Greece is welcoming to foreign investment, imposing few restrictions on non-domicile businesses.
The country has excellent business links with the Balkans, and establishing a Greek branch can take advantage of this in terms of increasing exposure and global presence.
The procedures involved in branch formation are more complex than those required for a company, and this is reflected in the respective timescales.
The branch must register with the relevant Tax Office in order to obtain a VAT number – also used as the Tax I.D. This is required for taxation purposes.
VAT returns are required to be filed quarterly and tax accounts annually filed.
A Greek bank account for the branch is also required.
– A copy of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the parent company
– A copy of the parent company’s Certificate of Incorporation
– A copy of the parent company’s Certificate of Good Standing
– The Power of Attorney for the Managing Director of the branch
– Resolution of the parent company to establish the branch
– A representative of the Greek branch – if a non EU citizen, a Greek residential permit may be required
There is no requirement for any share capital. The documents detailed above are required for registration of the branch with the Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
All documents are required to be notarised, apostilled and translated into Greek by an official translator.
In Greece the minimum office requirement for branches is a physical office, including telephone, fax and mail facilities. There is no lawful provision of virtual offices.
If the business activities of your branch involve the provision of services we can accommodate you within our own office space, otherwise we will provide you with a separate, standalone physical office.
We will handle every aspect of the branch formation for you. Using our expert knowledge we can offer a branch formation package in which we take care of branch registration, issue of the certificates of registration, local directors, local representative and place of business in Greece, tax registration, VAT registration, and translation of documents into Greek.
Our unique one stop solution for all European formation requirements also offers formation packages to set up multiple branches. The benefits for establishing multiple branches include further increased exposure and global presence, and we can organise everything for you.
A summary of Greece Corporate Taxes is available here.