Hire Employees in Greece

Your own entity is normally an IKE or EPE. Registration is workable, and Greece has actively courted relocating businesses and remote workers through tax incentives in recent years.

An Employer of Record inverts the sequence: the Greek entity signs the contract, files the ERGANI declaration before the employee starts, pays 21.79% to e-EFKA and administers the fourteen-salary cycle, while you direct the day-to-day work.

The operational feature that distinguishes Greece is ERGANI: a real-time system rather than a monthly return, cross-referenced by the labour inspectorate during inspections.

Greece pays fourteen salaries and that is statutory, not customary. Employees receive a full month at Christmas, half a month at Easter and half a month as holiday allowance, on top of twelve monthly salaries. Any budget built on twelve is understated by about 17% before contributions.

e-EFKA contributions are 21.79% employer and 13.37% employee, giving 35.16% combined, capped at a monthly ceiling of €7,761.94 from January 2026. Several published sources give the employee rate as 13.87%, which does not reconcile with the combined figure, the arithmetic rules it out.

The operational feature that distinguishes Greece is ERGANI. Every hire must be declared to the ERGANI system before the employee starts work, and changes to working hours, overtime and terminations are all declared through the same platform. It is a real-time system, not a monthly return, and the labour inspectorate cross-references it during inspections.

Probation is twelve months in Greece, considerably longer than most of Europe, which gives an unusual amount of flexibility at the start of the relationship, and makes the twelve-month point a genuine decision date rather than an administrative one.

Break-even rule of thumb: EOR fees begin to exceed the running cost of a small Greek entity somewhere between 15 and 20 employees. Model both before committing, see EOR vs Entity for the full comparison, and plan any later migration so employees keep seniority.

Greece pays fourteen salaries and that is statutory, not customary. Employees receive a full month at Christmas, half a month at Easter and half a month as holiday allowance, on top of twelve monthly salaries. A budget built on twelve is understated by about 17% before contributions.

e-EFKA contributions are 21.79% employer and 13.37% employee, giving 35.16% combined, capped at a monthly ceiling of €7,761.94 from January 2026.

The 13.87% employee rate that appears in several sources, including on teka.gov.gr, is not an error, it is an older vintage. It pairs with an employer rate of 22.29% for a combined 36.16%, and that package was internally consistent in its day. Greece has been reducing contributions half a point at a time, and the current 2026 pair is 21.79% and 13.37%. The lesson is that where two figures conflict, the question is usually which year each belongs to rather than which one fails to add up. On the same trajectory, the employer rate falls again to 21.29% on 1 January 2027, so a multi-year model should carry the step.

Four representative profiles, costed with the 2026 contribution rates above. Salaries are illustrative market midpoints, not GX operating data, use them to see how the on-cost percentage behaves as pay rises, not as a salary benchmark for a specific role. For real market data on your roles, ask for a costing.

Watch the on-cost percentage rather than the absolute figure. 4 of the charges here are capped and 2 are not, so the effective employer rate falls as salary rises, but it flattens rather than disappearing. The senior rows below show where it settles.

Four representative profiles costed on 2026 statutory rates. Salaries are illustrative market midpoints, not GX operating data.

Payroll runs monthly in euros, with the three additional payments falling at Christmas, Easter and the summer holiday period.

The 2025 reform introduced a new income tax scale for 2026 at 9%, 20%, 26%, 34%, 39% and 44%, and suspended the solidarity contribution. Models built on the previous scale will overstate employee deductions at most income levels.

Working hours must be declared and kept current in ERGANI. A change in schedule that is not declared is itself a breach, independent of whether the hours actually worked were lawful, which makes ERGANI maintenance an ongoing obligation rather than a hiring formality.

Thresholds and ceilings are uprated periodically, so a figure correct in January may not hold later in the year. Where a row below is flagged, published sources disagreed and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved.

Thresholds move on a local cycle that does not always fall in January, so a figure correct at the start of the year may not hold through it. Where a row below carries a flag, published sources disagreed and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved, there are 1 such rows on this page.

The sections that follow set out contracts and probation, working time, leave, termination and immigration in that order. Where an entitlement comes from a collective agreement rather than statute it is marked as such, because that distinction determines whether it is negotiable.

A written contract is standard and the ERGANI declaration must be filed before the employee starts work. There is no grace period.

Probation is twelve months in Greece, considerably longer than most of Europe. During it the contract may be terminated without notice or severance, which gives an unusual amount of flexibility at the start of the relationship and makes the twelve-month point a genuine decision date.

