Greece Airbnb Rules 2026: AMA Registration, the 60-Day Rule and the Athens Ban

1. What is an AMA number in Greece?

The AMA (Αριθμός Μητρώου Ακινήτου, Property Registry Number) is the number AADE, the Greek tax authority, gives a property when its owner enters it in the Short-Term Rental Registry. Greek law makes two demands of every host: the property must be registered, and the AMA must be "visibly displayed" on every platform listing and in every advert. That applies to Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and a private website alike, and to a villa as much as to a studio.

The registration runs in four steps:

1. Log in to the AADE short-term rental service with your TAXISnet credentials (a Greek tax number, the AFM, is required first).
2. Enter the property: address, type, size and beds. Each property is registered separately.
3. Receive the AMA and add it to every listing and advert.
4. Declare every stay to AADE through the same platform. A missing or wrong declaration is fined at double the rent shown on the platform, and a late one at €100.

Properties that already hold a tourist operating licence (a hotel or a licensed tourist villa) follow their own licensing regime instead of the registry. For everyone else, the AMA is the condition for letting at all.

2. The 60-day rule: when a stay counts as short-term

The 60-day figure is a ceiling, not a minimum stay. Greek law defines a short-term rental as a let "for a specific duration of less than sixty (60) days and provided that no services other than the provision of bed linen are provided" (Article 111 of Law 4446/2016, in AADE's English translation).

Three consequences follow for a host on Airbnb or Booking.com:

1. A stay of less than 60 days is a short-term rental: it needs the AMA, a declaration to AADE and the climate resilience fee.
2. A stay of 60 days or more falls outside that definition and is treated as an ordinary residential lease, declared to AADE as such.
3. A listing that accepts both still needs the AMA, because the short stays on it are short-term rentals.

The same article also lets the government cap letting days in designated areas where housing is under pressure: at most 90 days a year per property, and 60 days a year on islands with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, unless the host's total rental income stays under €12,000. Those caps apply only where a ministerial decision has designated the area.

3. The Athens and Thessaloniki moratorium

The one-year freeze on new AMAs in central Athens, which started on 1 January 2025, was extended to 31 December 2026. It covers the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Municipal Districts of Athens, the historic and commercial centre. Properties already registered by 31 December 2024 keep their AMA and may keep letting.

On 1 July 2026, Thessaloniki followed: no new AMAs are issued until 31 December 2026 in the city's 1st Municipal Community. In the Thessaloniki zone, when a property with an active AMA is sold, donated or transferred from a parent to a child, the AMA is cancelled and the new owner cannot obtain a new one while the freeze lasts. Inheritance is exempt.

Letting illegally inside a frozen zone costs 50% of the rental income, with a minimum of €20,000, doubled to €40,000 for a repeat in the same tax year. The government has also announced restrictions on new registrations for Santorini, Chania, Paros and Halkidiki, so check the status of the exact area before you buy a property to let.

4. Fines

The fines under the short-term rental law, the 2025 safety rules and the moratorium rules, as they stand in 2026:

Enforcement is real. AADE reported in May 2025 that it had found 593 taxpayers who had hidden €8.9 million of short-term rental income in 2024, by cross-checking platform records against bank accounts. In March 2026 it announced cross-checks of the data received from Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo against the 2025 tax returns.

5. Taxes, VAT and the climate resilience fee

Short-term rental income of an individual is taxed as property income. From 1 January 2026 a new 25% band sits between the old 15% and 35% rates:

Since 1 January 2024, VAT applies when the host is a company, or an individual letting three or more properties. Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo report each host's bookings and payouts to AADE under the EU DAC7 rules, and this is the data behind the AADE cross-checks described under Fines.

The climate resilience fee is charged per night and collected from the guest. The rates in force since 2025 are:

The market these rules govern is large: declared short-term rent reached about €973 million in 2025, up from €880 million in 2024, according to BnB News.

6. Safety requirements since October 2025

Since 1 October 2025, the 2025 short-term rental law requires every registered property to have:

• civil liability insurance covering damage and accidents to guests and third parties;
• a fire extinguisher and smoke detectors;
• a residual current device and an electrician's declaration for the installation;
• escape route signage;
• a pest control and disinfestation certificate;
• a first-aid kit and a guide with emergency phone numbers.

Inspectors from the Ministry of Tourism check these on site at the properties declared to AADE, with at least 10 days' notice, and fines start at €5,000. Keep the insurance policy, the electrician's declaration and the pest control certificate where you can show them on the day.

7. The EU rules for platforms from 20 May 2026

Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing for short-term rentals applies from 20 May 2026 in every Member State. It makes platforms show each listing's registration number, check those numbers, and pass activity data to the authorities, who can have listings without a valid number taken down. In Greece the registration number is the AMA, so the practical effect is that a listing without a valid AMA is now visible to the authorities through the platform itself, not only through an inspection.

8. Golden Visa properties and non-resident owners

A property bought for the Golden Visa under the 2024 rules may not be let short-term at all, on Airbnb or offline. A breach is fined €50,000 and the residence permit is revoked. The ban is not retroactive: properties bought under the earlier regime are not caught by it. Long-term letting of a Golden Visa property remains legal.

A non-resident owner without a Golden Visa may let short-term on the same terms as a resident, which means:

1. a Greek tax number (AFM) and TAXISnet access;
2. the AMA, displayed on every listing;
3. a declaration of every stay and an annual Greek tax return on the rental income;
4. the safety equipment and insurance listed above.

The fines are imposed on the person registered as the host, not on a local manager acting for them. That is why an owner abroad should check, at least once a season, that the listing still shows the right AMA.