Greece FIP Visa Rejection Reasons (and How to Fix Them)

Two gates, two different decisions

The nine places files fall down

These are the conditions an application has to meet one by one, and what a pre-check goes through item by item. They are not statistics.

• Resources too low or unstable: the benchmark is €3,500 net a month for the main applicant, plus 20% for a spouse and 15% per child. Counting gross income, or showing one or two months of statements, is not enough.
• Resources not explained: the balance is sufficient, but it is unclear whose money it is, where it came from or whether it can be drawn on, or the family's outgoings plainly exceed what is listed. A balance statement is not evidence of resources.
• The working arrangement: this permit does not allow employment or business in Greece. A file or an interview suggesting you intend to work there, or an unclear account of remote work, causes trouble.
• The wrong consulate: you file at the Greek consulate with jurisdiction over where you lawfully live. Nationality, country of residence and consulate are three separate things; a country where you are staying on a tourist visa is not your lawful residence.
• Incomplete housing evidence: besides the lease, the rent payment records, the landlord's electronic lease declaration with AADE and your acceptance of it on myAADE. The declaration does not replace the payment records.
• Authentication and translation: documents not notarised, apostilled or legalised as the consulate requires, or a translation that is not an accepted certified one.
• Insurance, medical certificate, criminal record: missing, expired, or insurance whose cover or term does not meet the requirement.
• Non-disclosure: an earlier refusal or a criminal record left unmentioned. Being found out costs more than the record itself. Where false or misleading information is established, no residence application of any kind may be filed for 5 years.
• Contradictions: the questionnaire, the interview, the bank statements and the lease do not agree, for example on address, family size or source of income.

A request for documents

• The authority's written request normally arrives through the electronic platform and at the email address registered with the application. Make sure both you and the lawyer see it promptly.
• The deadline to reply is 2 months. Without a reply, the application is rejected.
• Supplying what the request asks for, in the form it asks for, works better than a letter of explanation. If it is unclear what is wanted, ask before answering.

Permit refused: reconsideration

Visa refused by the consulate: read the notice first

Start with the refusal notice: what reasons it gives, and whether it names a remedy and a deadline. Then separate a paperwork problem (a missing item, authentication, translation, insurance) from a substantive one (resources, working arrangement, jurisdiction). Paperwork can usually be strengthened and filed again; a substantive problem needs the facts to change before another application makes sense.

The remedy against a national visa refusal is not the reconsideration procedure for a residence permit described above, so do not apply those deadlines to it. Have the lawyer read the original notice as soon as it arrives.

Before reapplying

• For residence permits, apart from the 5-year bar where fraud or forgery is established, the law sets no waiting period after a refusal.
• Deal with the reason for the refusal first. The same file sent again usually gets the same answer.
• A new application pays the fees again and has to disclose this refusal.

If we handled the file: the fee

The service agreement is for work and coordination, not a success fee conditional on approval. After a refusal the account is settled on the agreement's stage table: stages not started are not charged, completed work is, and any excess is refunded within 14 calendar days. A remedy or a fresh application is a separate instruction.