Since the 2021 labour law reform an employer must have a valid reason for dismissal, moving Greece closer to the objective-grounds regimes of northern Europe than its previous position allowed.

Forty hours a week over five days. Overtime is paid at a 20% premium for the first five hours a week and 40% beyond, with higher rates for unlawful overtime. A digital work card now records actual start and finish times in several sectors, and enforcement has tightened considerably.

Overtime is where payroll disputes usually start. Record hours from day one even where the role is salaried and the expectation is that overtime will not arise, reconstructing records after a complaint is far harder than keeping them.

Overtime is where payroll disputes usually begin, and the burden of proving hours worked generally sits with the employer. Record hours from the first day even for salaried roles where overtime is not expected, reconstructing a record after a complaint is considerably harder than keeping one.

Public holidays sit on top of the annual leave entitlement. Where a holiday falls at a weekend, practice varies, some markets move it, some grant a substitute day and some do neither, so check the position before assuming a day in lieu.

The 13 dates below are the statutory position. Employers in many markets grant more by policy or collective agreement, and sector agreements sometimes add local or patronal days that do not appear in a national list.

Greece observes 13 paid public holidays in 2026. Dates that fall at a weekend and any substitution rules are set out below; entitlement is separate from annual leave.

Maternity: 17 weeks, 8 before and 9 after the birth, e-EFKA pays an allowance; the employer pays one month’s salary after a year of service, or half a month below that, less the allowance received. Special maternity protection: 6 months following maternity leave. Paid by the public employment service at the minimum wage. Paternity: 14 days. Employer-paid. Parental leave: 4 months per parent until the child is 8. 2 months paid at minimum wage by the public employment service.

Sick leave: From day 4. The employer pays half salary for the first 3 days; e-EFKA pays thereafter, with the employer topping up under some agreements.

Greek termination of an indefinite contract requires written notice and payment of statutory severance, calculated on a scale rising with length of service. Where notice is given the severance is halved; where the employer terminates without notice the full amount is due.

Within the twelve-month probation period the contract may be terminated without notice or severance, which makes that period materially more useful than the three or six months common elsewhere in Europe.

Dismissal must be in writing, the severance must be paid at the time of dismissal, and the termination must be declared through ERGANI. A dismissal that fails any of these is invalid, and Greek courts have historically been willing to order reinstatement.

Since the 2021 labour law reform an employer must have a valid reason for dismissal, moving Greece closer to the objective-grounds regimes of northern Europe than its previous position allowed.

EU, EEA and Swiss nationals need no permit. A third-country national needs a residence permit for employment, generally applied for from outside Greece through a consulate.

Allow two to four months. Greece operates a digital nomad visa and a non-dom tax regime offering a 50% income tax exemption for seven years to qualifying relocating employees, which is a genuine recruitment tool rather than a marginal incentive.

The Golden Visa investment route is separate and does not confer employment rights in itself, so it is not an alternative to a work-based permit.

A cross-border hire may not attract local contributions at all. Under EU Regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 a worker moving within the EEA is subject to one state’s social security system at a time. A posted worker stays in the home system for up to 24 months under Article 12, and someone working across two or more states follows a single state determined by a 25% activity test under Article 13. Where a valid A1 portable document is held, the host state cannot charge contributions. The certificate is declaratory rather than constitutive, the right legislation applies either way, but without it a host state can assess retroactively with penalties, and enforcement is aggressive in France, Belgium and Austria. Residual local charges are not always nil, so confirm the specific position rather than assuming zero.

ERGANI is where Greek compliance concentrates. Hiring, working-hour changes, overtime and terminations are all declared through it in real time, and the labour inspectorate cross-references declarations against what it finds on site.

Severance must be paid at the time of dismissal, the dismissal must be in writing, and the termination must be declared through ERGANI. A dismissal failing any of these is invalid, and Greek courts have historically been willing to order reinstatement.

Practical controls: file the ERGANI hiring declaration before the start date, keep declared working hours current, budget fourteen payments, use the twelve-month probation deliberately, and pay severance at the point of dismissal rather than in a subsequent payroll run.

Work backwards from the start date. For an EU national, a week or two is realistic. A third-country national needs a residence permit for employment, which adds two to four months.

Confirm before making an offer: that the ERGANI declaration will be filed before the employee starts, since there is no grace period; whether a sector collective agreement sets a higher minimum than the national one; and that the annual budget reflects fourteen payments.

e-EFKA registration and the ERGANI hiring declaration are both pre-start requirements. Working hours must also be declared and kept current in ERGANI, a change in schedule that is not declared is itself a breach, independent of whether the hours worked were lawful.