Greek Income Tax Return (E1) 2026: How to File as an Expat

Short answer: If you are a Greek tax resident, you must file an annual income tax return called the E1 through the AADE TAXISnet portal, declaring your worldwide income for the previous calendar year. The 2026 filing season covers your 2025 income. Filing is done in Greek, online, and is mandatory even if you owe nothing. Miss it and penalties and interest start building. Get your residency status right first, because that single detail decides how much you actually pay.

The Greek income tax return trips up more expats than any other part of the system. Not because the maths is hard, but because the whole thing happens in Greek, on a government portal that assumes you already know the rules, and because one wrong box early on can inflate your bill for years without you noticing. This guide walks through what the E1 actually is, who has to file it, how the connected forms fit together, how foreign income is treated, and the single most common mistake we fix for new clients.

What the E1 actually is

The E1 (Dilosi Forologias Eisodimatos, written E1) is Greece’s annual personal income tax return. It is the master form where you declare your income for the previous calendar year and where your final tax is calculated. Every Greek tax resident who is required to file does so through this one form, submitted electronically via the AADE TAXISnet system.

The E1 covers a full calendar year. The return you file in 2026 reports your income earned during 2025. There is no rolling or fiscal year to worry about; Greece uses the calendar year for individuals.

Even if all your tax was already withheld at source, even if you owe nothing, even if you had almost no income, if you meet the filing threshold you still have to submit the E1. Filing is a legal obligation, not something you skip because the balance comes out at zero.

Who has to file

You generally have to file a Greek E1 if any of the following apply:

• You are a Greek tax resident (broadly, you spend more than 183 days in Greece in any 12-month period or your center of vital interests is here)¹.
• You are a non-resident but you earn Greek-sourced income (for example, rent from a Greek property, or income from Greek employment).
• You are registered as self-employed or a freelancer in Greece, in which case you file regardless of how much you earned.
• You hold an active AFM tied to certain obligations, such as owning property or a vehicle in Greece.

The distinction between resident and non-resident is not a formality. A Greek tax resident declares worldwide income, everything, everywhere. A non-resident declares only Greek-sourced income. That single line decides the scope of your entire return, which is why we always confirm residency status before touching anything else.

The E1, E2 and E3: how the forms fit together

The E1 is the main return, but depending on your situation it pulls in two supporting forms.

E1 is the core income tax return. Employment income, pensions, interest, worldwide income for residents, and the final tax calculation all live here. Most people with only a salary need just this.

E2 is the rental income schedule. If you rent out property in Greece, you list each property and the rent received on the E2, and its totals flow into your E1. Own a flat you let out? You need the E2 alongside your E1.

E3 is the business and professional activity statement. If you are a freelancer, sole trader, or run any self-employed activity, the E3 captures your revenue, expenses, and net profit, which then feeds your E1. Employees do not touch the E3; the self-employed always do.

Think of the E1 as the summary sheet and the E2 and E3 as feeders that supply specific categories of income into it.

How foreign income and double taxation work

This is where expats worry most, and usually needlessly. Being a Greek tax resident means declaring your foreign income too, salary from abroad, foreign rental income, foreign pensions, foreign investment income. Declaring it does not automatically mean paying tax twice.

Greece has double taxation treaties with a long list of countries. Where a treaty applies, it decides which country has the right to tax a given type of income, and it provides relief so the same euro is not taxed fully in both places. Depending on the treaty and the income type, relief comes either as a credit for foreign tax already paid or as an exemption of that income from Greek tax.

The practical point: you still declare the foreign income on your E1, but treaty relief is applied so you are not penalised for it. Getting this right requires knowing which treaty applies and how it treats your specific income. Getting it wrong, or omitting foreign income entirely, is one of the fastest ways to attract a query from AADE.

The residency mistake that costs expats the most

Here is the single most expensive error we see, and it is worth its own section because it is so common among people who live and work in Greece.

Many expats who are genuinely Greek tax residents get filed as if they were foreign tax residents. On the E1 this shows up as a specific code being ticked that declares the person a resident abroad. The consequence is severe: the taxpayer loses the tax reduction that Greek-resident employees are entitled to, and their tax due is inflated, often year after year, without them ever understanding why the bill keeps climbing.

The single misclassification is usually the entire cause of the rising liability. Someone lives in Athens, works here, pays here, and yet their return quietly treats them as if their tax home is somewhere else. Once that box is ticked, AADE will also expect official proof of the claimed foreign residency, a foreign tax residency certificate translated into Greek, which the person can rarely produce because they are not actually resident abroad.

The good news is that it is fixable. Prior years can be corrected with amended returns to recover what was overpaid, and the current year can be filed correctly so the reduction is applied and the bill drops. If your Greek tax has felt inexplicably high, this is the first thing worth checking.

Deadlines and penalties

The E1 filing window opens in spring and closes in summer. The exact dates are set by AADE each year. For 2025 income, the 2026 window ran from 16 March to 24 July 2026² (AADE extended the original 15 July date).

If you owe tax, you can pay in full or in up to 8 monthly instalments, the first due at the end of July. Paying in full by the end of July earned a discount in 2026, depending on when you filed:

The discounts and dates change each year, so check AADE’s announcement for the 2027 season, which usually opens in March.

Filing late costs a fixed €100 penalty, even if you owe nothing, plus interest on any unpaid tax. The worst approach is to keep ignoring it. If you have missed one or more past years, that is extremely common among expats and almost always fixable by preparing the outstanding declarations and bringing you up to date. Our step-by-step guide to filing the E1 on myAADE shows the screens, and what to do if you missed the deadline.

What this looks like in practice

For a typical expat employee who is a Greek tax resident with only a Greek salary, the process is: confirm resident status, file the E1 with employment income prefilled from employer data, apply the employee tax reduction, and settle any small balance. Straightforward.

For a freelancer, add the E3 to report business profit. For a property owner, add the E2 for rental income. For someone with income abroad, add the foreign income lines with the correct treaty relief. The form scales with the complexity of your life.

Which forms you need

• Employee, salary only: E1. Get right: resident status and the employee tax reduction.
• Freelancer or sole trader: E1 + E3. Get right: net profit, deductible expenses, EFKA.
• Property owner renting out: E1 + E2. Get right: rental income declared correctly.
• Income from abroad: E1 (foreign income lines). Get right: correct double taxation treaty relief.
• Missed previous years: E1 for each late year. Get right: filing before penalties grow further.

Getting it filed without the stress

The E1 is filed in Greek, on TAXISnet, and the interface assumes fluency in both the language and the system. You do not have to do it yourself, and you should never hand over your TAXISnet password to anyone. The proper mechanism is a scoped authorisation granted through myAADE, which lets a licensed accountant file the specific return on your behalf while your account stays entirely under your control.

At MyGreekTax we prepare your full E1, including any E2 for rental income and any E3 for self-employment, handle foreign income and treaty relief, and confirm your residency status is filed correctly so you claim every reduction you are entitled to. You review a plain-English summary before anything is submitted, and nothing is filed without your written approval. Our Annual Tax Return (E1) service starts at 40 euros for straightforward cases, with the final fee confirmed in writing after we review your specific situation.

If your Greek tax has been higher than it should be, or you have missed a year, or you simply do not want to wrestle with a Greek government portal, book a free consultation and we will tell you exactly where you stand.

The rules above reflect Greek tax law and filing procedures as of September 2026. Tax legislation and deadlines change frequently, so confirm current figures and dates with a qualified Greek tax advisor before making decisions.