an accountant before you sign, not after the first return. **Skip it if** you stay tax resident elsewhere and earn nothing in Greece: the annual tekmiria do not apply to you, and the purchase presumption does not reach you.

## Quick answers

**Do non-residents pay tekmiria on a holiday home in Greece?**

No. Article 33 of the Greek income tax code (law 4172/2013) switches off the annual living-expense presumptions of article 31 for anyone whose tax residence is abroad, so a holiday home, its pool and a car kept in Greece impute nothing to a non-resident. The separate purchase presumption is also switched off for non-residents, but only while they have no Greek income.

**How much deemed income does a swimming pool add in Greece?**

An outdoor pool adds €160 per square metre up to 60 m² and €320 per square metre above that, and the figures are doubled for an indoor pool, under article 31 of law 4172/2013. A 40 m² outdoor pool therefore adds €6,400 a year to a Greek tax resident's presumed living costs. The 2025 cuts to the residence figures did not touch the pool figures.

**Did the Greek tax reform change the tekmiria for houses?**

Yes. Law 5246/2025 cut the per-square-metre residence presumptions by roughly 30%, to €28 for the first 80 m² rising to €280 above 300 m², and lowered the high-value-zone uplifts to 30% and 58%. The change applies from tax year 2025, so the returns filed in 2026 already use the lower figures. The swimming-pool presumption was left as it was.

**Does buying a house in Greece trigger the purchase presumption?**

For a Greek tax resident, yes: under article 32 of law 4172/2013 the amount actually paid for a property counts as that year's expenditure, and the buyer must show money to cover it. Savings already taxed, the sale of other assets, documented loans, declared gifts and funds brought in from abroad under the conditions of article 34 all count. A non-resident with no Greek income is outside the purchase presumption altogether.

**What happens if my declared income is lower than my tekmiria in Greece?**

If the presumed living costs exceed the income you declare, the difference is treated as income and taxed, at the salary scale for employees and pensioners or the business scale for the self-employed, under article 34 of law 4172/2013. You can avoid that by showing non-income money that covers the gap, such as previously taxed savings or a documented loan. The burden of proof is on you, not on the tax office.

**Do pensioners get a reduction on Greek tekmiria?**

Yes. Article 33 of law 4172/2013 reduces the annual living-expense presumptions by 30% for pensioners who are over 65. The reduction applies to the article 31 items such as the residence, the car and the pool, not to the purchase presumption, which works on the amounts actually paid.