Minimum Guaranteed Income

What is the Minimum Guaranteed Income?

The Minimum Guaranteed Income is a welfare programme supporting more than 200,000 vulnerable households. It provides a necessary safety net to address the effects of poverty and prevent social exclusion.

The programme is based on three pillars: (a) income support; (b) links to social-inclusion services; and (c) links to activation services aimed at helping beneficiaries enter or return to the labour market and participate in society.

What does it consist of?

1. Income support: a cash amount paid to the beneficiary household. (See below which groups are considered beneficiary groups)

2. Supplementary social services, benefits and goods: linking household members, if they meet the relevant programme’s eligibility criteria, to:

– Free medical and pharmaceutical care for uninsured people.

– Referral to and inclusion in social care and support services.

– Programmes and social structures addressing poverty.

– Actions implemented under the European Aid to the Most Deprived programme.

– Social electricity tariffs.

– Social water-supply tariffs.

– Social tariffs offered by municipalities and municipal enterprises.

3. Activation services: referring beneficiaries, where they are able to work, to actions supporting entry into or return to the labour market, which may include:

– Taking up a suitable job vacancy.

– Participating in public-benefit employment programmes.

– Participating in vocational training programmes.

– Participating in work-experience programmes.

– Returning to education, including through second-chance schools.

Which groups are considered beneficiary households?

a. Single-person household::

an adult living alone in a residence, excluding adults up to 25 years of age who attend a university, school or vocational education or training institute in Greece or abroad.

b. Multi-person household: all people living under the same roof.

The multi-person household also includes:

1) hosted individuals or a hosted family, provided that the hosting was declared in the latest assessed income tax return; and

2) adult children up to 25 years old who attend a university, school or vocational education or training institute, regardless of where they live.

c. People experiencing homelessness: people living on the street or in unsuitable accommodation may qualify if they have been recorded by municipal social services or Community Centres, or use a municipal night shelter. Homelessness cannot be established solely through the income tax return.

Article 21 of the Constitution safeguards State care to ensure decent living conditions for all citizens through a Minimum Guaranteed Income system..

The following examples illustrate the corresponding amounts for each household type:

The beneficiary household’s income during the six months before the application must not exceed six times the guaranteed amount for that household type.
Therefore, from 1 December 2023 onwards, household income during the six months before applying must not exceed:

Table 1

For each additional household member, six times the corresponding guaranteed amount is added, as specified in Article 2 of this Joint Ministerial Decision.

Declared income must not exceed €5,832, regardless of household size.

2. Property criteria

a. Real estate: The total taxable value of the household’s real estate must not exceed €90,000 for a single-person household, plus €15,000 for each additional member, up to a maximum of €150,000.

b. Movable assets: 1. The deemed annual expenditure for the household’s private passenger cars, mixed-use vehicles and motorcycles must not exceed €6,000 in total. 2. The household’s total bank deposits and/or current value of shares, bonds and similar assets, as established through electronic cross-checks, must not exceed the limits in the table below for each household type, up to €14,400.

Table 2

Asset presumption:

The total interest earned on household members’ deposits at all domestic or foreign credit institutions, as declared in the latest assessed income tax return (E1), must not exceed the annual amount calculated using this formula: Annual interest = deposit limit for the household type × average annual deposit interest rate / 100. The year used for the average deposit interest rate is the year corresponding to the latest assessed income tax return. Applications are not accepted from households whose members, according to the latest assessed income tax return:

• are subject to the luxury tax;
• declare expenditure on pleasure-boat crew;
• declare private-school tuition expenses;
• declare expenditure on domestic staff, car drivers, tutors or other personnel, as recorded in the corresponding fields of the E1 return.