Greek Wills for Foreigners: Holographic Wills, Validity, and the 2026 Registry
Greek Wills for Foreigners: Holographic Wills, Validity, and the 2026 Registry
You own property in Mykonos. You have a will drafted by your solicitor in London. You assume it covers everything. It might not — and finding out after a death is the worst possible time to discover the gap.
Greek succession law has its own rules about what constitutes a valid will, how it must be published, and which country's laws actually govern your estate. The 2026 reforms have changed several of these rules significantly.
Three Types of Valid Wills in Greece
Holographic (Handwritten) Will
A holographic will (ιδιόγραφη διαθήκη) is the simplest form recognized under Greek law. To be valid, the entire document must be:
- Written entirely by hand by the testator (no typed or printed text)
- Dated with the full day, month, and year
- Signed by the testator
No witnesses are required. No notary is required for creation. The will can be written in any language — English, French, German — and remains valid under Greek law.
The catch: upon the testator's death, whoever holds the holographic will must present it to a notary for formal publication. Under the 2026 reforms, this publication is now digital — the notary uploads the will to the national electronic Wills Registry immediately upon receiving it.
A holographic will that is never presented for publication has no legal effect. If you write one and keep it in a drawer, your heirs need to know it exists and where to find it.
Notarial (Public) Will
A notarial will (δημόσια διαθήκη) is drafted and executed before a Greek notary in the presence of three witnesses (or a second notary plus one witness). The notary reads the will aloud, the testator confirms it, and everyone signs.
For foreigners who do not speak Greek, the 2026 reforms (Law 5303/2026) introduced a critical protection: a licensed interpreter must now be appointed to translate the entire notarial deed before execution. Before this reform, foreign nationals sometimes signed wills they did not fully understand, leading to costly challenges after death.
Notarial wills are automatically registered with the notarial association and, under the 2026 system, entered into the digital Wills Registry.
Secret (Sealed) Will
A secret will (μυστική διαθήκη) is a written document (typed or handwritten) that the testator hands to a notary in a sealed envelope, declaring that it contains their will. The notary records the deposit but does not read the contents. Upon death, the notary opens the envelope in court for publication.
This form is rarely used by foreigners but remains legally valid.
The 2026 Digital Wills Registry
Law 5303/2026 establishes a national electronic Wills Registry managed by the Greek notarial associations. This changes two important things:
Faster discovery. Before 2026, heirs had to physically search local courts to determine whether a will existed. Now, the registry provides a centralized digital record. Banks accepting inheritance claims can check the registry directly, which simplifies the document chain for unfreezing accounts.
Publication requirement. Holographic wills must now be presented to a notary for immediate digital publication upon the holder learning of the death. This replaces the previous system where wills were published through local Court of First Instance filings — a slower process that sometimes left foreign wills undiscovered for months.
For deaths after November 1, 2025, the National Bank of Greece accepts a single digitized certificate from the Wills Registry instead of requiring separate certificates from multiple courts.
Foreign Wills and Greek Assets
If you are a US, UK, or Australian citizen who owns property or bank accounts in Greece, your foreign will may or may not govern those assets. The answer depends on EU Regulation 650/2012.
The Default Rule
Under the EU Succession Regulation (applicable in Greece since August 17, 2015), the law of the deceased's "habitual residence" at the time of death governs the entire estate. If you lived in Greece, Greek succession law applies — including forced heirship rules that reserve a minimum share for your spouse and children, regardless of what your will says.
The Choice-of-Law Election
The regulation allows any person to formally state in their will that the succession of their estate should be governed by the national law of their citizenship rather than their habitual residence. A British expat living in Athens can elect UK law; an American retiree in Corfu can elect US state law.
This election bypasses Greek forced heirship entirely, allowing you to distribute Greek property and bank assets exactly as you choose. Without this explicit election, Greek default rules apply to all assets located in Greece.
What This Means Practically
If you are a foreign national living in Greece and you want your existing foreign will to govern your Greek assets, you should either:
- Add a choice-of-law clause to your existing foreign will, or
- Execute a separate Greek will covering only your Greek assets, with a clear choice-of-law election
A Greek inheritance lawyer can advise on which approach makes more sense for your situation. The critical point is that without an explicit election, you cannot assume your home country's inheritance rules will apply.
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Common Pitfalls
A will written partly by hand and partly typed is invalid as a holographic will. Every word must be in the testator's handwriting. If you dictated your wishes and had them typed, you need the notarial form instead.
A foreign will does not automatically apply in Greece. It must be formally presented to the Court of First Instance and published under Greek probate procedures. A lawyer must petition the court to recognize and validate the foreign will.
Wills do not override forced heirship unless you have made a choice-of-law election. Even with a valid will that leaves everything to one child, the surviving spouse and other children retain their forced share under Greek law — unless you explicitly elected your home country's law.
The Someone Died in Greece guide covers the full will publication process, including exactly which court to file with, the documents required, and the timeline from publication to asset release.
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