🇬🇷 Greece vs 🇯🇵 Japan: Digital Nomad Visa Compared

Greece offers Digital Nomad Visa (Type D) + Residence Permit (Type I.8) - Law 5038/2023, amended by Law 5275/2026. Japan offers Designated Activities (Digital Nomad) - Notice No. 53. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide. Greece's initial visa period runs longer than Japan's: 12 months versus 6.

🇬🇷 Greece🇯🇵 Japan

Minimum income

3,500 EUR / month

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: NET-vs-GROSS conflict stays open, no tiebreaker found; one new source (freenance.io) claims GROSS and frames EUR 3,500 as "raised from EUR 2,500 in 2025," which does not match this fiche's tracked history and looks like a search-summary artifact, not a genuine change - not promoted. Attributed to the official mfa.gr page (403 on direct fetch) and corroborated by multiple specialist sources, though at least one 2026 secondary guide states this figure as GROSS rather than NET - the net/gross distinction could not be independently re-confirmed on the official page this pass and should be treated as unresolved. Family uplift: +20% spouse, +15% per child. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-05: multiple independent 2026 guides (remoteworkeurope.eu, globalcitizensolutions.com, lexidy.com, nomadsembassy.com) state the required bank-statement history proving this income rose from 3 to 6 consecutive months, effective 27 January 2026 - corroborated across 4 independent secondary sources but no primary decree/circular citation found, so this is added as a documentation-requirement detail, not a change to the EUR 3,500 figure itself.

source · verified 2026-09-24

10,000,000 JPY / year

Attributed to MFA/ISA (pages not fetched directly). Income must be from outside Japan; work for Japan-based entities is not allowed.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Visa duration

12 months, renewable

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged, no new development. Type D visa: up to 12 months. Then Type I.8 residence permit: 2 years, renewable for successive 2-year periods. LAW 5275/2026 (~5 Feb 2026): the in-country conversion route was ABOLISHED - you must now obtain the Type D visa at a Greek consulate abroad BEFORE entering. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-31: the same reform also closed a second loophole - applicants who entered on a Type C (Schengen) visa or a visa-waiver could previously obtain the Type I.8 permit by showing a housing lease or property-purchase contract instead of the full consulate-first D-visa route; two independent legal-advisory sources (Bernitsas Law, siopi-law.gr) now describe this route as closed, consistent with the same law's abolition of in-country conversion. Reported/corroborated via search-indexed content, not a fetched primary source (mfa.gr/migration.gov.gr still 403).

source · verified 2026-09-24

6 months

6 months, NON-renewable. A stay under 6 months generally keeps you a non-tax-resident of Japan.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Tax regime

New tax residents may access a 50% income-tax exemption for up to 7 years (Art. 5C), but it is NOT automatic and generally does NOT apply to pure foreign-source remote income. Staying >183 days makes you a Greek tax resident, taxed on worldwide income at standard rates.

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged. Art. 5C (AADE) requires 5-of-6-years prior non-residence AND historically Greek-source income; specialist tax sources flag that a nomad working purely for foreign clients may not qualify. Do NOT present the 50% cut as an automatic benefit.

source · verified 2026-09-24

A stay of 6 months (under 183 days) generally does not make you a Japanese tax resident, so foreign income is not taxed by Japan under the visa.

General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Family (spouse / children)

Spouse + children admitted (+20% spouse (approx EUR 4,200/mo total), +15% per child (approx +EUR 525/mo))

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged, +20% spouse / +15% per child reconfirmed.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Application fees

75 EUR

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged. This EUR 75 is the Type D VISA fee (+ EUR 150 per accompanying family member). SEPARATE and much larger: the Type I.8 RESIDENCE PERMIT fee, ~EUR 1,000 (+ EUR 150/family member). Guides routinely conflate the two stages. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-07: the post-Law-5275/2026 re-verification flag carried since 2026-07-05 is now resolved - the EUR 1,000 + EUR 150/family-member Type I.8 figure is independently reconfirmed unchanged post-reform by multiple current 2026 sources (Karabatsoulegal and GSL.org since 2026-07-29; consiliojus.com added this pass), with no competing post-reform figure surfacing across any pass since. Still not read on migration.gov.gr directly (403/EGRESS_BLOCKED every pass), so confidence stays "reported," not "official."

source · verified 2026-09-24

15,000 JPY

Japan's general visa issuance fee rose from JPY 3,000 to JPY 15,000 (single-entry) effective 2026-07-01 - the first revision since 1978. A consulate Digital Nomad checklist states the visa follows the general single-entry fee schedule. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-15: a search-indexed snippet of this exact MOFA fee page now corroborates "approximately 15,000 yen for a single-entry visa," but the live page still could not be fetched directly this pass either, so confidence stays "reported" pending an on-page read.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Health insurance

Required - Mandatory private health insurance covering care/hospitalization in Greece for applicant + family; minimum coverage amount not stated officially.

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Required - Private health insurance covering the full 6-month stay with medical coverage of JPY 10 million or more.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Processing time

~10 days consular decision target (2-6 weeks in practice; longer since the 2026 consulate-only route)

RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: unchanged. This estimate covers the initial Type D consular-visa stage. SEPARATE and later: the Type I.8 residence-permit stage, applied for after arrival, is a 'single permit' application under Law 5275/2026 (transposing EU Directive 2024/1233, in force since 6 Feb 2026), which sets a statutory 90-day decision deadline (extendable by 30 days in exceptional cases), plus a 2-month deadline (also extendable by 30 days) for the applicant to supply any missing documents, with the clock paused meanwhile. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-20: independently corroborated across several named law-firm sources (EY Greece, Zepos & Yannopoulos, PwC Greece, Bernitsas Law, Machas & Partners) all citing the statute directly - still not read on migration.gov.gr itself (EGRESS_BLOCKED), so confidence stays 'reported', but this is the strongest sourcing tier short of a direct page read.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one

No single canonical MOFA-stated figure found; based on convergent consulate guidance (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles). Confirm with your consulate. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-04: mofa.go.jp and moj.go.jp/isa still 403 on direct fetch. No source dated after the prior pass changes income, duration, tax, fees or processing time - all reconfirmed by convergent 2026 guides. No material change. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-11: the JPY 3,000-to-15,000 fee rise (2026-07-01) is now strongly corroborated by mainstream press (Japan Times, CNBC, Nippon.com, Euronews, all dated mid-to-late June 2026) rather than only consulate-checklist sourcing - confidence strengthened, figure unchanged. Income, duration and processing time all reconfirmed. No material change.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Greece 2026-09-24, Japan 2026-09-24.