SETTING UP BUSINESS IN GREECE
Organizational Questions
Topic Feature
Commercial Register Companies of all legal forms of the Greek legislation must be registered with the Companies Registry. The Companies Registry (GEMI) is administered, with some exceptions, in electronic form (http://www.businessportal.gr/).
Chamber of Commerce
Every company will have to be registered with the respective Chamber of Commerce according to its activities and place of seat and will have to renew the subscription annually if it needs its services.
Bank Account To open a bank account, companies need to submit full legalization documents, such as , an excerpt from the commercial register for the incorporation and the representation of the company, the articles of association of the company etc., as well as identification documents, such as, ID/Passport, utility bills, Tax Identification Number etc., for all bank signatories, authorized bank account users, and beneficial owners.
Visa, Residence and work permit
Remarks
The financial statements of the companies must be published in GEMI, otherwise the Company will be subject to suspension.
All EU citizens can set up a business in Greece.
Non-EU nationals may get a work and residence permit in Greece under certain conditions, i.e. if they are executives of a company established in Greece by foreign shareholders or in case of a branch of a foreign company. The duration of the permits differ according to the category permit for which each individual applies. The issuance of a type D Visa precedes the application of a residence permit.
Employment
Topic Feature
Labour law In Greece there is a very detailed employment legislation.
In general, a minimum of 20 days of paid holidays a year for a 5-day work week is guaranteed, in addition to public holidays. Normal working hours are 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. In certain professions there are statutory limits on working time due to health and safety regulations. The paid days holidays are increased to 22 after the third year of employment and 25 days after 12 years of employment. There are also flexible working solutions like part time work, definite term employment (provisional work, seasonal work), se- condment solutions mainly within groups of companies, secondment solutions from employment agencies, job rotation, on-call work etc.
Social System Basic Social Security Contributions within the framework of employment:
Main Pension Contributions : 35.16% applied on the monthly gross salary (13.32% paid by employees and 21.79% paid by employer)
Taxation
Corporate Income Tax
Personal Income Tax
Feature
The standard corporate income tax rate is 22% on all taxable earnings of the corporations. Mainly this tax rate applies to S.A., EPE, IKE, OE, EE, and other legal entities.
The Personal Income Tax Rates (employees, freelancers, individual business, pensioners) are the following:
Income (€) Tax Rates %
0,00-10,000.00 9%
10,000.01-20,000.00 22%
20,000.01-30,000.00 28%
30,000.01-40,000.00 36%
Over 40,000.01 44%
Tax on employment termination
Withholding Tax (WHT)
Value Added Tax (VAT)
The one-off compensation due to the termination of the employment relationship (severance compensation) is taxed independently, according to the following scale:
0-60.000 tax rate 0%
60.000-100.000 tax rate 10%
100.000-150.000 tax rate 20%
Over 150.000 tax rate 30%
Dividends : 5%
Interest : 15%
Royalties: 20%
Standard VAT rate : 24%
Remarks
An income tax advance of 80% is applied which is payable and offset the following year.
Dividends distributed by Greek company to a foreign shareholder are not subjec to WHT if the shares are maintained by the shareholder at least 24 months and the participating percentage is above 10%.
Reduced VAT rate: 13% still applies to raw products (meat, chicken, fish, milk, fruits, vegetables, oil etc), flowers. fertilizers, hotel and home care services, etc and 6% mainly applies to pharmaceutical products, electricity, gas, books, theatre and cinema tickets etc;
Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros have reduced VAT regime with a 30 percent discount on VAT rates (17%, 9% and 4% respectively) Imports are subject to VAT at the same rates as the domestic supply of those products. When the imported products are reexported, VAT is refunded.
This guide has been prepared by EF AUDIT an independent member of Antea
EF AUDIT
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08008 – Barcelona
Tel.: + 34 93 215 59 89
Fax: + 34 93 487 28 76
Email: info@antea-int.com www.antea-int.com
This publication is intended as general guide only. Accordingly, we recommend that readers seek appropriate professional advice regarding any particular problems that they encounter. This information should not be relied on as a substitute for such an advice. While all reasonable attempts have been made to ensure that the information contained herein is accurate, not Antea Alliance of Independent Firms neither its members accepts no responsibility for any errors or omission it may contain whether caused by negligence or otherwise, or forany losses, however caused, sustained by any person that relies upon it.
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