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If you are granted refugee status you have the right to family reunification. This means that you can apply for your family members who reside in their home country or in another country outside the EU to enter and reside legally in Greece.
Please note that subsidiary protection holders cannot apply for family reunification.
Who is considered a family member for family reunification purposes:
You can apply for family reunification with:
- Your spouse (husband/wife) who is above 18 years old.
Please note that polygamous marriages are not recognized in Greece; therefore, you cannot apply for family reunification with more than one spouse.
- Your unmarried underaged children (<18 years old) in common with your spouse, including the ones you have adopted provided some additional legal requirements are met.
- Other children of yours or your spouse’s provided they are below 18 and unmarried, including those adopted, provided you have been assigned full custody of those children and your spouse has been assigned full custody for his/hers.
- Your unmarried adult children or the ones of your spouse who objectively are not self-reliant due to their medical condition.
- Your parents provided they were staying with you in the same house and were sustained by you before your arrival in Greece and do not dispose the required family support in the country of origin.
- Out-of-marriage partner with whom you have a stable and long-term relationship duly established (mainly by the existence of a child or previous cohabitation, or any other appropriate means of proof).
If you are an unaccompanied child and you have been granted refugee status you can apply for family reunification with:
- Your parents.
- Your legal guardian or another family member if you do not have parents or your parents cannot be traced.
Required documentation
If you apply for family reunification within 3 months from the notification of your asylum decision or if you are younger than 18 years old, you will need:
- Α photocopy of your family members’ passports
- Recent family status certification which proves your relationship with your family members and their age.
- In case you apply to be reunited with a child that you or your spouse are legally appointed as guardian, a document issued by the competent authority of the country where the child resides, certifying that you have the exclusive custody of the child is also needed.
The above documents need to be certified by the competent Greek authorities and translated.
To check what it is required for the certification for documents issued by different countries, please visit the website of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs HERE.
If you apply for family reunification more than 3 months after the notification of your asylum decision, you will need the following additional documents:
- Certified house lease agreement or house property ownership to cover your family’s needs.
- Copy of your tax declaration with your annual income to cover yours and your family members’ needs (a minimum income is required depending on the number of your family members).
- Copy of your health insurance certificate to cover also your family members.
How to apply for family reunification
You have to book an appointment for the submission of your family reunification application through the e-services of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum.
- Go to the webpage https://migration.gov.gr
- On the top right of the page select: e-Services
- Select: Asylum Services
- Select: Schedule an appointment
- In the “To the Regional Office/Asylum Unit” select: the competent Asylum Office in your area or the Asylum Unit for Beneficiaries of International Protection
- On the top right select the language you wish to use
- Complete your details and select “Send”.
For your convenience, on the day of your appointment, please have with you copies of the passports of your family members with whom you are requesting family reunification.
Procedure to be followed
- The Asylum Service will invite you for an interview.
- The competent authorities might also invite your family members in a personal interview and conduct any relevant investigation to establish your family link.
- The decision should be issued and notified to you within nine months.
- After a positive decision on your family reunification application is issued, your family members need to be issued with visas by the competent Greek Consulate in order to be able to travel to Greece.
❗Please have in mind that the family reunification procedure is quite complicated and lengthy.