Greece's Article 5B offers American retirees a flat 7% tax on all foreign-source income for 15 years, covering Social Security, IRA withdrawals, and dividends.
A couple retiring to coastal Greece spends roughly $61,000 a year, about $17,500 less than the average U.S. household.
Retirees must elect the 7% regime in year one and fully sever ties from high-tax states like California or face double taxation with no credit offset.
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Someone in their late 50s or early 60s has read one too many articles about the Algarve, run the numbers, and realized Portugal is not what it was five years ago. Rents in Lisbon have doubled, the old Non-Habitual Resident tax break for retirees is gone for new arrivals, and the golden visa route to residency has been narrowed. If not Portugal, then where? The answer, for a growing number of American retirees, is Greece.
Greece introduced a retiree tax regime under Article 5B of its income tax code that Portugal used to offer and no longer does. If you move your tax residence to Greece and receive a pension from a country with a tax treaty with Greece (the United States qualifies), you can elect a flat 7% tax rate on all foreign-source income for 15 years. Social Security, IRA and 401(k) withdrawals, dividends, capital gains, rental income from your old house back home. All taxed at 7% in Greece, with the U.S. still taxing you as a citizen but with foreign tax credits and treaty relief smoothing the overlap.
That single provision is why this scenario works. Without it, Greek marginal rates climb past 40% and the math collapses.
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Pick a real place, not "Greece." A couple renting a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the water in Chania, Crete, or a stone house in Nafplio in the Peloponnese, is looking at roughly €900 to €1,300 a month in rent unfurnished. Buying is cheaper than most Americans expect: habitable homes in good coastal towns still trade in the €200,000 to €350,000 range, a fraction of the Case-Shiller national index sitting at 332.7 in April 2026, roughly 3.3 times its 2000 baseline.
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