Work in Greece

How to find work in Greece for foreigners?

We offer you the widest selection of web-sites for searching for a work in Greece, it contains classical search engines and announcement boards.

EU Blue Card is a project of EU countries, a so called answer to US Green card. It shall attract talents and smart people from non-EU countries. Create account at the EU Blue Card official web-site and look through appropriate job offers from abroad.  

Do EU citizens have to make work visa when they enter Greece for work?

Greece is a part of European Union, that is why all EU citizens have a residence permit and a priority when getting job in Greece, they also don’t need a working visa.  

What shall non-EU citizens do in next order to enter Greece legally next? 

If you are going to work in Greece for less than 3 months, you can make a short stay visa. Application and accompanying documents, required for a Greek short stay visa, shall be filed to Greek Visa Centers. You shall make an appointment for filing documents!

If you are going to work in Greece for more than 3 months, you shall get a long-term working visa. And prior to that you shall get a work permit for foreigner in Greece.   

Prior to offering a job for a foreigner in Greece a job offer shall prove to the Greece Employment Service (OAED), that he didn’t manage to hire a citizen of Greece or EU for this vacancy.
Then the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Greece issues a permission for foreigner recruitment. With reference to the issued permission a foreigner shall apply for a D category working visa (long-term). For this purpose, he/she shall apply to the General Consulate of Greece personally. 

After entering Greece for work: residence permit and TaxPayer’s Identification Number

When entered Greece for working by a long-term visa a foreigner shall apply for a Residence Permit to a local Migration Service or to the Migration Affairs Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Greece. 
You shall also get the following for legal employment in Greece: 
 - TaxPayer’s Identification Number through e-service, 
 - Social Security Number through the Social Security Institute (AMKA) web-site service. 

Searching for a job in Greece with a tourist visa 

There are those bravehearts, who enter Greece, aiming to find a job there with a tourist or visitor visa. If you have found a job offer, who wants to hire you, you shall go back to the country of your residence before tourist visa expires and apply for a Greece working visa there. 

Work in Greece in tourist business

Greece is a country where there is everything, but the employment situation isn’t that successful. Of course, the main beneficial area for searching for a job in Greece is tourism. Every year almost one million of Russian tourists visit Greece, that is why Russian-speaking employees are wanted in shops, cafes, restaurants and hotels. The population of Greece is 10 million people and 900 thousand of them work in tourism directly or indirectly. 
Large Russian travel organizers provide transfers and guides for their tourists, hiring staff in Russia for the coming holiday season. In this case you shall not worry about getting a Greece work permit and registration with social authorities, because you will be hired by a Russian employer. 

In case you are lucky and you have found a job of a Greek travel organizer, and you will get salary and pay taxes in Greece, then you shall pass all stages of legal employment from attending medical examination to getting Greece residence permit. 

Is knowledge of language necessary for working in Greece?

It shall be mentioned, that a large amount of “Russian Greeks”, immigrants from USSR, live in Greece. In the XX century approximately 200-300 thousand of Soviet Greeks moved to Greece because of genocide and natural disasters.  Despite this, it’s impossible to get hired speaking only Russian.

If, working in Greece, you need an urgent help of the Russian Consulate, find addresses of the nearest Representative Office and check the necessary information on employment and requirements concerning the foreigners who stay in Greece, on official web-sites.