The government of Greece is set to roll out a new “digital nomad” visa for those able to work remotely, with the plan expected to favour post-Brexit Britain by offering British citizens visas twice as long as other countries.
The new visa programme is set to start this summer, with Greece hoping to attract professionals to live in the country for an extended period where they could help boost the local economy by spending money in Greece.
According to a report from the Greek newspaper I Kathimerini, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research found that Greece could profit 1.3 billion euros if it could attract 100,000 “digital nomads” to stay for a period of six months each.
The newspaper notes that the number of digital nomads is estimated to dramatically increase in the coming years and that the Greek visa programme is especially targeting post-Brexit Britain with a visa period double that of other countries.
Currently, Greece is 50th of 85 countries in a recent study on attracting digital nomads. By 2035 the number of digital nomads is expected to reach a billion people.
The new visa programme comes as Greece has largely reduced the number of illegal immigrants flowing into the country over the last year, deploying new technology along the border with Turkey earlier this week.
The Greek government has erected a variety of barriers to keep out illegal immigrants, including physical walls as well as walls of sound — that is, sound cannons which have been placed along the land border with Turkey.
Along with digital nomads, Greece is one of the several Mediterranean countries looking to attract regular tourists as Wuhan virus lockdown restrictions are gradually lifted.
According to an AP report from last month, Greece suffered enormous losses of tourism revenue last year, with the number of tourists declining by 78.2 per cent compared to 2019.