Greece · Mediterranean · care layer opened 2026-08-14
Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family — where a licence can be issued by silence
Greece is one of the destinations on this site where we have opened a primary source on elder-care regulation with our own eyes. The cells below are not price estimates: each one is a publisher we can name, with the month we read it. The retirement visa most people start from here is FIP Visa (€3,500/mo or €126k).
Licensing a for-profit Μονάδα Φροντίδας Ηλικιωμένων — a unit for the care of the elderly — is procedure 599736 in the National Registry of Administrative Procedures, held by the ΥΠΟΥΡΓΕΙΟ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗΣ ΣΥΝΟΧΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΙΚΟΓΕΝΕΙΑΣ, Directorate for Policies for Persons with Disabilities. The deadline for implementation is two months. The page then states what happens when that deadline passes: σιωπηρή έγκριση, silent approval — if the period lapses without an answer, the application is considered to have been tacitly accepted and the licence to have been issued, under article 14 §4 of law 3844/2010. That is the exact opposite of the rule Cyprus prints on the equivalent page, and the two countries are eleven hundred kilometres apart.
The procedure page links straight to the gazette issue at the National Printing House. The statute has been amended repeatedly — by ν. 4756/2020, ν. 4052/2012 and ν. 3852/2010 among others — and the live instrument is more recent still: ΚΥΑ 766/2025 (ΦΕΚ 958 Β) grants a further period for the licensing of units for the care of the elderly, for-profit and not-for-profit alike, including those run by first-tier local authorities.
No public list of licensed units could be opened. Greece publishes the procedure, the fees and the whole chain of legislation, but not the output — which unit holds a licence today. The silent-approval rule is why that gap is worth naming rather than glossing: a unit can hold a licence that no official ever affirmatively granted.
Why Greece shows up in retirement searches
Greece's 7% flat tax is the broadest deal in Europe — it covers all foreign income, not just pensions, for fifteen years. The entry bar is the highest of the Mediterranean set (€3,500/mo or €126k banked) and you must actually live there — 183 days — to keep it. Elderly-care units license under Ν. 2345/1995 — silence can approve; no public list of licensed units was opened. Cheaper than Spain or Italy, with freehold property open to foreigners.
That context matters for care because the same decision that picks Greece for cost or climate is the one that later has to find a licensed facility — and whether a public register even exists is the part of that decision that can be checked before anyone flies.
Contract clauses that exclude custodial care — quoted with page numbers — live once on the care hub, not on each country page, so the wording is not pasted 14 times.