Greece

Economy & income

Currency

• Euro (EUR, €)
• €1 ≈ $1.14 (~€0.88 per USD, Jul 2026)
• Eurozone member since 2001 (euro cash 2002)

GDP per capita

• ~$27,040 nominal (2025, IMF WEO Apr 2026)
• ~$40,660 PPP (2025) — total GDP ~$268B nominal / ~$404B PPP

Average salary

• ~$1,155 net/mo (Numbeo net ~€1,014, Jul 2026)
• gross ~$1,670 (OECD avg ~€1,466/mo)

Median salary

~$1,200 gross est. (ELSTAT median gross ~€1,050/mo; EFKA private-sector avg ~€1,182/mo, 2026; 14 pay periods/yr — flag: single official median net n/a)

Minimum wage

• Statutory €920 gross/mo × 14 payments (from 1 Apr 2026, up from €880)
• ≈€1,073/mo on 12-pay basis
• net ~€780 → ~$1,050 gross / ~$890 net

Cost of living

• Medium — single person ~€785/mo excl. rent (~$895)
• overall ~23% below US & ~22% below Germany (Numbeo, Jul 2026)

Digital landscape

Population

9.93 million (Oct 2025, DataReportal; -0.7% YoY, shrinking)

Internet users

87.0% (~8.64M users, late 2025)

Social media users

74.5% (~7.40M identities; ~6.65M aged 18+ = 79.9% of adults)

Mobile connections

13.7M cellular connections = 138% of pop

Devices

desktop ~64.5% / mobile ~33.4% / tablet ~2.1% (StatCounter, Jun 2026)

Ad spend

• Digital ad market ~€364M (2024, IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark — Greece modelled, not nationally reported)
• video ~62% of display (2nd-highest share in EU)
• total ad spend larger incl. TV

Top social platforms

YouTube ~7.40M, 74.5%

Facebook ~5.10M, 51.4%

Instagram ~4.60M, 46.3%

TikTok ~4.60M adults 18+, 55.3% of 18+

Messenger ~4.10M, 41.3%

LinkedIn ~3.10M, 31.2%

Messengers

• Viber (very widely used — historically dominant in Greece)
• Facebook Messenger (~4.10M reach)
• WhatsApp (growing but behind Viber)
• Telegram (niche/crypto & communities)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Cards — Visa/Mastercard debit+credit (>70% of e-commerce, 2024)
• IRIS instant payments (DIAS; mandatory for all businesses from 1 Dec 2025)
• Bank transfer / SEPA (>20% of online, 2024)
• Cash on delivery (ELTA/courier — declining, rural/regional)
• PayPal
• BNPL (fastest-growing option)

E-wallets

• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Revolut (popular with under-35s)
• IRIS (mobile P2P/P2B)
• Viva Wallet (home-grown Greek fintech/acquirer)

Cash on delivery

Moderate & declining — still used for rural/regional courier deliveries (ELTA Courier), but cards + IRIS now dominate online

E-commerce

• High & growing
• ~85%+ internet penetration
• Skroutz price-comparison marketplace is the default entry point
• IRIS processed 57.3M transactions worth €6.1B in 2024 (+137% YoY)

Notes

• IRIS (DIAS instant payments) made mandatory for all businesses from 1 Dec 2025 — a major checkout shift
• Viva Wallet is a leading domestic fintech
• ~53% of surveyed consumers favour BNPL over credit cards.

Audience & culture

Languages

• Greek (official; ~99% native)
• English (widely spoken — tourism, business, youth)
• Albanian (largest immigrant-community language)
• Russian / Turkish / Romanian (minority & migrant communities)

Religion

• Eastern Orthodox Christian ~90% (Church of Greece)
• Muslim ~5% (Thrace minority + immigrants)
• non-religious ~6%
• small Catholic/other

Median age

46.8 years (DataReportal, late 2025) — one of the world's oldest populations

Key seasons

• Summer tourism peak (Jun–Sep — ~40M visitors/yr, huge foreign audience & spend)
• Orthodox Easter (spring — biggest holiday; dates differ from Western Easter)
• Christmas & New Year
• Black Friday / Cyber Monday (late Nov)
• Apokries / Carnival (Feb–Mar)
• Back-to-school (Sep)

Cultural notes

• Greek-language creatives essential
• Orthodox calendar drives retail rhythm
• family- & relationship-oriented
• intense football (Olympiacos/Panathinaikos/PAOK/AEK) & basketball fandom
• value-conscious after the debt-crisis decade
• summer tourism massively inflates seasonal demand.

