Greek Golden Visa: The Montenegrin Side

What this page is, and what it is not

The Greek residence-by-investment route — the Greek golden visa — is Greek law, applied by Greek authorities. We do not represent applicants before Greek authorities, we do not act as your Greek property lawyer, and we do not sell participations in Greek developments. We also do not publish Greek investment thresholds on this page: they have been changed and regionally differentiated more than once, and a figure stated confidently here would more likely mislead than help. Confirm the current threshold for the specific municipality and asset class with Greek counsel at the time you act.

What this page covers is the half of the decision that sits in Montenegro, and it is the half that goes wrong more often: how the money leaves Montenegro, what holds the Greek asset, and what a Greek permit does — and does not do — to a position you already have here. All three are questions of Montenegrin law, and all three can be answered before anyone applies in Greece.

Sources, checked 11 September 2026: the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Zakon o sprečavanju pranja novca i finansiranja terorizma, "Sl. list CG" 110/23, 065/24, 024/25, 041/26 and 059/26, in the Central Bank of Montenegro's unofficial consolidated text); the Personal Income Tax Act (consolidated to 160/25); the Corporate Profit Tax Act (Zakon o porezu na dobit pravnih lica, consolidated text); the Law on Foreigners (012/18 to 033/26); and the Ministry of Finance's own list of the double taxation conventions Montenegro applies. General information about Montenegrin law, not advice on a particular transaction, and not Greek legal or tax advice.

Moving the money out of Montenegro is a reported event

The purchase price has to leave Montenegro, and two rules of the anti-money-laundering statute decide how.

• No cash at this size. No legal person, company, entrepreneur or natural person may receive or make a cash payment of €10,000 or more, including through two or more linked transactions that reach that total, loans included (AML Act, Article 65(1)-(2)). A payment of that size must go by payment or transfer to a transaction account at a credit institution in Montenegro (Article 65(3)).
• Reported within three working days. A bank must deliver the customer due-diligence data to the Financial Intelligence Unit, without delay and at the latest within three working days, for every non-cash transaction of €100,000 or more (Article 66(1)); for any transaction of €20,000 or more on accounts of persons in high-risk third countries, within three days (Article 66(3)).

The practical consequence is not that the transfer is difficult. It is that a transfer large enough to buy Greek property is, by design, described to the Financial Intelligence Unit — with whatever source-of-funds account the bank was given. Where the money was built up in Montenegro through a property sale, a company distribution or a crypto conversion, the documentation has to exist before the transfer, not be reconstructed after a Greek bank asks for it.

If the funds come from selling Montenegrin property, the sale itself is already inside the system: for a property price of €10,000 or more, the payment may be made only if at least one party pays to or from a transaction account at a Montenegrin credit institution, and the notary must refuse a deed that enables the national payment system to be avoided (Article 65a(1)-(2)). If payment was made before the deed was certified, the notary must obtain proof of it — a party's statement is not proof (Article 65a(3)-(4)).

The Greek permit does not end your Montenegrin tax residence

This is the assumption that causes the most trouble.

Article 3(1) of the Personal Income Tax Act lists two limbs for a natural person's Montenegrin tax residence: having a residence (prebivalište) or the centre of business and vital interests on Montenegrin territory, and staying in Montenegro for more than 183 days in the tax year. The Act does not state in terms how the two limbs combine, so do not plan on the day count alone: a person who takes a Greek permit and spends most of the year away, but keeps a home, a family and a business here, has not obviously left the first limb. A resident is taxed on income earned in and outside Montenegro (Article 4(1)).

On the company side, a legal person is a Montenegrin resident where it is either incorporated in Montenegro or has its seat of actual management and control here (Corporate Profit Tax Act, Article 3(1)), and a resident is taxed on profit realised in Montenegro and abroad (Article 4(1)). A Montenegrin company whose owner moves to Greece does not stop being resident — and if the owner starts running it from Greece, the management-and-control limb becomes a live question in the other direction. See permanent establishment risk and tax residence.

There is no Greece–Montenegro tax treaty to fall back on

When two states both treat the same person as resident, a double taxation convention normally supplies a tie-breaker. Montenegro's Ministry of Finance publishes the list of conventions it applies; the file downloaded on 11 September 2026 lists Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom, among others — and does not list Greece. Cyprus is on it, which is exactly the kind of near-miss that makes a fast scan dangerous.

A convention works only if both states apply it, so the honest test is two-sided: confirm the Greek side against a current Greek source before any position is taken. If the absence holds, the consequences are concrete: no tie-breaker article, so dual residence is resolved, if at all, by each state's domestic law; no treaty cap on withholding for dividends, interest and royalties crossing between the two; no mutual agreement procedure if the two administrations take different views; and relief for Greek tax only where Montenegrin law gives it unilaterally.

What holds the Greek asset changes the Montenegrin answer

Buying the Greek property through a Montenegrin company is a common instinct, and it has a specific consequence here: a resident company is taxed on profit realised outside Montenegro (Corporate Profit Tax Act, Article 4(1)), so Greek rental income and any Greek gain come into the Montenegrin base, and without a convention the relief for Greek tax depends on unilateral domestic rules rather than on a treaty article. Buying personally keeps the asset out of the company but leaves the personal residence question of Article 3(1) doing all the work. Either choice also has succession consequences in both states, which is where a structure chosen for one purpose most often causes a problem later.

What a Greek permit does to a Montenegrin residence permit

Holding a Greek permit is not itself a ground on which a Montenegrin permit ends. Time spent away is.

• A Montenegrin temporary residence permit ends after more than 30 days outside Montenegro during its validity (Law on Foreigners, Article 65(1), item 3); a residence and work permit ends the same way (Article 83(1), item 6), unless an absence of up to 90 days for justified reasons is notified to the police beforehand (Article 83(2)).
• An executive director of a company registered in Montenegro, and an entrepreneur, are outside those absence rules (Article 83(3) with Article 78(1), item 4).
• Permanent residence requires five years of continuous stay, and continuity survives absences of up to ten months in total or a single absence of up to six months (Article 86(3)).

If the plan is to spend the Greek summer in Greece, the Montenegrin permit type decides whether that is a non-event, a notification exercise or the end of the permit. The routes and their conditions are on our residence permit services page.

Comparing routes honestly

Clients often ask how a Greek route compares with Montenegro. The comparison worth making is not about headline thresholds but about what each instrument actually delivers — Schengen mobility or not, what the permit permits, what it requires in days, and how it interacts with tax residence. Montenegro does not operate a citizenship-by-investment programme, and its property-linked residence route is a different instrument from an EU golden visa; see does Montenegro have a golden visa, Montenegro golden visa: what the law actually gives you and Hungary's guest investor visa vs Montenegro's property residence. The Montenegrin side of a Greek move is set out article by article in taking a Greek golden visa: what it does to your Montenegrin position.

What we do

• Source of funds on the Montenegrin side — documenting a sale, distribution or conversion in the form a foreign bank or authority will accept, before the transfer.
• Structuring review — what the holding arrangement does to tax, residence and succession in the states you actually touch.
• Consequences here — what the travel pattern does to a Montenegrin permit, a permanent-residence timeline and a tax position.
• Coordination — working alongside your Greek counsel rather than substituting for them, and being clear about which questions are theirs.

We do not give investment advice, we do not promise rental returns, and we do not recommend specific properties or developments.

Send us the funding route and the structure

If you are considering a Greek route and your assets, income or companies touch Montenegro, send us where the funds will come from, what will hold the asset and which Montenegrin permit you hold. We will tell you what has to be documented here, what the structure does to your Montenegrin position, and which questions belong with Greek counsel.