A new law, recently voted by the Greek parliament (law 4132/2013) has introduced a simplification which allows foreign businesses performing imports in Greece not to pay VAT upon import at the customs office. The tax is assessed on the respective customs documents but it may be accounted for by the importer through the filing of the respective periodical VAT return.
The application of the above simplification is subject to strict conditions, among which the realization of an annual volume of imports of at least Euro 300,000,000 (which may be limited to Euro 120,000,000 for the first 5 years of application of the simplification in question) and the export or intra-Community supply of at least 90% of the imported items on an annual basis. In case of groups of companies, the aforementioned requirements are taken into consideration for all the companies of the group as a total.
Special licensing is provided in this respect, subject to the aforesaid conditions and other standards (e.g. creditworthiness) being met. The license may include all the company groups that will qualify for this simplification. A Ministerial Decision is expected to be issued very soon, specifying the details of the relevant procedure
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