Where to find creators

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Facebook

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Giannis Antetokounmpo ~16M Instagram

NBA superstar (Milwaukee Bucks), 2× MVP & 2021 champion; Greece's global icon

Stefanos Tsitsipas ~2M Instagram

top tennis player, former world No. 3 & 2× Grand Slam finalist

Konstantinos Argyros ~1M Instagram

best-selling contemporary Greek (laïko/pop) singer of his generation

Sakis Rouvas ~950K Instagram

pop singer & performer, 2× Eurovision entrant — long-running superstar

Helena Paparizou ~843K Instagram

singer — won Greece's only Eurovision (2005, 'My Number One')

Maria Sakkari ~595K Instagram

tennis player, former WTA world No. 3

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• iGaming — sports betting & casino (licensed; ad-restricted)
• E-commerce/retail (electronics, fashion — Skroutz-led)
• Travel & tourism / hospitality
• Finance (cards, consumer loans, forex/CFD, crypto/CASP)
• Nutra & beauty
• Dating
• Telco / utilities

Active networks

• Linkwise (leading Greek network, 15+ yrs; ~500 advertisers / 15,000+ publishers)
• Awin
• CJ Affiliate / Rakuten Advertising
• TradeDoubler
• Admitad / Mitgo
• Skroutz / Public / Plaisio in-house programs
• global CPA networks (iGaming, crypto, dating)

Payouts

• iGaming CPA ~€25–150 or FTD/revshare (licensed-only ads)
• finance/CFD CPL/FTD higher value
• e-com CPS ~4–10%
• travel CPA varies by booking
• payouts usually EUR via SEPA/PayPal.

Competition

• Mid-sized market
• e-commerce concentrated around Skroutz price-comparison
• iGaming most competitive but tightly regulated
• big summer tourism traffic spikes bring large foreign audiences.

Seasonality

• Strong summer (Jun–Sep) tourism peak + Q4 (Black Friday/Christmas)
• Orthodox Easter spring lift
• iGaming peaks with the football season.

Traffic sources

• Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads
• Google Search & Display
• TikTok
• YouTube
• SEO/organic (Skroutz feeds)
• Native / push
• Viber & Telegram

Good to know

Capital

Athens

Major cities

• Athens (~3.6M metro)
• Thessaloniki
• Patras
• Heraklion (Crete)
• Larissa
• Volos
• Ioannina

Time zones

• Single zone — Eastern European Time (EET, UTC+2)
• EEST (UTC+3) during summer DST

Android vs iOS

72% 28%

Android 72% iOS 28%

Phone brands

• Apple (~28%)
• Samsung (~22%)
• Xiaomi (~20%)
• Motorola (~2%)
• Huawei (~2%)

Top e-commerce

• Skroutz (price-comparison marketplace — dominant, ~41M visits/mo)
• Public.gr (books/electronics/lifestyle)
• Plaisio (tech/electronics)
• Kotsovolos (electronics/appliances)
• e-shop.gr (IT/electronics)
• Bestprice.gr (price comparison)
• Amazon.de / Temu / Shein (cross-border)

Peak activity

Weekday evenings ~20:00–23:00 EET/EEST (late by EU norms); midday lull; weekend daytime; summer skews later & more mobile

Creative taboos

Greek-Turkish tensions (Aegean, Cyprus), the North Macedonia naming dispute, 2010s debt-crisis/austerity memory, Orthodox religious sensitivities, migration/refugees — handle carefully

Also worth knowing

1. Skroutz is the gravitational centre of Greek e-commerce — feed/SEO presence there is near-mandatory for retail affiliates;
2. IRIS instant payments became mandatory for all businesses (Dec 2025), reshaping checkout;
3. gambling-ad enforcement is tightening hard (influencer criminal referrals, bank payment-blocking) — licensed-only promotion is essential;
4. StatCounter shows an unusually high desktop share (~65%) though mobile dominates social/messaging;
5. one of the EU's oldest populations (median ~47) yet ~40M summer tourists add large younger foreign audiences.