What the model assumes about Greece

This page collects every Greece-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in EUR at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 67. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: Athens News (rua.gr) (2026). See it.

With inflation, minus 0.5 points a year. Each January pensions rise by the lower of two figures: inflation, or the average of inflation and the growth of the economy. When the economy grows more slowly than prices rise, the increase falls slightly short of inflation.

Source: ELSTAT (Hellenic Statistical Authority) (2025). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: 35% of the deceased's pension. The surviving spouse receives 70 percent of the deceased's pension for the first three years. After that, a survivor who also draws their own pension receives half of that amount, which is 35 percent of the deceased's pension.

Source: e-EFKA (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

€1,096 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age. The source published €1,277. We adjusted the published figure to the model's per-person basis.

Source: ELSTAT (Hellenic Statistical Authority) (2025). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

No official source publishes a care price for Greece. Rather than invent one, the planner asks you for a quote from a care home near you and simulates with that.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

€597 + €101/mo for one person, €896 + €151/mo (derived) for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from ELSTAT Household Budget Survey 2024, one-person household aged 65+ (monthly purchases per household, COICOP 2018, English-edition tables T1.05/T1.10). The couple figure applies a documented factor of about one and a half to the single budget, because no couple budget is published.

Source: ELSTAT Household Budget Survey 2024, one-person household aged 65+ (monthly purchases per household, COICOP 2018, English-edition tables T1.05/T1.10) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using Greece's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-27. The answers are checked against worked examples. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How Greece taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.