Greece
Min. wage
(x14 payments)
€920 /mo
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
~22.29%
Understand employer tax
Annual leave
20 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
1-4 months (by tenure)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
The default and most common form of employment in Greece; open-ended with no fixed end date, offering full statutory protections including tenure-based notice periods and severance pay upon employer-initiated termination.
Permitted only where justified by an objective reason (seasonal work, specific project, replacement). Successive fixed-term contracts/renewals capped at a combined ~3 years; exceeding this or renewing without justification (generally no more than 3 renewals) causes automatic reclassification as indefinite.
Standard schedule 8 hours/day, 5 days/week (40 hours), annual overtime cap ~150 hours, 3-hour daily limit. Overtime premium tiers ~120-140% (weekday), ~125-140% (night), ~115%+ (Sundays/holidays). 2023-24 reform allows optional 6th working day in certain sectors.
Under Law 4808/2021, statutory trial/probationary period is up to 12 months. Either party may terminate with shorter notice and generally without severance, provided not discriminatory/abusive. After probation lapses without termination, employee automatically becomes permanent with full protections.
Employees legally entitled to three extra statutory bonuses: Christmas bonus (full month's salary, paid by 21 Dec, pro-rated), Easter bonus (half month, paid before Easter, pro-rated), summer/vacation bonus (half month, paid by 30 Jun). Together with 12 monthly salaries = 14 total payments/year.
None — Greek labour law does not mandate specific standardized job titles, though duties should be accurately described in the mandatory written contract.
Employers contribute ~22.29% of gross salary to EFKA, covering pension (largest share, ~13%+), healthcare (~5%), unemployment/OAED (~2%), plus occupational accident/auxiliary funds and a small fixed annual administrative fee. Exact splits vary by sector, occupation risk, and collective agreement.
Employees contribute ~13.87% of gross salary to EFKA, covering pension (~6.7%), healthcare (~3%), and unemployment insurance (~1-2%), withheld directly from payroll alongside personal income tax.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Greece's unified social security fund, EFKA, covers pensions, healthcare, unemployment, and occupational accident insurance. Combined employer and employee contributions total roughly 36% of gross salary.
Occupational accident and disease insurance is bundled into the standard EFKA employer contribution rather than purchased separately. Employers must be registered with EFKA and insure all employees against workplace accidents and occupational illness from day one.
Employers must also maintain a safe workplace, appoint safety personnel/occupational physicians for qualifying workplaces, and report workplace accidents to the labour inspectorate and EFKA. Injured employees are entitled to EFKA medical care and disability benefits where applicable.
Statutory severance ('apozimiosi') applies to employer-initiated dismissals of employees on indefinite contracts, calculated on length of service and most recent monthly salary. Employees dismissed within their first year are generally not entitled to severance.
Indicative tenure-based schedule (gross monthly salaries): 1-4 yrs — 2 months; 4-6 yrs — 3 months; 6-8 yrs — 4 months; 8-10 yrs — 5 months; 10-12 yrs — 6 months; 12-14 yrs — 7 months; 14-16 yrs — 8 months; 16+ yrs — rising to a statutory max of ~12 months at the highest tenure bands.
If the employer gives statutory advance notice, severance is generally reduced (commonly by half); resignations do not trigger severance.
Greece mandates a statutory 14-payment salary structure. In addition to 12 monthly salaries, employees receive a Christmas bonus (full month's salary, paid by 21 Dec), an Easter bonus (half a month's salary, paid before Easter), and a summer/vacation bonus (half a month's salary, paid by 30 Jun alongside annual leave). All three are pro-rated and mandatory regardless of company policy or contract terms.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
