Road tax per month in Greece: why 2026 is billed as a whole year
Greek road tax on a private car cannot be paid for selected months: the law makes it indivisible and owed for the full calendar year.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy
Paying Greek road tax by the month, in the sense of covering only the months you drive, is not possible for a private car in 2026. Paragraph 2a of article 20 of Law 2948/2001 says the tax on private cars, motorcycles and caravans is indivisible and owed for the entire year, however long the vehicle was actually used. The one exception is akinisia, the official off-road status, declared on gov.gr before 1 January and kept for the whole year. Bring the car back mid-year and you must first pay that year’s full tax. What you can do monthly is save: a compact registered in 2022 with 145 g/km on the WLTP cycle owes €101.50 a year, which is €8.46 a month put aside. Monthly or half-yearly rules do exist, but only for commercial vehicles and for cars under temporary customs admission. This matters most to people who live in Greece part of the year, sell a car mid-year, or leave for work abroad. The calculator below shows the annual bill, the monthly saving and the real cost per month you drive.
Your road tax as a monthly cost
Due for the whole year
€105.00
| Set aside each month | €8.75 |
| Real cost per month driven (12) | €8.75 |
Private car road tax is not split by month: only taking the car off the road for the whole year, declared before 1 January, removes it.
The rule in the law, word for word
Paragraph 2a of article 20 states that road tax on private cars, private motorcycles and three-wheelers, and private trailers and caravans “is indivisible and owed for the whole year, regardless of the period during which they circulated within the year”. The vehicles are deemed to have been on the road all year unless placed in akinisia for the whole year. There is no middle ground of six months on, six months off, half the tax.
If you have heard otherwise, the source is usually one of two cases the law treats differently: commercial vehicles, or cars that are in Greece under foreign plates. Neither applies to a car registered in your name in Greece.
Where half-year and monthly charges really exist
Paragraph 2b of the same article covers the other vehicle categories, such as lorries. Their annual tax is cut by half when the vehicle did not run for an entire calendar half-year: because it was deregistered in the first half, first put on the road in the second, or kept off the road for a whole half-year. Owners of commercial fleets know this rule well, which is why it travels by word of mouth.
Monthly twelfths appear in an even narrower case: private cars held under the suspensive customs regime of temporary admission. For each month or part of a month beyond the period of exemption, the holder pays one twelfth of the road tax. A car with Greek plates is outside both rules.
Akinisia in practice: dates, plates and the lift
Article 22 of Law 2367/1953 sets out the procedure. The owner or keeper declares the car off the road online on gov.gr, giving the exact address where it will stay. Straight after, you remove the number plates and keep them yourself; they are no longer handed in. To count against the road tax, the declaration must be filed before the start of the year concerned, and it lasts until you ask for it to be lifted. A declaration filed on 3 January saves next year’s tax, not this year’s.
Lifting akinisia works the other way round: an online request, accepted once the road tax for the year of the lift has been paid. That single condition is what rules out any monthly system. Park the car from 1 January, bring it back on 1 June, and you pay the whole year on the day you lift the status.
While in akinisia the car may not move for any reason, apart from a few short temporary permits for a roadworthiness test, repairs, a change of storage place or delivery for scrapping. Enforcement uses motorway operator data and plate-scanning apps. A car found driving, or parked away from the declared address, loses its status automatically, and on top of the tax the owner is fined ten thousand euros. A repeat within five years triples the fine and suspends the owner’s driving licence for three years.
The annual bill as a monthly, half-year or summer cost
| Car | Annual tax | Save per month | Cost per month, 6 months driven | Cost per month, 2 months driven |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City car 2023, 118 g/km WLTP | €0.00 | €0.00 | €0.00 | €0.00 |
| Compact 2022, 145 g/km WLTP | €101.50 | €8.46 | €16.92 | €50.75 |
| SUV 2024, 175 g/km WLTP | €148.75 | €12.40 | €24.79 | €74.38 |
| Large SUV 2021, 215 g/km WLTP | €402.05 | €33.50 | €67.01 | €201.03 |
| Used 2015, 132 g/km NEDC | €158.40 | €13.20 | €26.40 | €79.20 |
| Used 2018, 165 g/km NEDC | €404.25 | €33.69 | €67.38 | €202.13 |
| Petrol 2008, 1,390 cc | €255.00 | €21.25 | €42.50 | €127.50 |
| Petrol 2007, 1,998 cc | €690.00 | €57.50 | €115.00 | €345.00 |
The second column is what the tax administration asks for, in full. The third is the amount to move into a savings account each month so that the bill never comes as a surprise. The last two columns answer a different question, the one part-year residents ask: what does each month of actual driving cost when the car is only used for part of the year? A 2018 car at 165 g/km on the NEDC cycle owes €404.25; driven only in July and August, that is €202.13 per month of use.
All amounts come from the WLTP, NEDC and third engine-size tables of article 20, the same ones used by the road tax calculator. Cars below 122 g/km on the WLTP cycle owe nothing, so for them the question never arises.
Three situations where people ask
The holiday-home car. A second car kept on an island and driven from June to September pays the full tax every year. The alternative is to keep it in akinisia for every whole year you will not need it, declared before January. Off the road in winter and on it in summer is not an option the law offers.
The posting abroad. If you learn in October that you will spend next year working outside Greece, you can still declare akinisia for that year. If you learn in February, this year’s tax is owed in full, and the off-road status only helps from the following year.
The car waiting for a buyer. A 2007 petrol car with a 1,998 cc engine owes €690.00 a year, which on an old car can approach its resale value. If the sale drags on past December, akinisia declared before the new year is the only way to avoid another year of tax. The engine-size guide shows what each engine band pays.
Fitting the bill into a Greek salary
A yearly bill always feels bigger than a monthly one, which is why a standing order for one twelfth makes sense. Greek salaries are paid fourteen times a year; on the €1,516 average gross wage recorded by ERGANI for 2025, each payment is about €1,175.60 net, so the €101.50 of a typical compact is roughly 8.6 % of a single pay packet. The salary calculator gives your own net pay to make the same comparison. And if you are choosing your next car, the guide to electric cars and road tax covers the one category where this savings pot stays empty.