Card spending in Greece: how much you need by 31 December

The rule says three things. First, you need spending by electronic means equal to 30% of your real income1. Second, that amount has a ceiling of €20,000. Third, you pay 22% tax on whatever is missing.

Real income here means the income in your tax return from salaries, pensions and profits from self-employment. Dividends and the rent you collect stay out of the sum1. So if you have a salary and a small flat that you let, only the salary counts.

The sum covers the whole year, from 1 January to 31 December 2026. It does not matter whether you spent a lot in March and little in July. What counts is the total for the year. AADE, the Greek tax authority, works it out with the tax return of 2027, using the amounts that the banks send it2,3.

One point that people often miss: your employer knows nothing about your purchases. The tax withheld from your salary each month is worked out as if you had covered the 30%. If you have not, the tax on the gap only arrives with the tax return.

The sum is one multiplication. Take the income of the year and multiply it by 30%. The table shows a few incomes, the amount you need for the whole of 2026, and the average per month:

The last line shows the ceiling. 30% of €70,000 would be €21,000, but the law stops at €20,0001. The ceiling is reached at an income of €66,666.67. Above that, however much your salary rises, the amount you need stays the same.

The monthly average only helps you see the size of the figure. By November ten months have passed, and what matters now is how much you already have and how much is missing. On an income of €20,000, if you already have €5,000, €1,000 is missing. If you have €2,000, €4,000 is missing, and eight weeks is not long for that.

For most employees the 30% is covered without much thought, as long as the weekly shopping goes on a card. People who pay a lot in cash, people who live with their parents, and people who spend little for other reasons are most at risk.

The 30% comes from the income your tax return will show, not from the salary you had in January. If something changed during the year, the amount you need changed too. Four cases come up often.

You started work during the year. If you started a job in September, your income for 2026 is only the pay from September on. On an income of €6,000 for the year, you need €1,800. Purchases count from January, though, even for the months when you were not working. If you paid by card then too, you may already have covered the amount.

The bonuses and the holiday allowance are income. Many people do the sum with twelve salaries and forget the other two. The Christmas bonus is paid in December, and it raises the income of the year. A bonus of about €1,500 raises the amount you need by about €450.

You got a rise. Each extra €1,000 of income a year raises the spending you need by €300. A rise from July counts only for the months you received it, so its effect on 2026 is smaller than it will be in 2027.

You have two incomes. A salary and freelance profits, or a salary and a pension, add up1. An employee with €15,000 from a salary and €5,000 of net profit from a second job has an income of €20,000, and so needs €6,000. Dividends and rent you collect, as you saw, stay out.

If your income fell, the opposite holds. A month of unpaid leave or a spell of unemployment lowers your income, and with it the amount you need.

Purchases of goods and services paid by card, by bank transfer or by e-wallet count1. Debit or credit card, a phone payment at the till, a transfer from your account to a tradesman: all of these pass through a bank, and the bank reports them.

In practice, the everyday amounts make the difference. The supermarket, the bakery, the pharmacy, the hairdresser, the car mechanic, the restaurant, online shops. A household that puts all of that on a card usually reaches 30% long before December. A household that pays for it in cash never reaches it, however much it spends.

As the law sets out, rent, road tax, and the purchase of cars and boats do not count1. A rent of €600 a month, however properly you pay it by transfer, brings you no closer to the 30%. The same goes for the road tax on your car, even though that is paid electronically too.

Taxes and loan payments are not purchases, so they do not count as spending. The law gives them another role, though: they count towards the 60% test that lowers the bar to 20%. You will see it below.

There is also a helpful exception. For the year 2026, card payments to doctors and to some health services count double1. A visit to the dentist for €60 counts as €120 of spending. The law sets out exactly which health services belong to that group, and if you are unsure, ask the doctor or your accountant.

Cash, finally, counts for nothing. A paper receipt from a cash purchase is a perfectly legal receipt, but for the 30% rule it has no value. The word “receipts” that everyone uses comes from an older system. Today the tax office counts payments, and it learns about them from the banks.

On whatever is missing you pay 22% tax1. It is added to the income tax of your 2027 tax return, and it shows on the assessment that AADE sends you after you file2.

Take an income of €20,000. You need €6,000 of spending. If you reach €4,000 by the end of the year, €2,000 is missing. The extra tax is 22% of €2,000, which is €440. If you had paid nothing by card, the whole €6,000 would be missing, and the tax would be €1,320.

The tax rises with the gap, euro for euro. The table shows what you pay for a few gaps:

That has a good side. The rule is not all or nothing. If €3,000 is missing and you manage to cover €2,000 of it, the tax falls from €660 to €220. Every payment you move to a card by 31 December shrinks the bill, even if you never close the gap.

This is extra tax. It is not a fine that goes away if you ask, and the tax withheld from your salary does not cover it. If your employer withheld the right tax all year and you expect a small refund, the tax on the gap can eat the whole refund, or turn it into a bill.

Look at it from the other side too. Every €100 that is missing costs €22. So the card is worth using for the purchases you would make anyway. If you do not need something, buying it just to cover the amount costs you €100 to save €22.

The law gives relief to people who already pay a lot electronically for things that are not purchases. If during the year you paid taxes, property tax (ΕΝΦΙΑ), loan instalments and rent by bank or by card, and together they come to more than 60% of your income, the amount you need falls from 30% to 20%1.

Take an income of €20,000. 60% of it is €12,000. If you pay rent of €650 a month by transfer, which is €7,800 a year, and loan instalments of €400 a month, which is €4,800, the total is €12,600. That is above 60%, so you need spending of 20% of €20,000, which is €4,000 instead of €6,000.

This relief concerns few people. A large part of the income has to go on rent, loans and taxes, and all of it has to be paid electronically. If you pay your rent in cash to the landlord, it does not count here either.

If one of your bank accounts is under seizure, other than the protected one, you have a lower ceiling. The amount you need is still 30% of your income, but it stops at €5,000 instead of €20,0001.

The protected account, the ακατάσχετος account, is the one where your salary or pension lands and which the law shields from seizure up to a limit. The lower ceiling applies when the seizure is on another account of yours, as the tool also says.

The logic of the law is easy to follow. When an account is frozen, it is hard to pay by card from it. On an income of €30,000, 30% would be €9,000. With a seizure, you need €5,000. On an income of €15,000, 30% is €4,500, below the ceiling, so nothing changes.

Some taxpayers do not need to cover any amount at all1:

• people over 70,
• people with a disability of 80% or more,
• minors,
• people doing their military service,
• residents of small villages, as the law defines them.

If you belong to one of these groups, the tool shows that you have no duty, and the tax return adds no tax for spending. For villages, the law sets a population limit. If you do not know whether your village falls under it, ask your accountant before you rely on the exemption.

AADE shows your electronic payments in myAADE, its online portal, with the amounts the banks send it3. There you see a total for each bank, and the sum of those totals is the figure that counts.

If you want a quick estimate before you log in, open your card statement for an ordinary month. Add up the purchases, leaving out rent, loan instalments and taxes. If they come to €400 a month, ten months give you about €4,000. On an income of €18,000 you need €5,400, so about €1,400 is missing. If you have cards with two banks, count both, because AADE adds them together.

That estimate does not replace the figures in myAADE. It tells you straight away which group you are in, though: the people with no reason to worry, or the people who need to change something this week.

In November a first look is enough: find the total so far and compare it with 30% of your income. The detailed check of the year, with the amount missing for each week, is best done in early December, when the figures are closer to final.