Thessalonikiculture & etiquette

This is the most consequential misconception about moving here on a property route. Law 5100/2024 sets the higher threshold for the Region of Attica, the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki, the regional units of Mykonos and Thira, and islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants. Everywhere else in Greece is €400,000. Thessaloniki is named in the same band as Athens, so the assumption that the second city gets the second-tier price is simply wrong and it is wrong by €400,000. Two further conditions apply throughout: the investment must be in a single property, and where the property is built or has a building permit its main areas must total at least 120 square metres. The only €250,000 routes that survive are conversion of a commercial building to residential use and restoration of a listed building, and neither carries the surface-area minimum.

The AFM is your tax number and the AMKA your social security number, and without them you cannot sign a lease, register that lease with AADE, open a Greek bank account, take a postpaid phone contract, start work or access public healthcare. The AFM is free from the local tax office or through gov.gr; the AMKA comes from a KEP citizens' service centre, and non-EU applicants need a residence permit first. Newcomers who go flat-hunting before sorting these stall at the first hurdle, because the landlord cannot register the lease without your AFM and the registered lease is what your residence permit, utilities and bank all want to see.

Under article 2 of Law 1703/1987, as amended, a lease of a main residence carries a statutory minimum term of three years, and that floor applies even where the written contract states a shorter period. Landlords rarely volunteer this and many genuinely do not know it. The practical consequence is that a twelve-month contract does not entitle the landlord to put you out at the twelve-month mark. It cuts the other way too — read the notice provisions before you sign, because a Greek lease is not the month-to-month arrangement English tenancies have become.

Thessaloniki sits at the head of a gulf with the Vardaris wind funnelling down the Axios valley, and its winters are genuinely cold in a way the Greek stereotype does not prepare you for. That makes the heating system the single most important thing about a flat. Autonomous heating means you control the hours and your own bill. Shared central heating — κεντρική θέρμανση, usually oil — means the building's committee decides when it runs and you pay a share of a bill you cannot influence, delivered through the koinóchrista. In a bad winter, in an unrenovated 1960s block, that share is a serious number. Ask for last winter's actual koinóchrista figure, in writing, before you sign.

The metro opened on 30 November 2024 after decades of delay driven largely by the archaeology found under the route — which is now displayed in situ in the stations rather than removed. It is driverless, has platform screen doors, and carries a substantial share of the city's journeys. The extension to Kalamaria, adding five stations south-east along the coast, has been targeted for 2026. This matters when you are choosing where to live: for the first time, an address in the eastern districts or in Kalamaria has a fast, weather-proof route to the centre that does not depend on the traffic. Rents along the line have responded accordingly.

A moratorium on issuing new short-term rental registry numbers in Thessaloniki's 1st Municipal Community — broadly the centre, from Aristotelous and Tsimiski through Ladadika, Rotonda and Kamara to the seafront — came into force during 2026. The measure follows the same policy as the freeze that has applied to three central Athens districts since January 2025, and its stated purpose is to return flats to the long-term market. Reported start dates differ between sources and the designation is time-limited by ministerial decision, so check the current position with AADE before assuming anything. For a long-term renter this is broadly good news, and it is the reason some central listings that look like short-let prices are quietly being re-advertised as annual lets.