Greek citizenship based on a grandparent – By Christos ILIOPOULOS

Greek citizenship based on a grandparent

By Christos ILIOPOULOS*

Athens, 30 July 2025

The last few years there has been a significant increase in the demand for the Greek citizenship and the Greek / European passport all over the world, primarily among descendants of Greeks. Children and grandchildren of people who were born in Greece, or where Greek by ethnicity in other countries, are flooding the Greek Consulates around the world and the administration in Greece, with requests for advice on how they can obtain the Greek citizenship, based on a Greek – born ancestor or an ancestor who was ethnically Greek and was living in another country.

Since we can’t outline here the detailed sections of the Greek legislation on various types of cases, depending on the different facts and circumstances of each particular case, we can say that the two main options for citizenship application are a) the more straightforward application based only on documents which we could call Option 1 and b) the application which is based both on documents and on the interview of the applicant with the Greek Consul, which we could call Option 2.

In this article we deal with the basics of an application based on a grandparent who was either born in Greece as a Greek citizen, or who was a citizen of another country (Turkey, Lebanon, Romania, Syria), but was ethnically Greek. Applicants who are interested in obtaining the Greek citizenship and both their parents or one of them were born in Greece, usually follow what we have called Option 1 procedure. Unless, their documents or the circumstances of their case have a particular problem which prohibits them from filing an Option 1 application (only documents), and thus they have to follow Option 2 (documents plus interview).

Those who wish to claim the Greek citizenship based on a grandparent, or even a great grandparent, and the intermediary persons (their parent or even grandparent) did not obtain the Greek citizenship and are not in life today, have to apply through what we call Option 2, meaning the application based on Article 10 of the Code of Greek Citizenship. This type of application is not only based on documents, but also on the interview with the Greek Consul.

As far as the documents are concerned, the Option 2 procedure could be described as more “lenient, in the sense that the Greek administration will not “kill” the case if a discrepancy in a name is discovered among several documents, or even if one document is missing or is not in the right form, which would have definitely been needed in Option 1. The lack of harmony in the names in the various certificates or the absence of one document in its proper form in the process of Option 2 will be balanced or substituted by the interview with the Consul of Greece. If the Consul after the interview forms a positive opinion about the applicant’s Greek conscience, the lack of some document may not be an obstacle to the successful outcome of the citizenship quest.

As a conclusion, we could say that if a foreign national seeks the Greek citizenship today based on the fact that a grandparent was a Greek citizen, the main question will be whether the parent of this applicant, meaning the child of the Greek grandparent, is in life today. If the parent is in life today, it is the parent who will be the first applicant for the Greek citizenship (Option 1) and once this application is successful, the present applicant, who is the grandchild of the Greek grandfather, will follow with a second application under Option 1. If the parent is not in life today and therefore cannot file under Option 1 for the citizenship, the grandchild is left only with Option 2, meaning with the possibility of filing under article 10 of the Code of Greek Citizenship.

   *Christos ILIOPOULOS, attorney at

the Supreme Court of Greece , LL.M.

www.greekadvocate.eu

e-mail: bm-bioxoi@otenet.gr